The Clamour Begins To Give Ibrox The Help Celtic Has Never Gotten.

It’s that time of the year again, and once more the reek of self-entitlement wafts out of Ibrox and its environs.

As I pointed out the other week, had they gone out of the Champions League on Tuesday they’d have gone straight into the Europa League Groups, and watched a £5 million bounty disappear with it.

But it would have been two games less on their calendar.

Now those games are real and looming and although Ibrox would not want to be in any other situation, the bitching and moaning and wailing about those two extra games is well underway, and it’s extremely irritating to hear.

Celtic has been playing qualifiers on top of league games for years now, and not once have we either asked for not expected any special dispensation at this stage in the campaign.

The Dutch FA has granted it to PSV; their schedule is less manic than the Scottish one is. For God’s sakes, we have a domestic cup game in midweek at the end of the month.

Every year we hear how screwed up our schedule is.

Football adds more and more games to it. If we get the Group Stages of the Champions League in 2024 there will be even more games for us to fit in and God alone knows how the SFA intends to do it.

But I guarantee you that nobody will be offering us help, and nobody in the media will be fighting our corner on it. We’ll be expected to get our head down and get on with it, just as we’ve always been.

Over there, though, the foot stamping is underway.

McCoist is in the papers this morning having a nutty.

What an eejit that man is. The ancient call that it would “benefit Scottish football” to have two teams in the Groups is, of course, bollocks. It will benefit Ibrox. Scottish football as a whole sees these two sides with more money than the rest as it stands right now … this only moves them both further out ahead.

How does their progress benefit “Scottish football” if the likes of Motherwell are being knocked out by Irish opposition? What’s the point in boosting the co-efficient further for these teams? The Ibrox club is damned lucky still to be in the Champions League; it is not the role of the SFA to give them a leg up or a helping hand.

If it was, how come Celtic hasn’t had one in all these years?

Honestly, to be making demands for cancelled fixtures this early in the season is just nonsense. I thought they had the squad strength to put out two teams, one for the domestic game and one for the European arena? I suggest they follow through on it, and there’ll be no need for all this whiny bitching and foot stamping.

It really is amusing to hear them like this.

They ought to win awards for having a brass neck.