I’ve never been a Rangers fan who takes great pleasure in seeing Celtic get routinely beaten everywhere they go in the Champions League, why? Because, at least they are there.
Yes, I can laugh at the manner of some of their defeats but there is an element of the homeless man mocking your curtains vibe whenever it comes to our relative exploits in Europe.
Additionally, what should really annoy Rangers fans is that we are getting tagged along with Celtic because of their woeful Champions League record that now stands at 15 games without a win, at least TNT Sports’ Owen Hargreaves was sticking up for us though.
Rangers don’t deserve to be tarred with same brush as Celtic
Brendan Rodgers can cry about resources and the quality of his squad all he wants but his club has spent more than Lazio in recent seasons and Feyenoord are hardly a super power when it comes to spending big either.
Rangers got to final of the Europa League missing several key players and with no strikers available for the semi-final due to the fact that the manager knew how to set his team up for continental football.
The team that started the final cost less than £15m and only lost out on penalties.
Spending loads of money has never guaranteed improvement and Rodgers is using it as a smokescreen to apply pressure on the Celtic board before the January window rather than looking at his own failings as a manager.
Failings that saw the question raised of Celtic’s record being a damning indictment of Scottish football on TNT Sports only for Owen Hargreaves, the former Man Utd and Bayern Munich midfielder, to say:
“Ish….we saw Rangers, they had that brilliant run, I think if you get it right you can compete.”
Hargreaves is right, except for one bad season last year, Rangers European record, particularly at Ibrox, is one that has us punching well above our weight on a consistent basis.
A UEFA coefficient ranking of 29 sees numerous top five league clubs sit below us and it is one borne out of hard work and astute management.
Yes, we were abysmal in the Champions League but, Leon King had to play almost every game as a rookie centre-half up against the likes of Darwin Nunez and Mo Salah with James Sands also thrown in at the deep-end.
They weren’t a strong enough pairing for the Scottish Premiership, never mind the Champions League.
Rangers have restored their reputation in Europe which made last year all the more frustrating, it was a one off, events transpired against us, but for Celtic, it’s an annual occurrence, regardless of what competition they are in.
An informed and unbiased pundit stating the obvious? It will never catch on.
