AWAY DAZE COULD HAUNT GERRARD
O’Neill believes Rangers’ title hopes may falter on the road
MARTIN O’NEILL last night insisted Rangers’ away record could prove to be their downfall as they aim to stop his former club Celtic reaching ten in a row.
The Ibrox side failed to win on the road five times during last season’s curtailed campaign — dropping five points at Tynecastle, three at Rugby Park and two apiece at Pittodrie and McDiarmid Park.
Steven Gerrard’s side did, however, manage to inflict the only home defeat of the season on their fierce city rivals.
But O’Neill is not sure Rangers — who start the new campaign at Pittodrie on Saturday lunchtime — will pick up the required points on their travels to stop Celtic being crowned champions for a tenth consecutive time.
And the former Parkhead boss believes his old club won’t have a better chance to reach that unprecedented landmark in the next 400 years.
‘It’s really going to be an exciting season,’ said O’Neill (pictured), who managed Celtic from 2000 to 2005.
‘But you don’t feel with Rangers that there’s absolutely any guarantee that they can go away from home and pick up three points as they need to do over the course of the season against opposition other than Celtic.
‘You have to win some of the Old Firm games and you have to win the league. Celtic are psychologically in a good position at the moment. Rangers have to be up for the challenge. They know that themselves more so than ever before. ‘Have Rangers improved their team enough to take on Celtic over the whole season? That’s the interesting point. ‘Rangers have actually played quite well against Celtic in recent times. ‘Rangers are desperate now to stop Celtic. Celtic maybe for another 300 or 400 years won’t get a better chance to go 10 in a row, which would be anathema for any fan close to Ibrox.’ Gerrard has won three out of seven of the Old Firm derbies he has contested since taking the Ibrox job in the summer of 2018 but he is yet to win a trophy. O’Neill believes the former Liverpool and England captain would sacrifice results against Celtic next season if it means that his Ibrox side is crowned champions in May 2021. But the former Celtic boss knows from his experience that kind of approach would not go down well with the rank and file. O’Neill said: ‘It is interesting because when I went to Celtic 20 years ago, I remember having a little event in Perth with the Celtic Supporters Club a couple of months afterwards. ‘I actually said to them early on in my time that I would take losing all the games to Rangers if those 12 points could be made up and we win the league at the first time of asking.
‘And I’m sorry, but in the nicest possible way, I got bawled down.
‘I thought to myself: “That might not have been the cleverest thing to have said tonight!”
‘I think basically you have to do both; win some of the Old Firm games and win the league.
‘But if you were to ask Steven Gerrard today if he would take the argument I put forward in Perth and take losing to Celtic but winning the league, I think he would take that.
‘Then he can worry next time around about winning the Old Firm games.’
Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell has been calling for a phased return of supporters to matches within weeks.
Yet while English fans are set to return to stadia in October, the Scottish Government recently warned there is ‘no imminent prospect’ of that happening north of the border.
And with the new season due to kick off behind closed doors on Saturday, O’Neill expects the lack of fans due to the Covid-19 pandemic to impact on the title race with Ibrox and Celtic Park losing a bit of the fear factor.
He told BBC Scotland: ‘At Ibrox and Celtic, if you are not in front after 25 minutes, there’s a degree of frustration that grows and grows through the course of the game.
‘But I honestly think that for any team visiting there now, it will actually feel better as there are no fans in and you are on a more level playing field.’