It’s going to take £50M to bridge Old Firm divide
WILLIE Henderson fears Celtic are so far ahead of Rangers that the Ibrox club need £50million to catch them.
A mammoth 33 points behind their arch rivals in the Scottish Premiership, a one-sided Scottish Cup semi-final defeat at Hampden confirmed the extent of the gulf between the sides.
Brendan Rodgers and his side travel to Ibrox this weekend looking to protect their 41-match unbeaten domestic run en route to a rare domestic Treble.
Of the view that only four of the current Rangers side are worth keeping, Ibrox wing legend Henderson believes a huge investment in players is the only way of stopping Celtic reaching ten-in-a-row.
‘It would take £50m,’ said the ex-Scotland international. ‘I don’t think there has been £50m spent on players and we need £50m spent on players to give us a chance of competing with Celtic next year.’
Asked how many of Pedro Caixinha’s squad he would keep, Henderson added: ‘Maybe four? We need a lot of players.
‘Maybe a couple would make the Celtic team, but it would be a hard pick.
‘Rangers need investment, an investor, because there needs to be a lot of players bought to even give them a chance of catching up with Celtic.
‘Celtic have so much control just now, a lot of good players performing well, and Brendan Rodgers has done well since he came up.
‘If we don’t invest in players, then Celtic will be at the top for a lot of years.
‘The fans have shown enormous patience and it would be nice to see an investor or money spent on players to bring the club back to where it was and where it should be.’
Rangers chairman Dave King promised to ‘over-invest’ in players, speaking of spending £30m of his childrens’ inheritance to make a renewed challenge for the title. In February, King said he and his fellow investors had put in £18m of their own cash and vowed to ‘accelerate investment at the end of this season.’
Henderson, though, believes the time has come to put up or consider alternatives, including overseas investment, saying: ‘I don’t know enough about what’s going on at the top of the club and what their plan is, but it must include investment in players. The fans just want to have a good team on the park.
‘The supporters have been sensational and are paying their money every week but how long are they going to take it?’
In the mid-1960s, Henderson was a Rangers player when Jock Stein turned a team of perennial Celtic underachievers into champions of Europe.
Set the task of transforming the current Ibrox team, he suspects even Stein would have been forced to admit defeat.
‘What is happening just now took me back to the early ’60s, when the Rangers team I played in was so much better than Celtic. And then the genius that was Jock Stein came along,’ continued the 73-year-old.
‘He was able to turn to players such as Jinky (Jimmy Johnstone), Tommy Gemmell and Bobby Murdoch. And then, the masterstroke, bringing Bertie Auld back from Birmingham to be the maestro in midfield.
‘But back then these players were available to Jock Stein. We don’t have players in the Rangers team at the moment.
‘I don’t see too many able to be turned into players we need to have at Glasgow Rangers.’
Rangers and Celtic meet again in a league game on Saturday. This time, the team in light blue will be expected to turn up.
Caixinha’s decision to start the semi-final with three strikers contributed to a lack of bite in midfield, where the champions enjoyed the run of Hampden.
‘The manager is just in the door,’ said Henderson. ‘A manager can only do so much with what he’s working with.
‘It would be very unfair to judge him just now... certainly next year would be the time to do it, when you see what squad he has and then you can have a fair judgment.
‘One of the things from the weekend game, it looked as if there wasn’t enough effort being put in.
‘Celtic are just so far in front of us that it’s difficult to make an impact against them.
‘If money is not invested in players, it would be very difficult to stop Celtic doing ten-in-a-row.’
Of the current squad, Henderson suspects that only ‘a couple’ would give Rodgers pause for reflection.
‘The keeper is very good. The left-back who has been brought in, the young boy (Myles) Beerman, looks a good prospect,’ he added.
Talks started yesterday with 12-goal striker Kenny Miller concerning a new contract. Henderson believes the former Scotland striker still has plenty to offer.
‘Kenny would be the first to say he is the wrong side of 30 — but he’s had a great year,’ added the former winger.
‘He’s Player of the Year, a great professional and maybe we should build the team around Kenny. Just for another year and pick the games where you play him. He’s been unbelievable.’
Henderson played 478 games for Rangers, winning two league championships, four Scottish Cups and two League Cups, playing in two European Cup Winners’ Cup finals.
Rangers’ current plight, he believes, mirrors a wider malaise in Scottish football.
Speaking before the anniversary of a week 50 years ago when Rangers and Celtic competed in European finals, he said: ‘That was a great year for Scottish football, 1967, one of the very best. Unfortunately, all of the best years seem to be in the past.
‘Our clubs can’t compete with the money down south or abroad.
‘From the age of seven I’d play football every day of the week. But we don’t really have school football now and it’s a big minus that kids who sign for senior clubs are banned from playing for other teams.
‘It seems some of the natural flair is being coached out of kids at eight or nine years of age.’
Willie Henderson was at Hampden to launch this year’s nominations for the Scottish Football Hall of Fame.