I can’t remember a gap in quality between the Ibrox club and Celtic being as vast as it is right now. For a couple of years, there’s been an online debate about which members of their squad would get into our team.
I have long argued that the people who made cases for players like Tavernier, Kent, Morelos, and others were talking nonsense. Some of those players are no longer there, but as recently as last season, you still had people suggesting that three or four of their players, including Cantwell, would definitely make it into a Glasgow XI.
As I said yesterday, we won’t call Kris Boyd the village idiot when he’s getting things right.
One of the things he pointed out correctly on Sunday, and what has now become widely accepted, is that not a single player from their starting XI would make it into ours. Boyd is right to say that not one of their players would even make the bench at Celtic Park at the moment.
What’s remarkable is how universally this is now recognised. Few pundits would dispute it. Even those who have hyped up players like Cyriel Dessers can’t seriously claim that they are rated highly enough to displace their counterparts at Celtic.
Who would you leave out to accommodate them? We had over £30 million worth of talent on the bench at the weekend. One of the most concerning things for them is that we won that match with a weakened version of last season’s team.
We’re playing spellbinding football that’s better than last season, but without Matt O’Riley no-one could argue that was a stronger side, at least not yet. But we made that victory look absolutely routine.
Our standards have risen so high, and theirs have fallen so low. This is a remarkable turnaround. Even the most pro-Ibrox media personalities, who once argued there would always be three or four of their players in any combined XI, are now admitting what some of us have been saying for a while: there isn’t one who’s good enough.
Not that long ago, some of them would have at least made an argument for Butland; none even wastes their time any longer with that spurious claim.
How do they even start to bridge this gap? Watching us dominate them on the pitch makes it clear that we are streets ahead, but until this weekend a lot of them were still in denial about how fundamental, critical, and costly the rebuild they need is—one that is quite possibly beyond their capabilities.
They’re now trying to reconfigure their club, finally admitting that trying to spend to keep up with us is nearly impossible. That kind of rebuild might just be beyond their reach.
Even the most die-hard Ibrox supporters, like Graeme Souness, now acknowledge the gap between the two clubs, even if he comforts himself with rubbish about how it was closer on the day than the 3-0 result suggests. But can you ever remember the gap being so wide, so clear and obvious, just by looking at the two teams and recognising the difference in personnel?
The gap has only ever been this big once in our history, during a time when the club playing out of Ibrox was still Rangers and we were signing the likes of Willie Falconer and two boys from the armed forces. But even then, there was hope for Celtic, because there were a few players you could imagine building a team around. There was also growth potential in the club itself, and we were just waiting for someone to come along and transform us.
Right now, it’s hard to see how they can grow their business enough to significantly improve their team beyond its current level.
Look at their squad now and ask yourself: where is the core group that will make the big difference? Connor Barron, to me, is just an Aberdeen midfielder. Dujon Sterling doesn’t look anywhere near the finished article. Can they build a team around their young signings?
Although it’s too early to tell, the signs don’t look good. There’s almost certainly another round of upheaval and change coming to that club, whether they like it or not, and that essentially puts everyone back to square one again.
Consider one other element: what if Celtic’s transfer strategy has changed in the way some have suggested?
What if Brendan Rodgers has reshaped it to target a higher calibre of player across the board? That would make things even worse for them and make catching us all the more difficult. If they could somehow upgrade their squad to the level of signing an Alistair Johnston, or find a centre-back better than Cameron Carter-Vickers (as unlikely as both scenarios sound), how would they then compete if we went out and signed even better players?
The more you examine the situation they are in, the harder it is to see a positive way forward. Their fans probably think they’ve hit rock bottom, but I’m not sure that’s the case. I think they’ve still got some way to go, but they are definitely on the road to it.
