WILL THE TIDE FINALLY TURN?
Old Firm set for epic conflict as Gerrard tries to sink Lennon’s bid for the perfect 10
TWO events 10 days apart in the summer of 1997 depicted a yawning gulf between the Old Firm clubs on the last occasion ‘10 in a row’ was possible. On July 3, Wim Jansen’s unveiling as Celtic head coach at Parkhead was greeted with snorts of derision.
Had social media been invented then, Police Scotland would have been bombarded with complaints to follow up hate crimes committed against the curly-haired and the Dutch.
On July 13, Ibrox hosted a bounce game between two Rangers teams that attracted 45,000 fans and welcomed an array of new signings from Serie A.
Billed as Nike Family Day to promote a new lucrative merchandise deal, it was an ostentatious display of the rich getting richer as the nine-times champions held a pre-season party of squad strength.
It seemed that a wretched amount had to go wrong at Rangers and plenty would have to pan out perfectly at Celtic for there to be a sudden power shift in Scottish football. Yet that is precisely what happened.
Who could have predicted Walter Smith’s departure announcement only three months later, top-scorer Marco Negri’s squash-court injury, Paul Gascoigne bundled out in the spring sales to Middlesbrough and the impact of Brian Laudrup signing a precontract with Chelsea?
Or that Celtic would sign a world-class future Barcelona player in Henrik Larsson, Jansen would prove a one-season wonder and a bookish Norwegian, Harald Brattbakk, would arrive mid-season clueless as to the historical significance of the year before scoring the 10-in-a-rowbusting goal on the final day?
For the underdog in the modern era, Rangers, those tales make it all the more believable that Steven Gerrard could drag them from the despair of Wednesday, March 4 this year, a 13point deficit and on to halting Celtic’s march towards the holy grail.
When Rangers supporters muttered that the end of the season couldn’t come quickly enough as they filed out of Ibrox after that 1-0 defeat to Hamilton, a notorious Easter weekend vote by 41 out of 42 Scottish league clubs wasn’t what they had in mind.
Stripped of all silverware hopes, they had witnessed quite enough of a baffling 2020 domestic collapse.
For only days earlier, manager Gerrard’s brutally honest post-match briefing at Tynecastle following an insipid Scottish Cup defeat to Hearts revealed he had ‘a lot of serious thinking to do’.
There has been no shortage of time since for the former Liverpool captain to free his mind from the fog and intensity of handling his first Rangers crisis. To problem solve and to plot with the clarity of soul-searching thought while removed from the spotlight.
For all the campaigning in vain by the Ibrox board to take on the SPFL, the ultimate irony would be if the stop in play on account of Covid-19 proved to be a long-term blessing in disguise for Rangers.
If Gerrard had failed to arrest the sorry slide in his team’s form – and Celtic were the next visitors to Ibrox — then the subject of his future would have returned to the table for the remainder of the season.
James Tavernier’s suitability as captain, remember, was the hot topic as Rangers went to Dingwall and ground out a 1-0 victory before the domestic season was halted.
Tavernier missed that match through injury, days after his programme notes for the Hamilton game were criticised for betraying signs of weakness that no Old Firm skipper should show.
All of which came just a few weeks after Gerrard hinted at a loss of trust. He claimed the mentality and character of his players simply wasn’t what he thought it was as Rangers emerged from the winter break a shadow of the unit that signed off 2019 in style. With football on pause, however, all those nagging issues surrounding the sudden collapse — as well as their tie against Bayer Leverkusen — went into hibernation.
In talent terms, they were a match. As witnessed by victory at Parkhead on December 29, even in the Betfred Cup final defeat and, certainly, by their Europa League heroics.
So there is no mental barrier confronting Rangers ahead of the four Old Firm games.
But critical points were dropped in February and March when plagued again by difficulty in dealing with deep-lying defences.
There are reasons for Rangers to think that a trio of creative aces can pose more problems for obdurate opponents and find a way to thrive again in such contests.
Ianis Hagi could turn master locksmith with the benefit of 12 games on loan in Glasgow last term.
Another former loan capture — and the second most expensive signing in the club’s history — Ryan Kent made his ‘second debut’ in mid-September following an anxious and unsatisfactory pre-season being messed around by Liverpool.
He was injured in the first half of that game against Livingston and didn’t start another Premiership match until November 10. With a full pre-season, Kent’s menace and consistency can improve.
Throw in Joe Aribo’s scope for second season advancement in a fluid final third and Rangers boast a dangerous support cast to a main striker.
But Alfredo Morelos will need to be a changed man from the one who downed tools and ignored rules.
