Having disposed of Raith Rovers last night, Celtic have two huge away games, against top of the table Motherwell before a trip to Moscow for a Champions League match against Spartak in six days.
Tonight Spartak play just a few miles from the Ukraine border and have a journey of close to 1000 miles on Saturday. It is little wonder they, like Celtic, are looking for ways to improve their injury record.
Celtic will travel to Moscow only a few hours after Spartak leave the city of Perm to journey home. On Tuesday we will be the fresher team. Could this be the game we break our duck away from home in the Champions League? If we get it right on the park it will be.
I didn’t read the (incredible) statement by Charles Green until late last night, when I caught it via the excellent analysis by Paul McConville on his Random Thoughts blog. Mr Green, Paul concludes, is “Either… stupid, which he is not, or he has decided to continue to appeal to his core support”.
There is a third alternative. Last season we watched Craig Whyte, then Duff and Phelps, embark on a series of unfathomable actions. Neither party was stupid, nor were their actions necessarily guided by anything as a coordinated appeal; they were simply being buffeted along by circumstances. No one was in control, had the experience necessary or was party to a deliverable Grand Plan, resulting in a series of random utterances.
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More sycophantic nonsense being peddled as news by STV. This guy sounds like he is in with Bomber Brown!
The show must go on at Ibrox, and Charles Green’s production is hitting all the high notes. Pic: © SNS Group
So far, season 2012/13 is going almost perfectly for Rangers.
Oh sure, it could have started better – that whole liquidation, reformation and banishment to the land of wind and ghosts and terracing fringed by luxuriant hedges probably won’t make for most fans’ favourite chapter in the Bumper Book of Rangers History – but everything since then has just about ticked every box on the Ibrox checklist.
Many of you will now be pointing forcefully at the prominent zero sitting in the Away Wins column next to Rangers’ entry in the Division Three league table, making impatient tutting noises and insisting that perfection is pretty evidently not being achieved – but you would be missing the point of Rangers season. Football is a secondary concern this year. Instead, Rangers are focused on making money.
A football story that is fundamentally about money? How refreshing! Do tell more about this thrilling novelty!
Despite the painful downsizing experienced at Ibrox over the last few months, Rangers are still a gigantic enterprise that requires lots of capital to keep running. That cavernous stadium, the state-of-the-art training complex, the merchandising operation that services a global fanbase – all of these things need major financing to keep in place, and all the Third Division away victories in the world aren’t going to provide that kind of bankroll.
In any case, Rangers can’t actually win the Third Division. They can of course finish first in the table, but that is very least that is expected of them. To finish as low as second and win promotion via the playoffs would be to invite humiliation and derision on a scale as widespread as that reserved for Steve Kean’s managerial career.
Rangers could only be considered to have had an impressive league campaign if they end up with the division’s record points total, having scored a mathematically inexpressible number of goals with every outfield player hobbling around with their laces tied together and performing a light operetta during their set-piece routines.
This is why Rangers have invested in the SPL quality players that still pepper their playing staff. If they simply wanted to win enough games to be promoted from Division Three (and Division Two, given the restrictions of their 12 month transfer embargo), Rangers could have done so with a much cheaper and more level-appropriate squad.
Something like the Gretna team that tore through the leagues like a mother bear with twenty-nine unprepared Scottish football clubs between it and its cub would have cost a fraction of the current Ibrox squad and still got the club where it needs to be in two years time.
But that’s not enough to keep the Rangers machine fed. They need to keep the home crowds happy and attending in their thousands, and the worldwide TV viewers subscribing and tuning in – and to do that they need more than the promise of piling multi-goal spankings onto a rotating cast of spirited semi-pros.
They need star names, faces that can legitimately shift posters and shirts and let the Bluenose faithful hold on to their identity as Scotland’s joint-biggest club, no matter where their current exiled location may be.
It’s no coincidence that all of Rangers’ significant investment has been in forwards and attacking players – the names that get on scoresheets and lift bums from seats and inspire songs with easy, identifiable swings of their boots.
In particular, poaching David Templeton from Hearts was the most important business they could have done this summer – sending a clear message to their fans that Rangers still have the money, the power and the pull that all the other clubs and footballer in the country wish they had for their own. That feeling of prestige will sell a ticket far more effectively than the prospect of knocking five past a semi-pro goalkeeper/carpet-fitter ever could.
Which is where the ‘almost’ part of Rangers almost perfect season comes in. The exit from the Challenge Cup at the hands of Queen of the South not only deflated their invincible self-image slightly, it also lost them a competition they would have loved to win.
It doesn’t matter if their final opponents might have been Cowdenbeath or Partick Thistle – a big day out at Hampden with some silverware and a parade at the end would have been exactly what the curiously specific doctor ordered for Rangers right now. Regardless of the level, a cup final produces precious cash and self-esteem.
