John Hartson delivered a damning verdict on the Gerrard Revolution to TalkSPORT listeners this morning.
After a week of hype led by Sky Sports about the alleged O** F*** derby between two superpowers the reality was served up in front of television viewers yesterday.
Gerrard’s team came to park the bus using the blueprint established by Hamilton Accies the previous week as they escaped with a 1-0 defeat which is effectively a moral victory.
After an outstanding pre-season in which a title challenge was talked up at every opportunity reality made an unwelcome visit yesterday as it was confirmed that NONE of Gerrard’s players would get in the Celtic team.
Brendan Rodgers’ men were apparently in crisis, reeling from Moussa Dembele’s departure ahead of meeting up with new look Sevco- a team that drew hundreds of the gullible to Glasgow Airport at 1am to celebrate a 1-1 draw against the 14th best team in Russia.
With Jim White missing from his usual morning show Hartson was asked to compare Celtic v Sevco with a similar match for Manchester City.
“It would be a sort of lower of mid-table Championship team, someone like QPR, a Championship team, I wouldn’t put them at the bottom of the Premier League,” the Welshman told TalkSPORT.
“The press in Scotland have to do their job, they have to talk it up. Rangers have got through some difficult games in Europe and into the Europa League, credit them for that which will get them some finance.
“They’ll be buoyed by that, the club are making some forward strides under Gerrard, he has brought in some acquisitions like Scott Arfield with experience from Burnley, Goldston a big centre half from Brighton and Lafferty can be a handful.
“But I have to say that yesterday with all the hype and the talk of what Rangers were going to do, how they were going to come and have a go, I just didn’t see it. It could have been five, honestly it really could have.
“I think that the scoreline totally flattered them, Celtic could, I’m not exaggerating, it could have been three, four or five- it really could.
“It was as dominant and comfortable a 1-0 win as you are ever likely to see.
“Steven Gerrard has come in, signed 14 players, the talk all week was that it was going to get closer in terms of the gap between the two teams. I didn’t see that, I didn’t see anything get closer. They are still a million miles behind Celtic.
“Aberdeen are still Celtic’s biggest challenge. Gerrard’s job is to win a cup, to win one of the derby matches not just to get closer to Celtic- you could have employed a two bob manager to do that.”
After four Premiership matches Sevco are sitting in seventh place, closer to the bottom than the top.
