The Ibrox Boss Is Slowly Coming To Realise That Celtic Can Pull Clear Any Time We Want.

At every stage in the Ibrox experiment – the creation of a second club out of that ground, attempting to play by the same rules as the first one but without the indulgence of a bank – something has dawned on its managers, sometimes early or sometimes painfully late in the day for them. That something is this; they cannot properly compete with Celtic.

Since crawling out of the grave of Rangers they have won three domestic trophies including a league title. I consider that one on the people who run our club for making a disastrous managerial decision which took us backwards. The other two trophies is about the average for the second biggest spending club in the country over a dozen year period.

And that’s the problem; they are the second biggest spending club. We are the biggest, and even with a massive cash surplus in the bank we consistently spend more. We do this sustainably. We do this without running up debts. Their club was built on debt, it runs on debt and it will fall because no club can run indefinitely on that basis.

Every manager at Ibrox eventually runs into the one that their current boss just ran headlong into. We have spent nearly £3 million to improve what is already the best squad in the league. They have replaced a striker who doesn’t score goals with another striker who doesn’t score goals. Silva may be a better player than Lammers – he’d almost have to be – but you listen to him talk and you hear the words of a guy who has gone from a massive move to the EPL to a loan deal in Scotland and still thinks he has nothing to prove. That would scare me if it was us.

But it should scare their manager more. He is outgunned. His club is flopping about trying to sell Yilmaz because otherwise how can it afford to let him spend? He is painfully aware of this and is resisting the sale because he thinks he needs the player, but he won’t have much choice in the matter if they get an offer the club can accept.

Even if they do find money in the mattress or down the back of the sofa cushions, all this does is puts off a day of reckoning. Every penny they can spend now is money hived off from next season’s budget. They are in a bad spot, and in the meantime, they know that Celtic will sign at least two more players before this window closes, and even if that’s just on loan the best squad in Scotland will have increased its strength … and we have the lead in the league.

That’s crucial. It’s why the win at Celtic Park was so big. The psychological advantage to still having our noses in front is awesome. They have two games in hand, but they need to win those and keep on winning, and all the while watching us sitting there at the top.

Imagine watching the team which is currently in front of you getting stronger whilst your own club is fumbling about trying to get things right? The feeling has to be awful, but I do not feel in the least bit sorry for Manneken Piss or his coaches … they should have done their due diligence better, perhaps even spoke to people like Van Bronckhorst who could have set him straight.

Instead, they signed up, and as they watch Celtic spend nearly £3 million with more to come, in an effort to pull us clear, it must be dawning on them that they face an uphill struggle with a very poor side, and they are seeing this largely through sleepwalkers eyes. The real rude awakening hasn’t even happened yet. But it’s going to.

Whether quickly or not, it happens to them all.