Lee McCulloch risks Rangers fans’ ire with Brendan Rodgers and Celtic comments, now is not the time
The weekend just gone was an excellent one for Rangers and their supporters, there is absolutely no need to dress up that fact.
A 3-1 victory over Dundee on Saturday (9 December) was followed by a surprise defeat for Celtic at Kilmarnock a day later.
The end result is that Rangers are now only five points back of their fierce Old Firm rivals and with a game in hand. With the two sides set to meet at Parkhead on December 30 there would be fireworks even before New Year’s Eve.
Which is why it was a little surprising to see former Rangers captain Lee McCulloch, now a pundit with BBC and Sky, make the following comments to Sky Sports on Monday (11 December, 13:15).
“I think if you’re sitting in the Rangers camp you’ve still to give Celtic a lot of respect, they’ve still got some really good players, a tremendous manager and I would imagine they’ll try and reinforce and bring some players in during the January transfer window,” he said.
“I think Brendan will be probably looking to do that and maybe one or two out but I think that will be the same with Rangers as well.
“You’ve got (Philippe) Clement working with a squad that he’s not signed any of them so he’ll be looking to put his stamp on the squad and the team as well.”
McCulloch, later in the interview, doubled down, adding: “I would say they (Celtic) probably are (favourites) with the experience they’ve got in the dressing room of winning the league, the manager they’ve got and the experience he’s got of winning the league and the treble, treble,
“I think Celtic would still be favourites but it’s just good to see Rangers progressing in the right way under a tremendous manager and given time to put his stamp on the squad they could be a lot closer.”
In fairness to McCulloch, he gave a lot of praise to Rangers too and was essentially making the point that they need to just focus one game at a time and not get too far ahead of themselves.
Which is all absolutely true. But at the same time now doesn’t feel like the right time to be giving Celtic too much respect, and they are comments risk earning the ire of Rangers supporters.
Now feels like the ideal time to roll up the sleeves, to crank up the pressure on Celtic and make sure they know that everyone at Rangers is up for the fight.
Because this title race is absolutely on.
In other Rangers news, Jose Cifuentes is now walking a tightrope after what he did versus Dundee.