Scottish Premier League Update

Ali Hannah on the latest from the Scottish Premier League, December 2008

Celtic | Rangers | Scotland

Celtic Roundup

Celtic could be set to part company with Republic of Ireland winger Aiden McGeady after his deteriorating relationship with manager Gordon Strachan erupted into open conflict at the start of December.

Strachan was highly critical of the 22-year-old following the 1-1 draw against Hearts at Parkhead and it is understood that he responded in kind.

McGeady was fined two weeks' wages by Celtic and suspended from first-team games for a fortnight. He missed wins over Falkirk and Rangers as Strachan hammered home his authority in the Celtic dressing room.

The club, who reportedly rejected interest from Bayern Munich in August, will now listen to offers for their most highly-prized asset.

Sunderland were also keen on signing him when Roy Keane was manager and Kevin Keegan failed to tempt the Celtic board with an offer of £5 million plus French midfielder Charles N'Zogbia during his time in charge at Newcastle United.

McGeady has twice been assaulted while visiting night clubs this year, prompting Strachan to issue guidelines suggesting that his players refrain from drinking in Glasgow's city centre.

Celtic could expect to rake in upwards of £8million for the most gifted player to emerge from the club's youth policy since Paul McStay in the early 1980s but the timing of the latest rift could hardly be worse.

Scotland striker Shaun Maloney is still sidelined with an injury while Shunsuke Nakamura, Celtic's other creative player, heads back to Japan at the end of the season. Losing McGeady would leave Celtic, whose football is already rarely more than functional, desperately short of flair players unless the fee they receive is reinvested on another maverick talent.

Ironically, McGeady praised Strachan for his role in developing him as player when he signed a new five-year contract last summer.

"You can't underestimate his role in shaping me as a player," he said. "Obviously, I've got a lot to thank him for. He's changed my game and I've become a different player from the one I was two or three years ago. The tuition we get from the manager and the coaching staff here is second to none." Back then McGeady announced his ambition to establish himself as a major part of Celtic folklore. Now those dreams are hanging in the balance.

He was singled out for criticism following the 4-2 home defeat by Rangers in August and excluded from the team meeting which followed, when he was ordered to have lunch on his own. He was also left out of the starting XI for the next three matches.

In April he collected the PFA Player of the Year and Young Player of the Year awards but he has struggled to find his best form this season, although he was outstanding in last week's 2-0 Champions League victory over Villarreal, scoring the second goal.

"I have a few years left to develop and hone my game and progress as a player," he said in July. "This is the perfect place for me to achieve everything I want to achieve. Of course, I obviously have ambitions to play elsewhere in the long term but signing this contract shows that my immediate future is here.

"I want to carry on and become a better player. Not only that, I want to help Celtic be successful and be remembered as being part of this club's history and not just as someone who had a few good seasons and then jumped ship.

"I want to be remembered as ... a legend's a bit far away just now but that is what I'd like to be."

McGeady has suffered more than most from the absence of Tommy Burns. The first-team coach, who died from skin cancer in April, was McGeady's mentor and championed the player's cause.

"Tommy was also the buffer between me and the manager and when things weren't going well he'd stick up for me. If the manager came in and said he didn't think I'd played too well then Tommy would say: 'I thought he was all right.' He was always the one who'd push my case forward."

Strachan and McGeady have always had a fractious relationship but it appears unlikely that they can build bridges this time. Even after he had served his suspension McGeady was left out of the team and only returned as Strachan fielded a fringe team for a Scottish Cup tie against Dundee.

Not that McGeady's absence hindered Celtic too much.

The Hoops took the spoils in the festive Old Firm derby when Scott McDonald scored the only goal of an otherwise forgettable game. Celtic, though, then drew with Dundee United in their next game so the gap at the top is five points and Rangers will refuse to relinquish their fight for the title when the gap remains as manageable.

Rangers

It has been a difficult month for Rangers.

