Bill Leckie has a brutal warning to whoever is in contention to replace Giovanni van Bronckhorst- Celtic are streets ahead.
In mid-morning yesterday the axe fell on the Dutchman, just days after an interview with Sky Sports looking at the challenges ahead after one year in charge.
Van Bronckhorst never beat Celtic in four SPFL matches, recording three defeats and a draw while winning a Scottish Cup semi-final in extra-time.
Two hammerings at Celtic Park, as emphatic as the 4-0 and 3-0 scorelines suggest, put van Bronckhorst on the back foot with his successor facing the same challenge although they will have home advantage on January 2.
After assessing the strange timing of yesterday’s announcement, in the Sun Leckie states:
Celtic are streets ahead of them right now. Not just at the top of the league, but in the savvy and tactics of their manager, the quality of his signings and his ruthless readiness to move on popular guys if they’ve taken the team as far as they can.
All the best clubs do it the way Ange Postecoglou’s making Celtic do it. They don’t wait until they’re in bother before changing things. They upgrade while they’re winning.
Rangers? They made it look like that’s what they were doing after Gerrard won the title in 2021, then after Van Bronckhorst took them so close to Europa League glory last season, but the truth is they’re still going back to the same core of players as they were four years ago.
When Postecoglou took over at Celtic in June 2021 many thought that he was looking at a two to three year timeline before the hoops could realistically challenge for the SPFL title.
His successful rebuild was effectively paid for by the transfers of Kris Ajer and Odsonne Edouard, whoever comes in at Ibrox will struggle to find players of that calibre with the January transfer window leaving just 31 days to undertake a big turnover of players.
Postecoglou is already on record saying that much of Celtic’s January business has already been concluded.
Great we can now take the foot off the pedal and win a league as in previous years.
The players we have for sale (if sold) will not bring in an income to buy Champions League players.
The players that struggle in the Scottish (all) will find it intimidating when faced with a decent team.
I am struggling to be optimistic after last minute wins at home and Ausie display.
Until we start scoring at least half our chanced and defending as we do at any attack we are stuck with Scottish games.
Nothing wrong with the forwards, finally delivery a bit suss
To my mind ,that was not a warning to the next the Rangers manager from Billy Leckie ,the world renowned St Mirren superfan ! No ,that was a plea to whoever takes over ,to please get it right first time as that troublesome Celtic are in danger of obliterating everyone else in Scotland . In effect a cry for help ! Isn’t it amazing the amount of times ,scoop reporters try to advise certain Clumpany’s how to get one over on Celtic FC ? Discreetly of course………
We will still have to beat refs and lineman plus var video advantage rangers
It doesn’t matter who “the rangers” bring in as manager.The SMSM will say he is great best manager in the whole wide world.. And bill leckie will join in