Hard times, oft postponed, have finally arrived at ibrox. After decades of maladministration (in so may ways) they have finally been brought face to face with reality. The current board knows that there is no magic money tree, so they are beginning the incredibly difficult reset which was required. The thing is, as poor people know only too well, when you are trying to payback accumulated debt with a carefully calculated budget, one unexpected big bill throws everything into chaos. In a struggling household it might be a washing machine break down, at ibrox (currently) it is the need to pay ground rent for Hampden. They didn’t have much in the kitty (Do you remember when it was a “warchest?”) before the Copeland stand fiasco blew up. That unexpected bill put the kybosh on one or two incomings. Hagi’s determination to be a B team star and Tik Tok’s falling out with the Manneken Pis, which I am sure, was one of the reasons his departure was so late also added to their financial problems.
The bears want money spent to solve their problems. They find it hard to accept that there is no money. They find it even harder to accept that FSP makes it so much harder for financial doping to be used to buy their way out of trouble. Hence their frustration.
Hell mend them!
Hi Jimmy, could I do a correction on your post, theRangers don’t have decades of miss management, they only have just over one decade, i can’t let them think they are still the same club, for some deluded reason they think their team split in two, financial & team, Rangers are dead never to rise again unless they come out of liquidation and pay the mega millions of debt.
The current 12 year old who play from Legobrox are just poor imposters, the only thing they share is their bigoted nature, with similar financial miss dealings.
Hail Hail Celtic and always Celtic.
Having a look at our bench again, I’d suggest that players on it would add up to roughly £50/60 million worth of talent in total.
Sorry James, even if Kris Boyd is getting the odd thing right… I’m still calling him the village idiot !
Long may their ineptitude and decline continue .
They will be lucky to finish 4th this season.
If only the other teams in our league could raise their game and not give into the fear of playing them .
They might not even get a euro place.
Wishful thinking Mr Magoo. They’re miles behind us but unfortunately will probably beat Aberdeen into second.
Hi James – it was an enjoyable melt down from KB and I immediately agreed with the assessment that none of the Rangers team would get in to the Celtic side. I don’t even think they would displace our bench.
Like many fans I was one who was getting very frustrated at the lack of transfer activity over the summer (somewhat tempered by the memory of late deals for Jota and CCV) – but in the end I’m comforted by the acquisitions made, even if arguably under additional pressure from fans/Rodgers. However the point is that we’ve splashed the cash, bolstered by the sale of a well developed talent, and that proves our overall strategy is working. We’ve bought in players the manager is happy with (great) and again you’d argue that to some degree the scouting model is therefore working too, even if we don’t have a director of football, and that overall the alignment between the boss and the board is at matched in ambition by the time we’ve reached September. It’s not been plain sailing, but we’re here.
Finances – tick
Happy manager – tick
Quality scouting – tick
Strong squad – tick
Rangers have seemingly none of these points working right now. None of them. If there’s any chance of them getting to the point where they are remotely at the level of our team, and I’m in no rush to see that happen, then they probably need to do two things which will NOT come naturally to their organisation.
The first is to accept that Clement, regardless of his weird post match analysis and refreshing displays of honesty in front of the press, will need “even more time” to properly gel a squad – let’s be honest they’re still kind of in a rebuild (again). If they want to build momentum then they’ll need to exert patience and stick rather than twist. That’s not in their DNA.
The second is to to start scouting and signing quality players at bargain prices. They really havent got the hang of that so far and either pay big bucks for tatty old rope or bring out the fan fare for guys quickly exposed as bang average at best. The strategy of trying to buy and build a squad season after season can’t continue. How would the fans react to publicly acknowledged austerity and pragmatism? Ooft!
At the end of the day *not our problem* – they may likely continue the cycle of senseless scattergun approach to everything. They reap what they sow and I think even the Rangers fans are beginning to see that.
Happy Days
None of their starting XI? Maybe so. But of their starting XII, I think Beaton would make our bench.
I think the fact we’ve actually spent big money this window has really brought home to some of their fans how far in front of them we are.