So you could sense Rangers chasing that feeling with all the more determination as they defeated the current SPL leaders Motherwell in their League Cup meeting this week. Moreover, the two ‘bigger’ cup competitions allow Rangers to have their cake and eat it, being both the dominant club performing on the stage that is rightfully theirs, and simultaneously the plucky underdogs from the small-time, punching above their weight against the bullies from the big show.
The games are almost irrelevant to Rangers right now. What they are selling is the show – the duelling narratives of redemption, domination, paying their dues and taking back what’s rightfully theirs.
Their only aim over the next three years is to play out the storylines and keep the entertainment fresh; playing the part that the current stage demands – overlords in the league and underdogs in the cups, being all things to all supporters until their inevitable comeback special at Celtic Park.
Rangers are in show business. And so far, business is good.
Nicol Hay is a writer, film maker and football blogger. You can follow him on Twitter @nicolhay.
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Total Celtic @TotalCeltic
The draw for the League Cup is today at 13:00.
Retweeted by Celtic 67Live
south of tunis
10:06 on
27 September, 2012
May also just be a case of lazy journalism.
Gordon_j
Not the O.. f… Tie;-) we may call it that the others wouldn’t.
I’d rather it didn’t happen.
Celtic FC Tickets @CelticFCTickets
Spartak away tickets are now available to season ticket holders at the Ticket Office on a first come first served basis. Tix are £16. (a)
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starry plough .
Bar Rhumba . ?
Tried to go there once – Guys on the door told me I was barred!
Same thing happened to me at a dive of a bar called The Doublet in Faifley .
2 of me CSC -way down south.
Total Celtic @TotalCeltic
The draw for the Scottish Communities League Cup has not been set apparently. Please disregard the other tweet. Cheers (Sp)
Som mes que un club
Where would you even begin???
I noticed the commentry team said there was a mix up on the motherwell team sheet numbering last night, could the lack of programmed next round draw have something to do with leaving time to investigate team sheet irregularities had motherwell won
not seen any comment in the MSM about
sectarian/racist famine song
i heard a few times last nite in the first half
shocking
South of Tunis,
I am only too aware of the allegiances of many of our managers & their lack of enthusiasm about upsetting our dying neighbours, but I also know that no club boss could ever hint, let alone instruct, a squad of players to deliberately down tools.
Just would not happen.
Rangers have the Indian-sign on Motherwell & the Fir Parkers are beaten in their own heads before a ball is kicked.
Som mes que un club
11:50 on
“Nicol Hay is a writer, film maker and football blogger.”
That can’t be real. He’s got to have been awe nawed.
Starry Plough
I wouldn’t even reference it to MSM.
Pieces of writing such as the above, could have come straight from a match day programme at Ibrox.
Disgraceful.
What kind of “Film maker”?
Hee hee hee
kk,
aye and no ref would set out toi fix a match, sober up ffs
michael
A straight copy and paste from Twitter!!
Nae Awe Naw Ing Fae me.
Aberdeen supportin’ colleague not impressed with ‘effort’ put in by the Mothers last night as against the game on Sunday.
I am sure the SPL are waiting to see when they can squeeze Celtic into a midweek game for the cup. Most likely between CL and a trip to Aberdeen/ ICT/RC
Kilbowie Kelt ——-
Empirical me made no claim that the Mullet instructed his players to lie down . My only claim was that the statistical evidence suggested that a Rangers victory was a stitch on . My later post re The Mullet being a bigot was merely me adding to the history of the rich tapestry that is Scottish football ..
I note your statement re ” no club boss ” ——- I take it you exclude some Italian club bosses ?
new article posted.
Canalamar 12.08,
You have a very engaging & convincing style of making a point.
You will go far.
Good Luck.
South Of Tunis
Si!
Un po’ piu’ fresco qui – 25 gradi.
Buon appetito!
Forza Celtic!
Expecting a team to put in less effort against any one team, or a referee to apply the rules differently against any one team, or a coach to rally his troops, and set out his tactics differently against any one team, is like……
…..expecting a team to deliberately break and bend the rules of football, and the laws of the land, aided and abetted by the ruling authorities, for a period of at least ten years.
naw, never gonna happen.
South of Tunis
Barred out of Bar Rhumba now that would be a first!!!
RoughHouseClubsCSC
Kilbowie Kelt
I don’t believe in Indian-Signs.
I think there are to many hurting hun supporters in muthers jerseys who have no pride in their work.
They got the result they wanted last night.
Did you see the picture posted earlier of the muthers imposter laughing with elbows at the final whistle?
They have and know no shame.
And the muthers fans do nothing about it.
Says it all.
The Legless loon proves you are never too old to sniff the glue –
“The Third Division of the highly reputable Scottish Football League.”
Ha Ha Ha Ha