Celtic ‘to dominate’ after ‘difficult’ Rangers takeover developments
Rangers’ domestic misery may not get any better despite the 49ers’ impending takeover at Ibrox.
The Light Blues find themselves 15 points behind their Glasgow rivals in the Scottish Premiership and out of all other competitions after the 2-0 Europa League loss to Athletic Bilbao (17 April).
There has been much excitement surrounding Paraag Marathe and Andrew Cavanagh’s takeover of the Gers, but delays have threatened to hamper their progress.
Celtic set for further dominance after Rangers delays
The American takeover of Rangers finally looks set to go ahead after doubts over the time that it was taking emerged.
However, the delays have left the Gers with a lot of work to do in the summer, and Keith Jackson believes that it will prove too much to bridge the gap immediately.
Speaking on Hotline Live (20 April), he said: “My own view is that they are leaving it really late in terms of putting down the building blocks to make themselves competitive in time for the start of the next season.
“I think that Celtic are miles out in front. But let’s see. They’ll obviously be coming in to make a difference and to shake things up, be the disruptors. So let’s see.
“Celtic seem so far in front just now that I don’t know how you’d set about trying to bridge that gap in just a few weeks over the summer. Because it’s enormous.
“It’s difficult to see anything other than continued dominance at this time for Celtic.”
Rangers set for exciting new era
The Bears are set to enter an exciting new era, but plenty of problems remain in Govan, and surely they will not be able to solve all of them straight away.
The one thing that the takeover will do is end the years of shareholder fighting that have hampered the Auchenhowie outfit’s efforts on the pitch.
| Scottish Premiership | Played | GD | Points |
| 1. Celtic | 33 | +75 | 81 |
| 2. Rangers | 33 | +33 | 66 |
However, the future of interim manager Barry Ferguson is still up in the air, and the squad needs a huge rebuild if they are to catch their arch-rivals.
The future of several star players is also a major talking point, with the likes of Nicolas Raskin and Hamza Igamane attracting significant interest from south of the border.
The takeover will bring the feel-good factor back to Ibrox initially, but the atmosphere could drastically worsen very quickly if solutions are not found, and the Govan club continue to fall behind.
Ultimately, if the deal was already announced and the 49ers were already in place, decisions could have already been made, and it would have been easier to catch Brendan Rodgers’ side, but right now, it is hard to see a significant difference coming next season.
It could take years for the Gers to catch up, which is a daunting proposition.