John Hartson has delivered a brutal title message to Sevco- predicting that the Ibrox club will finish fourth in the Premier League.
While Kenny Miller and Mark Warburton accuse Scott Brown of being disrespectful to the Scottish Cup runners-up Hartson believes the Ibrox mob are out of order by snubbing Hearts and Aberdeen.
As a player Hartson scored plenty against Rangers (IL) and didn’t spare the tribute act in his column in today’s Scottish Sun.
“Rangers won’t come anywhere near winning the league this season,” the Welshman stated. “They are not even good enough to finish second or even third in my book.I’ve stuck them down for fourth place.
“Celtic will win the title, Aberdeen will be second, with Hearts not far behind them in third spot.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if Rangers did well in one of the cup competitions, where anything can happen on any given day but over the course of a season I can’t see them mounting anything resembling a challenge.
“Scott Brown hinted as much this week. Broony said in an interview he felt Aberdeen would be Celtic’s biggest challengers, and he’d have said so with a grin on his face.
“He knows how it works. There was no way in the world he was going to stand in front of a TV camera and talk up Rangers but the bottom line is Broony was right.”
Brown’s comments were treated by outrage at Ibrox with Kenny Miller questioning the Celtic skipper thinking.
Last season newly promoted Hearts finished a respectable third with Hartson amazed at how the Ibrox hierarchy are dismissing the challenge from Edinburgh and the north east.
The Welshman added: “It’s disrespectful to Derek McInnes and Robbie Neilson — and all the other Premiership managers — to think Gers can just swan back into the top flight and pick up from where they once were.
“They will win the Premiership one day but I just don’t think it’s possible for them to beat Celts over 38 games.
“Not when the Hoops have a manager of the calibre of Brendan Rodgers in place. Rodgers is someone with real credentials, and I reckon he will be looking to sweep the boards in his very first season in Scotland.”
Sevco start their first ever top flight today at home to Hamilton before travelling to Dundee before they meet a team that finished in last season’s top six with Motherwell due at Ibrox on August 20.
