Michael Stewart aired some uncomfortable truths on Sportsound as he discussed the search for the fourth Ibrox manager in just over two years.
Since Ange Postecoglou started to shake up Scottish football Steven Gerrard, Giovanni van Bronckhorst and Micky Beale have been broken by a combination of Celtic’s success and the unrealistic expectations of Ibrox fans.
Any objective analysis of Scottish football will reveal that Celtic have dominated every decade except the nineties, subsequent events revealed the extent that Dave Murray went to to break the mould. The consequences were grave.
From the rebuilding of Celtic Park in the late nighties followed by the appointment of Martin O’Neill Celtic have more than held the upper hand.
Brendan Rodgers’ arrival in 2016 suddenly made Trebles fashionable with the demand to ‘Stoap Selik’ proving too much for successive Ibrox managers.
With the media unable to break away from their O** F*** obsession fans of the Tribute Act demand at the very least a share of trophies with Celtic which has reduced the timespan for managers down to under a year.
Listening to Stewart on BBC Sportsound yesterday, Football Scotland reports Stewart saying:
Ultimately, so many of the Rangers supporters, whether they would admit it or not, they use Celtic as a barometer in Scottish football. And the thing that is very difficult for them to accept is that Celtic are a bigger club than them at the moment; they have a bigger turnover, they’ve got more money in the bank. It means that they can go and waste some money to be perfectly honest. They don’t need every signing to hit the mark.
For Rangers to go and compete, they need all their signings and they need the structure of the club, as Willie [Miller] is talking about there, to be in place and on-point. And unfortunately for Rangers, it’s not at the moment and the other big problem for them is Celtic’s house is in order.
If you look at when Rangers won the league, there are a couple of factors there that have got a huge part to play in it. And it was that Rangers had been building for a good few years under Steven Gerrard, they had a good team in place, but the massive thing that’s forgotten about in all that is that Celtic imploded. They absolutely imploded.
Now had Celtic had Ange Postecoglou in charge that season or if Brendan Rodgers was still there. We will never know whether that would have been enough for Rangers to win the league or not, but the point I’m trying to make is it’s very difficult for Rangers to go and compete with a Celtic who are as strong as they are. And for them to do that, they need to have all parts of the club operating to the best of their ability. Clearly, at the moment, that is not the case.
With a car crash of a squad assembled and supporters carrying wholly unrealistic expectations it is hardly a surprise that Graham Potter, Kevin Muscat and Frank Lampard are making themselves scarce once the speculation gets serious.
Steve Davis and Alex Rae could be in for an extended period in charge as the Ibrox decision makers try to find an out of work manager that can be presented to their demanding fans.
