wgs has eight games to turn it round but the sfa might have already burnt their boats over robbogate

 

Here we are fast approaching the fag end of the season, and there are doubts beginning to creep in (geddit?) that we might be leaving it a tad late for comfort before retaining the championship trophy that has been ours for the last two years.

But as we go to print after the latest derby game at Ibrox, we’re not giving up in this issue. The fat lady might be gargling, but she hasn’t burst into a chorus of the Billy Boys just yet. Rangers have nine games still left to play. Assuming they have to play 19 home and 19 away - and that’s quite an assumption given what has already gone on this season... anything’s possible - they have got two home games and seven away. Celtic have five at home and three away.

If Gordon Strachan can turn this one around and lead his team to a third successive title he will have written himself into the history books as one of our most successful managers of all time. In the process he will have made it very difficult for anyone to put a case for removing him from his post. If not, there will be a clamour for him to go, despite assurances from Peter Lawwell that he will be here next season regardless.
The latest match against out bitterest rivals has helped to crystalise opinions. Four times WGS has sent out teams against Smith’s

Rangers. Four defeats and no goals scored is not an impressive return. His tactics have not changed in those four games and neither have the results.

If he somehow manages to win the league this season - and assuming he himself plans on staying for next season - and actually buys some decent quality players in the summer then the travails of this season will shortly be consigned to the memory banks and he will be applauded by many, if not all, for being only the third Celtic manager after Maley and Stein to win 3 Championships in a row.

Though it may take some time for the memories of such dire performances as ICT (a), Gretna (a), St Mirren, draw at home and shitey 1 v 0 win away, Falkirk (a) draw at home to Hibs and defeat at Easter Road, 2 home defeats for the first time ever in domestic Cups, two defeats at Ibrox and more woeful performances away from home in Europe to completely disappear.

As the song goes, “things can only get better.”

Nevertheless, the question of whether the manager should stay or go is one that will have to be shelved until the end of the season, when we have no more games to play or points to win.

In the meantime, if the Celtic board have any cojones, they’ve a bone to pick with the SFA. If, as we are led to believe, “Celtic are believed to be furious at the bizarre circumstances surrounding Barry Robson’s withdrawal from the Scotland squad for the recent friendly against Croatia,” then they should not let it lie until they have received the SFA’s reasons for the decision to send Robson packing.

While most of the media were happy to run with the story that ‘The Old Firm’ withdrew five players from George Burley’s squad, in fact only the Rangers cohort were ‘withdrawn’. Robson was fit to play against the Croats and Gordon Strachan was happy for him to do so. The manager who had watched Robson play on the Sunday didn’t actually know the player was injured - and neither did the Celtic medical staff - until he heard about it at the same time as the rest of us. The player took part in a training session during the week then came on as a sub against Rangers at Ibrox.

According to the Daily Record which, to be fair to them, actually broke the story on the Friday, “Robson was told to pack his bags and leave Cameron House Hotel on Monday after four Rangers players - Barry Ferguson, Allan McGregor, Christian Dailly and Lee McCulloch - had withdrawn through injury.”

Asked about the phantom injury at his Friday press conference, Gordon Strachan said he knew nothing about it. His player was “100% fit” he said: “Robbo? A knee? When? And if he’s injured, who’s that guy out there sprinting around like a lunatic? Barry, is that really you?”

Conspiracy theorists among us weren’t especially taxed to come up with a reason: the Scotland doctors - one of whom used to be an employee of Rangers - sent a Celtic man home so as to deflect attention away from the number of Rangers players withdrawing, and in the process allowing lazy hacks to use the less specific ‘Old Firm’ tag.
If this is the case then surely the integrity of Scottish football’s governing body, the SFA, is in tatters. Gordon Smith has been blowing it out his arse about vague agendas against Rangers, yet has been strangely mute about this one.

As Tom English put it in his column in the Scotland on Sunday (30th March 2008) “Scottish football is the subject of more storms and furies and outrages than you can shake a stick at and most of them are overblown pieces of nonsense. This is an intriguing one, though. The conflict in opinion on Robson’s state of health needs resolving. Somebody is out of line here. And if Celtic don’t take the lead in this matter the SFA shouldn’t see that as their cue to bury it.

MANFRED LURKER