Derek McInnes has got Celtic spooked, and all because of one tactical tweak involving James Penrice last weekend, apparently. Doesn’t take much, does it?
The fact McInnes also has no European football to get in the way while pursuing his domestic targets has made the Rangers manager even scarier to his main rivals than he was last Sunday. Going out to Jablonec, from the Czech Republic, in a Conference League qualifier last month and the Poles, Jagiellonia Bialystok in the Europa League before that was Derek’s lucky day.
European exit seen as lucky break
All that stuff about “Humiliation” and the club’s image being defiled by dishonour was a 24-hour phenomenon. The vast majority of Rangers’ support, I would estimate, couldn’t care less.
Scottish teams in Europe come across as the basis for a television reality show. I’m a Nonentity, Eliminate Me out of Here.
Not having the additional strain of a congested fixture list and the increased threat of injuries enhances, rather than weakens, Rangers’ prospects of winning the title this season.
McInnes' impolite remark criticised
That’s why I couldn’t understand McInnes’ impolite observation that a journalist bringing up the subject of Jablonec in the immediate aftermath of their derby win last weekend was, to sanitise the expression used by the manager at his press conference, like urinating on his French fries.
Not the sort of thing you’d have heard Walter Smith say under any circumstances. There has to be respect for the manager’s office at a club as big as Rangers.
Tifo display at Ibrox
But it can be a grim-faced business restoring a club’s reputation. Last weekend’s tifo display at Ibrox, portraying a Rangers player grabbing a Celtic opponent by the throat, was presumably, some sort of instruction manual on what was required to make progress.
There will be no tifos today at Celtic Park. No away supporters either. But my guess is McInnes’ players will know what to do without graphics to assist them.