Having lost the Old Firm game to Celtic, they found themselves trailing their rivals by seven points, a gap that was subsequently slashed to five when the Parkhead side dropped points to Dundee United while Rangers won at Inverness.

It is, however, a sizeable mountain for the club to climb although versatile midfielder Lee McCulloch has insisted the Ibrox dressing room remains up for the fight.

The player admitted Rangers face a huge task in trying to prevent their rivals clocking up their fourth title in a row. But the midfielder is adamant Walter Smith's squad believe they can launch themselves on an unbeaten run that can see them wrest the championship from Strachan's grasp - even if the Ibrox support have all but given up.

"Celtic did it to us last season," he said. "We won't stop fighting and we will keep working hard for it and keep believing we can get the points back and hopefully win the title.

"We need big characters but there are a lot of personalities in that dressing room. We need everybody pulling together. That won't be a problem but the loud ones need to get louder and the ones who are not so loud need to stand up as well. We all need to put an extra yard on to our game.

"I think a lot of fans might have chucked it now but in the dressing room, we haven't. We still believe we can put a run together and get it back. If they can do it to us,we can do it to them."

Manager Walter Smith reckons Rangers might have to go undefeated for the remainder of the season and the player didn't disagree with that honest assessment of the situation.

He added: "I think we have to look at going unbeaten. We can't afford to drop silly points away from home again. Our home record has been good and we will be looking to get that form back. We are a good enough team to do it. We believe in each other."

The midfielder, who has also had a spell at centre back this season, refuted any suggestion that Rangers - who came so close to winning the title last term and reached the UEFA Cup Final have gone backwards.

He said: "I don't think so. I don't know if we are a better team than last year yet, because it's not the end of the season. Maybe we are more pleasing on the eye. I think we've progressed with the signings we've made. They've been quality and it is all about clicking and gelling together."

McCulloch has recovered from a serious ankle injury and now aims to push for a regular first-team spot in the problem left midfield slot at Ibrox. He said: "You want to play in the big games and I did that last season. I've tried several positions and wherever the gaffer wants me to play I'll do it. The injury set me back and it's hard getting match-fit. If you aren't getting on, how can you get match-fit? It's a bit of a Catch-22. But I'm working hard so hopefully I'll get a chance sooner or later.

"I'm pain free. It's all about getting games and getting my match sharpness back. But I'll get that through time."

McCulloch has no plans to move on in January, despite being linked with Stoke City. He said: "I don't know about that. There was speculation at the start of the season but I heard nothing. We'll wait and see what happens but I want a few more medals and a few more games. I would love to stay here. I want to be part of putting a run together and winning the league."

McCulloch has taken stick from a section of the Rangers support and had a word of praise for a team-mate who has yet to convince fans he is worth the £3million Smith paid Burnley for the services of Kyle Lafferty.

He said: "It's not his fault he cost that amount of money. He's a quality player - he's got pace, he's got everything and maybe if he believes in himself a little bit more he'll go right to the top."

Smith, meanwhile, has admitted he would be happy to cut down his first-team squad, sparking increased speculation over the future of a number of fringe players.

There have been claims that Deportivo La Coruna are interested in Spanish striker Nacho Novo, but Smith has had no firm inquiries.

Smith said: "We would hope to be active in the transfer market in terms of bringing players in but that is dependent on who we get out. We have too many lads in the group who are not playing and they don't like that, which means it's not conducive to having a good squad. Nacho is going to Spain in one newspaper then going to Hull in another and there's quite a gap between the two.

"We get to the open season when people are free to speculate but the fact is we've had no contact at this stage regarding any of our players.

"We will just have to wait and see what happens. You go for a few months when the transfer window is closed and you don't have any speculation, but now it has started I returned to Rangers [in January 2007], it was the first time I had really experienced that sort of situation with the window and there are a great deal of rumours at the moment. Of course, we have scouts in place as people do at every club but, first and foremost, we must adjust our current squad before we look at bringing bodies in."