We still haven’t spent what we’ve brought in since January and that has yet to hit home.
If things decline further across the city I expect Clement to be sacked and Derek McInnes to be appointed. That will cause even more disharmony and disruption but at least then they will have a guy who can get the basics correct.
The football will be tragic to watch but they will be consistent. How the “spend, spend, spend, we deserve better” assembly will deal with that will be interesting.
Well, more funny than interesting, but hey ho not our problem.
I keep seeing them saying in the papers that Barron had a decent game on Sunday
The papers are Pathological Liars Harold…
Well certainly The Scummy Scottish ones anyway – Certainly with what The Celtic Blog and other Hoops forums report about them !
Harold – I actually think he did have a decent game (relatively speaking) and was certainly (by far and away) their best player. Ultimately he’s not at the same level as CalMac, Reo or Bernardo so he was always going to end up being outplayed but tbf to him he was the only one of their midfield three who at least tried win the midfield battle. At times he was doing the job of all three as the other two were literally posted MIA – he’s no superstar but James’ comment that “he’s just an Aberdeen midfielder” is disingenuous. I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t be best pleased if other fans said Luke McCowan “is just a Dundee midfielder”. Saying Barron had a decent game is a fair assessment of his performance (albeit it definitely waned as the game went on) – if they said he was “outstanding” or that “if the other 10 players had been as good then Rangers would have won” then they would be talking utter sh*te but “decent game” is a fair assessment of him and I said as such to my mates as we made our way from CP back into town after the match
He’ll have a Barron season hopefully Harold – Win zilch, probably get abused by The Sevco Hun Hoards, I’d say get a few red cards but – Oops it’s Beaton, Dallas, McLean, Robertson, Aitken and Co we’re talking about so no on second thoughts probably not…
I sincerely hope the ‘Barron’ Season and win the square root of Fuck all comes to fruitation !
I was thinking about this last night – gaming it out if you like – and I don’t see any way back for them. Even the traditional routes, such as sugar daddy investor or striking it lucky with a ‘golden generation’ from their academy (no laughing at the back!) wouldn’t work because financial sustainability rules preclude the former and the ability of predatory big clubs to harvest the best talent from the academies of others for mere ‘development fees’ (which we have been victims of far more than they have) means that any ‘golden generation’ they happened to produce would be snatched from their grasp before it had much effect. It would take a seismic event at Celtic Park to put them back in the driving seat, and one thing you can say about our board without fear of contradiction is that they change course more slowly than tectonic plates. This is where ‘the journey’ ends for them and the only risk to us is our dominance resulting in a huge loss of interest in the domestic league and ‘Espanyolification’ for the ugly mob being mirrored in ‘Linfieldisation’ for us.
Rock bottom is another Admin and liquidation event, that would just about kill whatever little is left of their sad hopes and dreams, in fact it might just kill them off altogether? I’m not entirely sure about that though, as some savvy prospector might just ride in on a white horse and revive them, promise them an orange strip and breathe some new life into the suicidal staunchers that need their weekly fix. At least the next time no one will be that interested in going to the History shop and purchasing Sevco’s scant achievements. 🙂
Hi James, your points are good.
My only concern is Always going to be Lawell and complacency combined with sneering at theRangers problems.
That attitude caught us out in the Covid year, the double LL, Lawell & Lennon destroyed the 10 in a row, we allowed an inferior club to win the title through complacency, sneering & arrogance.
That can never be allowed to happen again.
Show other teams respect and win with respect.
Aye cos he’s an International player now. Called up to enhance his reputation as was Patterson of Sevco.
Hyped beyond belief by the SMSM to the extent they were able to sell him to Everton (to their pain and embarrassment) for £ Squillions.
It will be the same with Barron, couple of caps guaranteed now that our Captain has ended his International career to focus fully on Celtic. Sevco will attempt to sell him in January or Summer next year for mega mullions noo that he’s a ranjurs player wae International Caps.