MIND THE GAP
...because chasm between Old Firm and rest just got wider
EVEN a two-horse race would be half a horse up on Scotland’s historically and notoriously uncompetitive top flight. And that’s at the best of times.
But now that the Covid crisis has driven an even bigger financial wedge between the Old Firm and the also-rans?
Without wanting to reveal too much about the story arc being plotted out for season 2020-21, the coming campaign is likely to contain more cringe-inducing, tragicomic, uncomfortably awkward moments than a Ricky Gervais show.
If you thought our national game — with its court cases, endless infighting, bungled votes, madcap moves, dodgy dossiers and high-dudgeon Club Statements — couldn’t get any more embarrassing, think again.
Once the actual football kicks off, there’s a very real threat of both Celtic and Rangers moving swiftly out of sight, leaving behind a trail of wreckage as even ‘major’ clubs are put firmly in their place.
Things could get very ugly, very quickly.
And, without dismissing the coaching skills of good managers doing their damnedest to close the gap, even the most optimistic must feel like they’re being asked to do the impossible.
Because, while even relatively cash-rich teams across the country are slashing and burning just to survive, the Big Two are spending like a Prime Minister in need of a distraction.
Rangers, continuing to disappoint the many well-wishers who still insist administration and liquidation are only a matter of days away, have so far demonstrated real resilience to economic pressure.
Spending £3million on Ianis
Hagi, as well as snapping up Jon McLaughlin and investing in defensive prospect Calvin Bassey, they’ve more than compensated for a bit of the deck-clearing carried out on the fringes of the squad.
Yes, they appear more willing to cash in now on Alfredo Morelos.
But that decision looks less like a financial necessity than a combination of footballing factors.
The striker himself is clearly getting itchy feet — despite turning down a move to the footballing hotbed of Qatar — and he’s arguably earned the right to a big-money move.
Steven Gerrard, meanwhile, is obviously growing weary of talking to and about a player who contributed plenty to his team’s post-January collapse.
Celtic? Well, Neil Lennon may have sounded convincing recently when he said they would be ‘cutting their cloth’ to cope with the new economic reality.
But here’s the thing. They are obviously able to afford a large chunk of Mohamed Elyounoussi’s wages after he signed a new one-year loan deal last night.
They are also trying to put together a deal for Fraser Forster, with Joe Hart apparently their fall-back option in the search for a new No1.
Both of those goalkeepers could bag in the region of £70,000 a week by signing to play back-up for a Premier League side.
They won’t get that in Glasgow. But let’s just assume that neither would be signing for a flat weekly wage of £700 plus petrol money for training.
Nor do Scotland’s champions seem to be under any particular pressure to sell Odsonne Edouard this summer.
As is the case with Morelos, if the Frenchman goes, it will be down to his own desire to leave. And it will be for major money.
Compare and contrast the ‘hardship’ being endured by both Celtic and Rangers, then, with everyone else.
Jonny Hayes is playing for free at Aberdeen. Think about that. A player discarded — a little unfairly, perhaps — by Celtic at the end of his contract, agreeing to a two-year deal that sees him earn precisely zero pounds and zero pence in the first 12 months. That speaks to both the character of Hayes, who didn’t hesitate to agree to the deferral — and to the harsh budgetary reality at a club ‘burning £1m a month’, according to chairman Dave Cormack. The lockdown crisis hasn’t ‘broken’ football in Scotland, of course. It has merely exposed the major faultlines already built into the model.
Those cracks are in danger of becoming great, gaping chasms.
And, stop us if you’ve heard this one before, but it’s likely to result in walkovers and processions by the top two.
A title race settled by four headto-head meetings between a pair of princes in a league of paupers.
Sure, it’s likely to be nervewracking fun of sorts for fans of Celtic and Rangers, especially with ten in a row on the line. Everyone else? Not so much. Today’s case at the Court of Session, then, is effectively about Hearts and Dundee United scrapping for a bit part in this odd production.
A series of humiliating vignettes guaranteed to make your toes curl and teeth itch, the only show in town will be back before we know it.
And it will certainly lift the mood of the nation. Until the new reality begins to be hammered home.