Alan Stubbs is in the papers tonight and the papers are spinning his comments. He thinks Celtic can be stopped before 10 in a row because the Celtic team he played in was able to stop the previous Ibrox club from reaching the same milestone.
He also said it’s “unlikely” which is an understatement. The press doesn’t put that in the headlines and nor will it. That would spoil the story.
On one hand, Stubbs has a point. On the other his assertion is every bit as daft as it seems. The press wants to focus on the daft bit.
When you look at what Leicester did some years ago then anything seems possible, and anything is.
But what happened there had numerous causes and only one of them was the excellent form of that unfancied club. Bigger teams were busily cutting their own throats. They stumbled onto an unrecognised talent in Jamie Vardy, and some shrewd signings made a big impact. The confluence of events was one in ten million meshing; it’s not for nothing that some people consider it the biggest sporting achievement of all time.
If that’s what they are relying on over there they might as well shut up shop right now. That kind of thing is a moon-shot. It’s not even a generational success, it’s an epochal one. IT’s the kind of thing that literally happens once in a blue moon.
Is there a blue moon due in our future?
Stubbs said they have plenty of time to build a team to stop us reaching the magic number because we did it; as it happens I’ve been thinking a lot about The Year We Stopped The Ten and I can see in part where he’s coming from.
Let’s take his point about them building a squad; we actually did develop one over time but the key players were brought in for that specific campaign.
Then there was Jansen himself. When we fired Tommy Burns a lot of folk were appalled. When we appointed Wim the media tried to make sure everyone else was. But that appointment was so right on the nose; Tommy’s problem was that he was too close to the issue, he was too emotionally invested in halting the march towards our record. The genius of the Jansen appointment is that Wim wasn’t. He treated it as a simple task; build a team, win the league.
It is impossible to imagine their club taking such a coldly rational decision. Their fans will never permit it. If they don’t appoint a Real Rangers Man this time around they certainly will when they fire the next guy. The closer we are to the ten the more likely it becomes that they will throw some stone bigot into the mix to try and rally the troops. Their approach will be the exact inverse of what ours was at the time.
As I said a moment ago, Stubbs said we built a team over a couple of years, and although we signed crucial footballers for that particular campaign he’s right. That task hasn’t started yet at Sevco either; they have squandered fortunes on guys it couldn’t afford and the clamour for new signings gets louder every year. When we signed the likes of Burley, Larsson and Brattback we were spending what we could afford to … here’s a prediction; Sevco will suffer an administration event before we reach the landmark title nine.
If you think they’re in trouble now, wait until that happens. They’ll be virtually starting from zero again and then there’s no chance whatsoever.
Alan Stubbs points out that the gap has not closed. The gap is so enormous even the task of starting to close it is one that is going to take years. He might think they have time, but they don’t, not enough of it, and especially not when the Dave King Method is to sack any manager who doesn’t generate instant success. That’s going to lead to at least one more cycle of managerial merry-go-round and probably a couple more before we’re there.
The number ten itself is a misnomer anyway, and I’ve been arguing that for a long time. It represents a milestone, that’s all. People talk about ten as if it’s a point we’ll reach and then just stop. Ten is not their worry. Eleven, twelve, thirteen … that’s what they should be concerned about. There’s no end in sight to this; ten is the least of it. We’re looking beyond that horizon, as a club. Brendan may or not be here beyond it but life doesn’t stop when he goes.
Tomorrow I’m going to write a detailed piece on why the state they are in is not comparable to where we were when Fergus rolled into town in 1994.
They are in a darker place, by far. Tommy Burns came close to stopping Rangers’ nine in a row. Aberdeen came within one game of it. Fergus knew we were capable of growing as a club; Sevco has been operating at nearly peak effectiveness. European football would be a game-changer, because there’s never been as much money to be made there, but the chances of them reaching the Groups of the Europa League with that team are nil and the chance of them being able to build a team who can is so remote as to be virtually unthinkable.
They are already spending more than they earn; do you think the imperative to downsize will be entertained when we’re at eight, or nine?
The job Fergus faced in restoring our fortunes was cake compared to the one the “leaders” at Ibrox are staring down the long dark tunnel into. And Fergus was an entrepreneur who had built something and he arrived at Parkhead with a fully costed plan.
Sevco is helmed by a tax cheat and if you see an underlying structure in how they operate you’re hallucinating.
They aren’t climbing the ladder towards us any longer; they are clinging onto the bottom rung, and the metal is slippery and wet. The horrible truth they refuse to face is that there’s nowhere to go for them but down. Long before an Ibrox club wins a major trophy they are going to think of these as the big-spending glory years.
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