Empty vessel begs for favours

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

These wise words are attributed to President Abraham Lincoln. They also stand as rarely heeded good counsel for certain figures in Scottish football.

On Friday Celtic’s Chief Executive Peter Lawwell announced his satisfaction that the SPL has confirmed the dates of upcoming matches and states his opposition to any altering of the fixture calendar that might give an advantage to opponents.

In doing so, he quite properly defends the interests of the club that employs him – simply stating that the league should adhere to its commitments.

“Thankfully it seems the integrity of the League will not be threatened by playing any more games away from home stadia or by extending the season.

“Clearly, an extension is something which we would be strongly opposed to, as it would further inconvenience supporters and could have a significant effect on the integrity of the competition.”

Fixture congestion is not unique to Scotland – it is a perennial issue in the English Premier League and has led to clubs such as Manchester United and Arsenal making radical changes to their squads, prioritising the league and European cup competitions, or employing squad rotation systems with the intention of avoiding burn-out of players.

It is a fact of life that goes along with success. Occasionally one or two replays or postponements further complicate the issue but changing the conditions of a competition after it has started is not countenanced.

We can only speculate therefore as to what prompted these vacuous comments to Radio Clyde from Rangers Chief Executive Martin Bain.

"It's probably more to do with the fact that there is a points difference at the moment.

"Why would we want to play eight games in four days? Our preference is to extend the season if it comes to that.

"I'm not prone to comment on other's comments but what I would say to you is that to ask this football club to play four games in eight days, when we could be possibly competing in European competition, is not something that I think the SPL would do to be quite frank.”

"Rangers' involvement in the UEFA Cup affects everything, from the co-efficient to Scottish football (as a whole), so I think it would be rather foolhardy to ask us to play four games in eight days."

The story as reported in many news outlets comes from the Press Association Scotland’s reporter, Rangers historian and co-author of, among other titles, It’s Rangers for Me, Ronnie Esplin. One can only speculate as to whether or not Esplin’s impartiality has been compromised in the story headlined "Gers chief senses Hoops fear".

If Mr Bain thinks the suggestion that Rangers should be expected to fulfil their fixture obligations is foolhardy, perhaps he will invite UEFA to indulge his club by bending their own rules.

The club does seem prone to expecting rule changes in their favour. There was apparent bewilderment at Ibrox that FIFA chose to adhere to its own rules over the proposed sale of Daniel Cousin. Maybe UEFA will allow Rangers to play their ties with Sporting Lisbon at a time to suit them.

Of course, amid the growing clamour to have the league calendar altered to give Rangers a competitive advantage over their rivals, some obvious questions have been overlooked:

• Why should Rangers, unlike every other team in British competition, not be expected to fully utilise its squad to cope with any upcoming pressure?

• Why do Rangers currently have the fourth-smallest available squad in the SPL and is this fact relevant to their public request to have the league calendar changed?

• Given the demands on their squad, why then did Rangers transfer out three players and attempt to sell Daniel Cousin during the January window?

If Rangers have been unable or unwilling to assemble and maintain a squad capable of fulfilling their fixtures, it would be foolhardy, wrong and probably liable to legal challenge if their negligence should be accommodated to the detriment of other league members.

The next time Bain is thinking of saying something about Celtic, hopefully he will think of Honest Abe.

Strachan must remedy system failure

I always have been – and remain – a supporter of Gordon Strachan as Celtic manager.

However, having been knocked out of the tournament that offered the best chance of success and trailing in the league, the head coach must act quickly to prevent a whitewash at the hands of a vastly inferior Rangers squad.

Let’s look across the city: in my opinion Rangers have only two players of exceptional quality in Carlos Cuellar and Barry Ferguson. On the form Cuellar has shown this season, he would brush aside any of Celtic’s centre-backs, given that the best central defender at the club, Darren O’Dea, is considered too young to be picked ahead of more established players.

Ferguson is a talented footballer playing some of his best football. Celtic, however, have an abundance of talent in the midfield area yet are looking fragile in that zone in which the game is controlled.

Strachan is entitled to pursue his favoured approach – and it has been extremely successful for Celtic up to this point – but sometimes it is better to do something different than to persevere for fear of being accused of being wrong.

Comparing Celtic with Rangers, two things scream out – a Rangers system that based purely on positioning, tackling, smothering the game and looking for breaks against Celtic’s attempt to play more technically pleasing, passing football; and Rangers’ relative selection continuity largely due to a glaring lack of talent among the fringe players.

However, Strachan insists not just on pursuing a 4-4-2 formation or, perhaps more accurately, 4-2-2-2 as the tactical genius John Barnes advocated, but also on continually tinkering with the central midfield area.

In doing so, he has refused to allow the players to find the time to gel together. On one hand it can be very good to show players that they must perform well every time if they want to be picked. On the other, many managers accept that sometimes you have to give certain players time in the knowledge that they will hit top form after six-to-eight games.

The various combinations of Donati-Brown- Hartley-Sno-Robson have functioned erratically throughout the season. For my money, Strachan should pick Hartley (arguably the most complete footballer in Scotland) to partner Brown and keep faith with them.

Regardless of his small vocal band of critics Brown is a gifted player who gives constant movement, strength, aggression, energy and sharp attacking instincts. Hartley offers the control that Donati was signed to deliver but in recent months has grown in stature as a Celtic player and Scotland international with a mature reading of the game complemented by excellent passing and positioning. One little-mentioned statistic showed that Hartley had a pass completion rate of 96% when he was substituted in the Camp Nou.

In my opinion, a manager either settles on a midfield pairing or reverts to one central playmaker – and Hartley, sometimes reminiscent of Paul McStay, is one player with the full range of attributes needed for that role.

Of course, Strachan could always do something radically different. It would be too much to hope that he might go crazy and play a 4-3-3 formation against Gretna. He also certainly has the players to adopt the 3-5-2 system that worked so well for Martin O’Neill for so long, using Hartley and Donati or Sno as holding midfielders. Allowing Brown to focus on attack while McGeady and Nakamura, or preferably Robson, take the offensive wide roles.

One thing is for sure – a squad with a huge amount of talent has been performing well short of its potential in recent weeks with confidence waning on the field and off. It is also clear that despite unfair criticism of Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink and unrealistic expectations of Georgios Samaras, the understandable shading in Scott McDonald’s form has left Celtic looking goal-shy.

There is room for worry that the approaching match with Rangers will be like watching Alex Higgins play Cliff Thorburn at snooker. Higgins did his best to entertain and was either brilliant or awful. Thorburn played the most soul-destroying form of anti-snooker – but he often won.