Barry Ferguson: You can't say Rangers are 10 years behind Celtic..

[ian1964 10,721]

....we won title by 21 points one season and lost it by 15 the next.

 

BARRY says the next meeting between Rangers and Celtic can't come quickly enough and reckons, should they meet in a cup this season, his beloved Gers will prove they are closer to matching their rivals than people think.

 

THEY might have been kept apart in the League Cup quarter-final draw but there is definitely a feeling an Old Firm collision is getting closer.

 

A clash of the Glasgow giants could yet come in that tournament this season or even in the Scottish Cup with Rangers now getting deeper into knockout competitions.

 

If it doesn’t then few would bet against Rangers winning promotion from the Championship which means we’ll have to wait only until next season for one.

 

Personally, it can’t come quickly enough because it’s been badly missed and that has been the feeling of many Celtic fans in the past two years. But I’m not so sure they’re as eager for a crack at Rangers now.

 

I’ve heard so much talk in the past couple of years about how Celtic are 10 years ahead of my old club. It’s a phrase that seems to have been trotted out whenever Celtic were at their highest or Rangers at their lowest.

 

But there is no doubt the gap is closing. In fact I believe the squads are pretty evenly matched in terms of quality. But regardless of that I don’t think you can ever say one is 10 years ahead of the other.

 

The thing about the Old Firm is that superiority goes in cycles. That’s always been the case and it probably always will be.

 

They simply don’t get so far ahead that the other one can’t quickly catch up.

 

And one of the best examples of that comes from a period when I was playing at Ibrox. Under Dick Advocaat we won the league title by a massive 21 points in his second season charge.

 

It came on the back of a treble in Advocaat’s first season and, having won the final Old Firm game of that season 4-0, many believed the gulf had never been so great.

 

Celtic were seen as being in disarray with Kenny Dalglish in temporary charge after John Barnes had left the club but Martin O’Neill was brought in that summer and things quickly changed.

 

And what happened the following season? Celtic won the league by 15 points. So that was a 36-point swing in the space of just 12 months.

 

If that doesn’t prove how much and how quickly things can change, nothing will.

 

Nothing much at Rangers had changed and Celtic made only two signings, Chris Sutton and Joos Valgaeren, before the opening league game of that campaign (Alan Thompson and Didier Agathe followed in September, Rab Douglas in October and Neil Lennon in December).

 

People have their opinions on the state of Rangers and Celtic just now but for me talk of being 10 years between them is exaggerated. It’s nothing like that.

 

And it would be great to see them going at it for the first time since Celtic won 3-0 at Parkhead in April 2012.

 

For a lot of people the Old Firm fixture is the only thing they associate with Scottish football and it’s been a difficult couple of years for our game without them. That’s a bit disrespectful to the other clubs but it’s the truth.

 

I know Celtic fans would have loved a crack at Rangers at their lowest ebb in the last couple of seasons but it’s changed now. I don’t think Celtic have gone backwards because they still have a very strong squad.

 

The personnel is pretty much the same but they have lost a manager in Neil Lennon who knew the Old Firm derby inside out while Ronny Deila is still learning aspects of our game.

 

But I just feel Ally McCoist, right, has improved his Rangers squad greatly. He’s had a lot of younger boys in the past couple of seasons but now he has guys with Premiership and Old Firm experience.

 

Plus it’s the old cliche of form going out of the window in an Old Firm game.

 

Even those who do feel Celtic are 10 years ahead of Rangers would probably agree that in a one-off game anything can happen in that fixture.

 

Again I can go back to that 2000-01 season for proof of that. Celtic beat us 6-2 at Parkhead in the first Old Firm derby of the season and we went out and beat them 5-1 in the next.

 

Another big swing – this time all in the space of just three months.

 

I feel Kenny Miller, although he’s been injured, and Kris Boyd are two huge signings and their experience is vital. I’m sure any Premiership manager would snap your hand off for those two.

 

I know Boydie has yet to score in the league but it will come. It might just take one to go in off his backside and he’ll be on fire again.

 

A lot of my friends are asking me if there’s anything different or wrong given the fact he hasn’t scored as many as some might have expected. But nothing has changed, apart from the fact he’s a much better all-round player than in his first spell at Ibrox.

 

I don’t have any concerns about him. He’s a confident guy who believes in his own ability. That’s the kind of player you want in there and he’ll soon stick one in the top corner.

 

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/barry-ferguson-you-cant-say-4326012?

[Super Cooper 0]

We are 10000 seats, a management team and another £20m p.a. onto the wage bill behind them. That's not 10 years, that's a takeover by someone with ambition.

[der Berliner 3,744]

Right now it is not exactly solely about us being "behind" them, but how "far" they are actually "ahead" of us. On the playing field and manager-wise, surely not 10 years, not even 5. As for the rest, we'll have to wait and see how the whole leadership issues are resolved. From our current position off the field any speculation is hardly worth it. First, we have to deal with promotion as such though

[SteveC 150]

"10 years" is a red herring. All they (or we) have to be is ahead. Ten months ahead is the same as ten years. If you are ten months ahead, you win. First is everything, second nothing, below second, risible.

[compo 7,034]

we may get a chance to see if both of them meet in a cup final , we can then make an assessment

[Rangersitis 0]

It's nice to hear what the conversations have been like at Barry's family gatherings.

[Juancornetto 1]

The thing is they SHOULD be way, way, way ahead of us in all departments and they aren't. They've had a free go at the title for three years, they've had guaranteed Europe until Xmas every year basically and they've bought and sold well in the transfer market.

 

If Rangers were to beat them there would be a mutiny on Kerrydale Street of previously unheard of proportions. Nuclear Timplosion.

[buster. 5,185]

There is often polarised opinion on Barry Ferguson and here we have an article with him talking about the being at the top of Scottish football whilst the team he manages sits at the very bottom.

 

Ferguson the footballer was excellent but the rest is prone to errors of judgement and a fundamental lack of intelligence.

The only player to be stripped of the Rangers captaincy twice, doesn't learn from his mistakes.

 

If I was a Clyde supporter, I'd have been looking for Ferguson to write a few words on what's going-on.

[Zappa 0]

Slightly different way of looking at the '10 years' thing here........

 

We were forced to spend a minimum of 3 years in the lower leagues outwith the top flight, so that immediately put them 3 years ahead of us in terms of winning top flight titles over that particular period.

 

Add on the fact that when we return to the top flight we'll be unlikely to properly challenge for the title without significant investment in our playing squad.

 

Without that investment immediately for our first season back it could potentially be our 3rd season back in the top flight before we make a proper title challenge, so that could put us a further 2 years behind them in terms of winning top flight titles over the 5 year period since the summer of 2012.

 

Then there's the issue of our current financial situation and the possibility of another insolvency event. If that were to happen it would set us back even further and allow them to run away with even more top flight titles.

 

We still have our 54, but we need to get back up there and start properly challenging them asap because they'll get their 4IAR this season and we don't want them clocking up more than 5IAR or 6IAR at the very most.

[Ser Barristan Selmy 222]

We are galaxies away from them. They are a well run club with correctly implemented infrastructure, we are a chaotic shambles with absolutely nothing going for it.