One Rangers player at the heart of the recent speculation has been Charlie Adam.

"Charlie has been in and out of the team and whether he's happy with that or not is another matter," said Smith. "But he can do a job for us. He has done so in the past and will continue to do so in the weeks ahead."

SPL

The Old Firm could field second string sides against domestic opposition and still fill their grounds - that was the claim made by John Collins when he backed Walter Smith's call to revive proposals for an Atlantic League.

The concept of a league in which Celtic and Rangers would play, along with the top Belgian, Dutch, Portuguese and Scandinavian clubs, was originally designed to attract greater revenues for big clubs in small countries and help them compete more effectively in European ties against opponents from the likes of England, Germany, Italy and Spain.

Smith revived the debate last week when he insisted that the Old Firm would remain seriously constricted by the lack of TV cash available in Scotland.

"To Celtic and Rangers it most definitely would be attractive, more challenging," said Collins. "Whether it would ever happen is another matter, but Celtic and Rangers could play their second teams in the Scottish Premier League - I've said that for a long time - and it would be another way of developing young Scottish players.

"If Celtic's first team was playing in Amsterdam against Ajax, for example, and got 6,000 tickets, there would still be 60,000 Celtic fans who love supporting Celtic players in a green and white strip. At home to Hibs there would probably still be 50,000 fans at Celtic Park.

"They wouldn't look at it as a Celtic reserve team. They would look at it as Celtic against Hibs. There are positives and negatives, of course. It's difficult to pass judgment on it. You'd have to ask questions of the big clubs in Holland and Belgium and Portugal."

The implementation of an Atlantic League would, of course, deprive the Glasgow clubs of the duopoly they enjoy at home, although the same would also apply to the other putative members of the division.

"There's no way they would just walk away and sit first and second in an Atlantic League against Benfica and Ajax. There is no guarantee that would happen," said Collins, who confessed to disappointment when he watched the last Old Firm derby of 2008 last month.

"There wasn't a great deal of football - from the neutral's point of view it wasn't one that would have you on the edge of your seat for 90 minutes. If you took 55,000 fans away it wouldn't have been a great spectacle, would it?" asked the former Hibernian manager, who was nevertheless pleased with the progress of Scott Brown, one of his former proteges at Easter Road, now in Celtic colours.

"There was never any doubt that he would settle in. He was always going to show that he's got talent," Collins said. "It took him a little longer than a lot of people expected, but he's a good football player, a very good football player.

"He's young and he's developing. Of course he's going to get better. He's on a training pitch every day so he should be developing every season.

"I haven't seen him a huge amount with Celtic but when I worked with him he had all the attributes - good legs, good skill. He could see a pass and play it.

"I think the next stage of his development is to score more goals from midfield - that goes without saying - but he's got that in his locker. If you asked him he'd probably say that he's got the ability to score more goals."

One notable improvement in Brown's play, noted by his former manager, is a reduction in the number of cautions he incurs.

"That comes with maturity. You get older, you learn your lessons, the penny drops," he said.

"I told him from day one that good players get kicked and have their jerseys pulled and you should take it as a compliment - it's a fact, it happens to all good players. You've got to learn to deal with it in a positive way, not the negative.

"The positive way is to smile and get on with it and score goals, win the game for your team. The negative is to argue and get booked and get ruffled."

While Brown was plundered by Celtic, Rangers also looked to Easter Road for an influential midfield player, but Kevin Thomson's impact has been muted by two cruciate ligament injuries. Collins, though, remains optimistic that Thomson will make his mark at Ibrox.

"He's been terribly unlucky with two cruciate injuries in a short period of time, but I'm sure he'll bounce back because the surgeons do a good job on that injury nowadays. Rangers will be looking forward to him getting back because he was doing very well.

"Hopefully he'll get back from his injury as soon as possible. I'm sure it will help him that he's had this injury before. It won't make it easy, but it'll make it slightly easier, knowing that he's come through it before."

Ali Hannah

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