It’s a varied Friday morning Mailbox, with some suggestions on how to finally get Celtic and Rangers playing at a decent level. Also: staunch defences of Jurgen Klopp and Scott Parker.
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How to get Celtic and Rangers south
The Scottish teams thing is interesting, so let’s unpick.
Standard-wise, they are both probably mid-level Premier League. That would match with their performances in Europe. But as you say, it makes little to no sense them being in a competition where they are always the whipping boys. Being in a competitive league would improve the strength of their players and squads. It would also make them genuinely attractive to investment.
So, onto why they aren’t now. Well, see above, basically. Big-spending owners want prestige (or to wash their money, sometimes both). That isn’t going to be found playing championship-level teams every week. Why would you, as a player with CL and top-tier aspirations join either Celtic or Rangers? If somehow one of them was made City-level rich, and threw money at quality players and attracted some to join, would they realistically have a chance at winning the competition? Let me proffer PSG as evidence that money doesn’t necessarily buy you a team. Why do Bayern succeed in their two-team league? Because they already have heritage in the biggest club competition, they can afford to pay big wages, and they can suck players from a stronger league.
The only realistic solution is for them to join the English leagues as some Welsh teams have done. To achieve that, they’d either need to restart the clubs and join down the tree or you could have some extraordinary one-off play-off situation, as a mini-tournament where teams from the bottom end of PL (bottom 2/3 still relegated), top-end of Championship (with top 2/3 still promoted) and the two or three Scottish clubs (because why not Aberdeen too) see who gets to sit where.
I’d watch that. And it would unlock the potential of those Scottish clubs and their huge fan-bases.
In the meantime, it will be a struggle for anything to change there, or even for them to retain quality youth players who will prefer a club with bigger opportunities.
Badwolf
A north Atlantic alternative
Mark, MCFC , makes some valid points about the (poor) performance of Scottish teams in Europe. Essentially this comes down to the size of the country and its market – 5 million population – competing with big leagues like the…
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