Rangers will win this season's Premiership title at a canter, according to Mail Sport columnist Hugh Keevins. Writing after last Sunday's one-sided Old Firm game, Keevins admits his reaction is knee-jerk but believes he can back it up.
He points not only to Celtic's squad of ill-fitting players and internal mess, from which they will only recover with new ownership, but also to the lack of quality elsewhere in the league. He asks who is remotely close to Rangers by dint of having players to compete with Derek McInnes's squad, and answers: none of them.
Rivals fail to impress
Dundee United got a home draw with Rangers on the last day of July, and Hibs beat them at Ibrox one Sunday afternoon, but Keevins dismisses both as title contenders. He notes that Hibs players were recently celebrating a draw with Aberdeen which averted a seventh consecutive defeat at Easter Road for the first time in the club's 151-year history.
Aberdeen manager Stephen Robinson took an optimistic view of that result, achieved against a side with no manager following the sacking of David Gray. Robinson said his club had completed the pre-international break round of fixtures "Two points off fourth place, which is a credit to the players and staff." Keevins calls this a carefully constructed manipulation of statistics.
Hearts and Motherwell out of reach
Aberdeen are also just three points off bottom club Kilmarnock, who got a draw at Pittodrie earlier this month, prompting the home team to be booed off at the interval and full-time. Keevins says this leaves only Hearts and Motherwell as relevant to the title race.
Motherwell's Alfred Johansson started the season well after replacing Jens Berthel Askou, but fans are now questioning his credentials after the loss of nine points in the last three games. Hearts have lost five out of six points to Falkirk and Kilmarnock, quietening title talk concerning Belgian Head Coach Wouter Vrancken. Keevins would take Hearts to finish second, but says the main prize is beyond them.
McInnes emulates Souness
Keevins notes that McInnes, now bearded and wizened, was a fresh-faced teenager when Graeme Souness, 36 years ago, became the last manager before him to win his first two Old Firm derbies in charge at Ibrox. Derek has emulated that in eight days, and Keevins says his first league title, 20 years after becoming a manager, is nailed on.
