Stuck between a rock and a hard replace
Gers can’t afford to let McGregor hang up gloves and Brown won’t settle for being on the sidelines
HISTORY dictates there is no such thing as irreplaceable in football.
Eventually, players and managers move on and even though it feels at that moment as if nothing might ever be the same again, the game carries on and the world continues to turn regardless.
But Scott Brown and Allan McGregor are about to test the limits of this age old argument.
Both out of contract at the end of the season and there is no way either Celtic or Rangers will be able to fill the void which would be left should they choose to call it a day.
New deals are on the table and heartstrings are being tugged all over the shop but it seems almost certain now that at least one of these giants will choose to throw in the towel when this campaign comes to a close in a couple of months from now.
Steven Gerrard will hope McGregor’s insatiable appetite for winning football matches will prove too strong for the keeper to ignore, even if at the age of 39, his creaking bones are screaming at him to give them a break.
The miraculous save the veteran pulled off in the last minute in Prague on Thursday night merely highlights his importance to everything Gerrard has been busy building at Ibrox over these past three years.
If £5million is the going rate for Vasilis Barkas these days – a goalkeeper whose gloves may as well be made out of poppadoms – then Gerrard would need to shell out around four times that to bring in a replacement who would make his team’s foundations as unshakeable as they have been since McGregor returned for a second stint as No.1.
He’ll turn 40 in January next year but the numbers that matter most to Gerrard will be the statistics which underline just what a remarkable operator McGregor continues to be.
He’s started a total of 35 games since the season began and kept a clean sheet in 20 of them.
Throughout that ridiculous run of form he has made the kind of saves which challenge the laws of physics, never mind defy his advancing years.
When he finger-tipped a goalbound
No way Celtic or Rangers can fill the void if they call it a day JACKSON ON THE DILEMMA FACING OLD FIRM THIS SUMMER
rocket from Leigh Griffiths around his right-hand post at Ibrox in January he also single-handedly ended Celtic’s last hopes of winning a 10th successive league title.
This guy is so good he could save a Gordon Ramsay game show if he felt so inclined.
Gerrard will be keeping his own fingers crossed that McGregor is unable to resist the temptation of doing it all over again next season and possibly showcasing his talents once again on the grandest stage of all in the Champions League. The chances are the Rangers boss will get his wish as McGregor’s competitive streak will most probably prevail so long as the number crunchers dishing out new deals at Ibrox do not take liberties with his loyalty.
Across Glasgow, the situation for Brown is a great deal more complicated.
Unlike McGregor, the Celtic skipper does not have the luxury of knowing his place in the team can be taken for granted next season. In fact, Brown’s greatest fear is he overstays his welcome and becomes a peripheral figure, hanging around on the edges of a club which he has led from the front for so long.
Brown’s head has been turned by the chance to join Stephen Glass at Pittodrie, not least because he will play as many games as he chooses to while fast-tracking the next stage of his career into a managerial position.
Put it this way, Glass must have balls of steel to want Brown as his assistant from day one in the job. Effectively, he
will be appointing his own successor. Should Glass go on to become a roaring success and move on elsewhere, Brown will automatically have the choice of staying put as his replacement or joining him somewhere bigger and better.
On the flipside, if Glass should bomb in the hotseat – and there will be a lot for the new man to live up to given the standards that have been set by Derek McInnes – then Brown will be ideally positioned as the next man in line for the top job.
To compound matters where staying at Celtic is concerned, outgoing chief executive Peter Lawwell is unable to provide his captain with a clear view of the club’s immediate future.
Yes, another 12-month contract is on the table but Brown is unlikely to sign it without knowing if he will be wanted there by whoever is next in the manager’s job.
His hunger to continue playing, coupled with his ambition to carve a new career for himself in coaching will both have to be satisfied if he is to hang around to assist in Celtic’s big transition this summer.
Brown will not allow his status to be degraded from that of captain, leader and legend to occasional bit-part player and bibs and cones giver outer.
He’ll need to be offered a great deal more than that if he is to prolong his glittering career at Parkhead and the trouble is right now Celtic are in no position to offer it.
They won’t be until such times as a permanent manager is appointed and the new man’s plans for Brown are spelled out. All of which means, in the meantime, Brown’s head will be drifting further and further north. That will remain the case even if Dave Cormack continues to do a bit of a daft dance where the seemingly inevitable appointment of Glass is concerned. Who knows, in the fullness of time Cormack too may ultimately discover that replacing someone of McInnes’ managerial pedigree is a lot easier said than done. There may well no longer be irreplaceables in football. But some acts are still harder to follow than others.