Alan Thompson has re-stated the view that Celtic aren’t dependent on Rangers.
As the full extent of the financial mismanagement at Ibrox slowly unravels the main defence, put forward by Ally McCoist and others, is that Scottish football and in particular the SPL needs Rangers.
It seems that quite a few SPL boardrooms are sympathetic to that line of thought despite trailing this season to a club who are fielding a team that they clearly can’t afford.
While Motherwell were losing John Sutton to Hearts and Dundee United pair David Goodwillie and Craig Conway to better deals in England Rangers were handing out new contracts to Steve Davis, Allan McGregor, Steven Whittaker and Davie Weir.
New signings came in from Palermo, St Etienne, Hearts, Almeria, Orebro and Brisbane Lions. All of those clubs were named in the list of creditors owed money by Rangers when they went into liquidation.
Celtic have lived in a period of relative austerity since Thompson returned to join Neil Lennon, forced into the margins of the transfer market and scouring the Bosman lists to put together a squad.
Despite those handicaps Lennon’s side has come from 15 points behind Rangers to take the title with the clubs plans built around what they can afford.
“We can’t really focus on what’s been going on with Rangers,” Thompson admitted. “Celtic will carry on regardless.
“Rangers have their problems to deal with. That’s been coming their way. We can’t get involved or let it affect what we do.
“It’s not going to influence how we approach the summer, how we approach pre-season.
“You would have to ask Peter Lawwell about budgets, but we’ll be approaching the Champions League qualifiers as we would have done regardless of what was going on with Rangers.
“As for the way Celtic are run, I can only speak about what I’ve found since I came here in 2000. The club has been run very well through numerous chief executives.
“People know better than me about what went on beforehand and the problems Celtic had before Fergus McCann came and waved his wand.
“Celtic had their problems in the past, but, for the past 15 years or so, it has been run very well as a football club and a business.”
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Correct tommo we are a stand alone club while the others lie in the gutter. Hail hail
Does anyone else think that its time for Fergus Mcann to be honoured properly for what he has done for our club.
I still feel bad for the abuse he got that day he deserved better from us.
After seeing how it might have gone watching how its unfolding over there i have a renewed sense of thanks for the wee man in the bunnet