Jermain Defoe’s pre-season injury may not be the first of many on the approach to his 38th birthday in October. A Plan C purchase of Lyndon Dykes would be most handy.
That’s where Celtic, in possessing the reliable and classy Odsonne Edouard, gained such an edge last season. One that only became more valuable when the Frenchman was finally given a frontline foil in Leigh Griffiths from January onwards. Neil Lennon didn’t even need a revenge game against Rangers to tilt the title balance back in his favour. The nine wins and a draw from 10 Premiership games since switching to a 3-5-2 formation at the winter shutdown was decisive but in no small part down to a rejuvenated Griffiths.
So Rangers will hope that the unforeseen issue with the errant striker marks the first little chink in Celtic’s armour, an initial sign that there is an avenue down which the juggernaut can lose course.
Griffiths finished last season with a hat-trick against St Mirren and a vow that he was ‘born for Ibrox’ before the Old Firm game that never took place. Now he’s just back in first-team training having returned from lockdown out of condition.
Polish Under-21 striker Patryk Klimala has, in contrast, bulked up physically and boned up on Scottish football and Celtic’s tactics to be primed for an impact seven months after his £3.5million arrival.
So Edouard is the edge Celtic cannot afford to lose. They can respectfully ask the 22-year-old for one more season before granting him — like Virgil van Dijk, Victor Wanyama and Kieran Tierney before — the move of his life.
Furthermore, Celtic have the deeper cash reserves for a crisis and this is hardly a group on its last legs. Of the 13 outfield players used in their last league game (a 5-0 win over St Mirren), Scott Brown was the only one older than 29.
There is no end-of-an-era feel feeding into the narrative of the quest for Ten, something which on reflection was another negative for Rangers in season 97/98.
Chris Sutton has voiced concerns over strength in depth but this is routinely addressed by Celtic.
Restrictions in the transfer market, and results — a Champions League exit to Cluj and scraping past Dunfermline after extra-time in the Betfred Cup — led to rumblings of discontent in mid-August.
Then in came Fraser Forster, Moritz
Bauer, Mohamed Elyounoussi, Greg Taylor and last season’s wild-card success Jeremie Frimpong as the window closed. The flying teenager is fully fit again and certain to be a match-up threat on the flank whether deployed as a winger or a defender.
The fearlessness of youth could be useful if this turns into one of those title ding-dongs of years gone by.
For the pressure, hype, TV fixture scheduling conspiracies, disciplinary controversies will be out of control long before spring dawns if there is little to separate the teams. Spare a thought for our match officials.
For Rangers, a former rival and Jansen signing summed up the strain Gerrard’s players will be under this season when speaking to the Mail On
Sunday before the Betfred Cup final last December — and that was only during the Nine in a row bid.
‘Rangers could win the League Cup and Scottish Cup,’ said Paul Lambert. ‘It won’t matter a jot if they don’t get one of these next two league titles.
‘Because they will forever be known as the guys who couldn’t stop the Ten. The same way we’d have been known. Then you are labelled: Failed. You gave them history? I don’t think I would like that always hanging over me.’
Lennon was first to address that dynamic for season 2020/21 in the week Celtic celebrated being awarded the 2019/20 crown.
‘Getting the ninth was massive,’ he said. ‘So to get that over the line, the pressure has lessened a little bit for next season. Whether it has increased for the players, psychologically, we will have to wait and see.’
A far calmer figure second time round in the job, Lennon admits his penchant for a scrap probably proved detrimental to the quality of his work when a rookie boss.
In Gerrard, Rangers have a man who wears his heart on his sleeve and who will likely regret his overzealous reaction at the final whistle to the festive victory at Celtic Park.
However, he does not gripe about the focus on him and only embraces the intensity that comes with it. No wonder the link with Bristol City’s vacancy was given short shrift. He now needs his players to join him on that mentality wavelength after their unforeseen wobble earlier this year. Several clearly have work to do in that department, despite having course-and-distance veterans like Steven Davis and Allan McGregor to aspire to.
But all is far from lost for them. It can take all sorts to turn a team into a wrecking ball of a rival’s 10 in a row dreams, as those who mocked Jansen at his unveiling 23 years ago discovered.
One of the Dutchman’s first captures was Bradford City’s third-choice keeper.
Jonathan Gould’s signing was a piece of business that barely registered at Rangers, who boasted Andy Goram and Antti Niemi in each superteam in that friendliest of Ibrox pre-season friendlies.
Forty six games as a stalwart in a League Cup and title-winning season later, and the unassuming Gould was off to the World Cup finals in France with Craig Brown’s Scotland.