I SELDOM have much sympathy for the staff football writers at the red-top tabloid end of the newspaper industry. OK, I can accept it might be difficult, by a Wednesday or Thursday, to find a new slant on whatever that week's big Old Firm story is, but, it's not as if they have to work too-hard to find stuff to write about. So long as their particular institution is mentioned more than the alternative one across the city, the poor saps who subsidise the duopoly via their unquestioning deference to the cause are happy.
Then you have weeks like this. The Rivals have clashed for the first time this season, with what those tongue-in-cheeks Tennent's TV adverts from some years back dubbed: The Green Team rather spanking The Blue Team's bahookies. One fears, Ra Peepul might be in for a long and painful season, from which the ripples will spread far and wide. For instance, what might a faltering Breengers' season do for Murdo Fraser's campaign to become Chief Blue Holyrood House Jock?
I honestly do not know – nor particularly care – who has the loudest shout on the Anderston Quay Sports Desk, but I know there is nobody there today with the stature of the likes of Hugh Taylor, Jack Adams, Alex Gordon, or even the star writers such as 'Waverley', Alex “Chiefy” Cameron or Janes Traynor. Whoever has the title Head of Sport these days, I suggest he might, if he has not already, be summoning-up the legendary cracked Rangers' club badge graphic for use in the paper.
And, whichever one of the deminishing band of scribblers still on the payroll, who has the joy of being on the paper's end of the Hotline this week, will earn his wage, as he fields the spittle-flecked abuse from the Blue corner and has to endure the crowing from the Green one.
Aye, it's a hard job, but someone has to do it.
Mind you, perhaps Rangers picked a good week to mess-up. With Scotland playing on Thursday there will be less-focus on the travails down Edmiston Drive way so they may well get off comparatively lightly this week.
I do not think this is a great Celtic team, I do not think Brendan Rodgers is a great Celtic manager, but, squad and gaffer are currently the length of London Road ahead of their opposition across the city.
When Graeme Souness took charge at Ibrox, his timing was spot-on, with the English clubs banned from Europe, he could easily recruit better players than he inherited and this gave Rangers a short-livved advantage. However, David Murray repeated the trick he had pulled in basketball, by recruiting better players to try to win in Europe, and when that failed to work in football, and the financial picture changed, disaster accrued.
Post-Murray and liquidation, his successors at the top of the club failed to adapt – Rangers overall club management over the past decade and more has been a textbook example of madness, doing the same-old, same-old in the vain hope of a different outcome.
Had they, as they ought to have done, kept a clutch of seasoned professionals and gone with the kids, under an experienced manager with a coaching background, when they were dumped in the bottom tier of the Scottish Leagues, by the time they got back to the top-flight they could have had a young, but tempered squad ready to compete.
But no, they went the recent Rangers way, and bought cheap foreign shite. They are still doing this and now they have an inferior squad of players, few of whom are Real Rangers Class. The pressure is now on Mr Clement to close the widening gap on Celtic – the question is, is he a good enough coach to achieve this? Are his players intelligent enough and good enough to learn?
After Saturday, it now appears to be a question of:
How big will the gap be between Celtic and the rest by the end of the campaign?
Who's going to be second? Because an Aberdeen resurgence just might be on the cards.
Ok, Celtic appear untouchable in Scotland, but, is this squad good enough for them to make an impact in the Champions League?
Truly we live in interesting times.
We are still of course in the early miles of what is a marathon campaign. Making predictions other than it will probably end-up with Celtic well-clear of the field could come back and bite one on the bum rather hard. But, looking at the current state of the table, with the New Firm as the meat in an Old Firm sandwich, wouldn't it be nice if that situation continued for a while yet?
Any way, this is probably the last day on which we can discuss domestic issues, as attention turns towards the Nations League, and the make-up of the team to face Poland.
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