The Old Firm

The discussion at work today was centred around the prospect of Celtic and Rangers joining the English league, Celtic Cheif Executive Peter Lawell has said Celtic would be happy to start at the bottom of English football with the future outcome being part of the Premiership.

I think the initial reaction of all Celtic fans, would be..NO WAY!!!!


After some more thinking I am really for the idea, I have always thought that Celtic and Rangers leaving the SPL would benefit everyone, from the SPL's point of view, it would instantly turn into and open league, with any of 4-6 teams winning it, thus giving 1 or 2 teams a chance in the Champions League, leading to bigger name players going to the league and those teams could become stronger over time, creating hopefully a better league, the trouble would come from the TV station not being as interested in striking a deal, I'm sure they could still acheive some kind of deal.

And Celtic and Rangers could realistically achieve promotion to the Premiership in at least 6 years, of course it would be very tough it first, what players would stay and who would jump ship, the big name europeans would leave, and probably the impressive British players would move on to Premiership/Championship teams.

They would have enough clot to bring in the best players from the SPL and League 1 etc, to advance up the leagues, Once they made it up to the Championship they would both have more money than they ever have had in the SPL, taking away Champions League income which I think would be offset by the owners who do have money behind them, but don't invest as much into the teams at the moment, as it's not an investment, but with the prospect of Premiership football on the horizon it would be worthwhile.

Dermot Desmond one of the Celtic board members is one of the richest men in Britain, and could quite easily help the backing of the team, Rangers are part owned by EINC who are also involved with Spurs, although the FA may have an issue with this, they could bankroll Rangers rise.
The question is always asked to me,


"How well do you think Celtic would do in the Premiership?"


I'd love it if there was a simple answer, but there's not, right now Celtic live of money from fans and european football, only receiving £2m for winning the SPL, so with that kind money, to be able to compete in the Champions League and Europa Cup, is an achievement, and with the team right now, we could compete in the Premiership, we would not be of the top 6 level, but I woudl think we would come between 11th and 16th, I don't think we would go down, or Rangers for that matter.

However once inducted into the English league after 4-5 years even be it, 2 years in the Championship and 3 years in the Premiership we would be up there challenging the European places.

With over £30m to spend each year, the Old Firm could attract players of a high standard, Glasgow is an attractive place to play, the Stadia and fan base is already in place, and both teams would prosper so much.

Another road block, is of course how they would enter the league, no matter where you put them, someone is not going to be happy, If they go straight in the EPL, every football league club would be furious, and if they entered at League 2, every non league club would let their feeling known.

Personally I think there will be a restructure of the EPL and Championship, and Celtic and Rangers would be involved, starting on the Championship plateau, ready and waiting to move up to the big boys.

Champions League Playoffs

A quick word on the Champions League qualifiers today before the big draw.

May as well get this bit over with, as a Celtic fan my hopes of us qualifying weren't exactly sky high, If we could get a goal in the first 20-25 minutes we might have had a chance for at least penalties, and after losing 2 very soft goals at Celtic Park, I was hoping maybe a little bit of luck may go our way, when Eduardo failed to score with an open goal in front of him, my hopes grew a little maybe we have a chance.

How wrong I was, Eduardo played a nice 1-2 got in the box, Boruc ran out realised he wouldn't get the ball, tried to pull out, and Eduardo went down as if there had been full contact, brushed himself off, and placed the penalty past Boruc, I was outraged, it was never a penalty, no contact was made, it was a blatant dive, and an act of cheating.

Why do players of that quality, in a team with World Class players, they don't need to cheat, playing high quality football, they would have probably won in the end, so why cheat, the 3 to 5 thousand Celtic fans who had made the journey down to the Emirates must have felt sick, any chance of progressing taken away by a cheat, I used to have alot of respect for Eduardo from his International record to his horrific leg break against Birmingham, now all that's gone.

Yes Arsenal did win the game 3-1 in the end 5-1 over both games, however everything after Eduardo's dive is irrelevant, hearts were crushed spirits broken.

All the calls for Eduardo to be banned seem a little over the top, however maybe there needs to be a change, an extra 30 secs for the ref to look at the incident would it still have been a penalty, it wouldn't slow the game down at all, in this HD age, con artists are still given an advantage in ways how to con the referee.

Everyone knows the gulf between the EPL and SPL is huge, noone would argue that, the transfer fee's for Arshavin and Vermaelen would be Celtic's transfer budget for 6 or 7 years, the SPL teams are restricted to buying players from their own league or unknown players and trying to sell them off for a profit, however he are expected to reach the last 16 of the Champions League group stage.

If a team like Everton or Aston Villa reached the Champions League I don't think the same pressures would be put on them, although they have alot more resources available to them.
In UEFA's coefficients system Scotland are placed behind Russia but ahead of countries like Ukraine, Turkey and Greece, these countries can all attract players of a high quality, Djibril Cisse, Elano, Kader Keita these players would never come to the SPL in a million years.

So this shows the SPL punches way above it's weight, so in this sense I am proud of Celtic's performance against Arsenal, and being a Celtic fan it's hard to say but I wish Rangers all the best in carrying on the countries participation.

Also going through to the group stage with Arsenal are: Olympiacos, APOEL FC, VfB Stuttgart, Fiorentina, Atletico Madrid, Debreceni, Lyon, Maccabi Haifa and FC Zurich, well done to all of them.

APOEL and Debreceni were the upsets of the round, Copenhagen and Levski Sofia losing out.

Atletico looked very impressive in the 5-2 win over Panathinaikos, the highly rated Sergio Aguero looking very dangerous.

Lyon seemed to use the Play-off games against Anderlecht to find their form, struggling in the league until their 5-1 victory in the first leg, and then finished it off win a 3-1 win, fans will be saying Karim who?