Scottish Premier League News March 2013: Celtic Lose Out To Juve
Lisa Dillon
Celtic
Celtic's thrilling European UEFA Champions League campaign came to a predictable end after the Parkhead side were outclassed over two legs in their last 16 tie by a strong Juventus side.
The Italians ran out 5-0 winners and progressed to the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals, but Neil Lennon believes that his squad have been taught some valuable lessons over the course of their European adventure.
Celtic were the only club who faced two qualifying rounds to make it to the group stages of the tournament and who then succeeded in finishing in the top two and going into the latter stages of the lucrative competition.
The difficulty for Lennon now is keeping together a squad he has assembled on a very modest budget.
The likes of Gary Hooper and Victor Wanyama have been attracting attention for some time and it seems almost certain that they will move to pastures new this summer.
And while Celtic will make a significant return on the investments made on the players, it will be a tough ask to replace them.
"It's going to be a big ask to keep them all," he admitted. "It's hard to stop progression. We'll see what the summer brings. There'll be players who want to progress their careers and it's a progression for us too. We want to bring in players, develop them and sell them on, so far that strategy's worked for us.''
Lennon himself will also find that his managerial stock is at a considerable level.
While it is seen as inevitable that Celtic will thrive domestically, succeeding in the Champions League is a different matter entirely.
Celtic managed to achieve excellent results against the likes of Barcelona and Spartak Moscow and Lennon's own future is certain to be questioned too.
"It makes no difference to me," he said.
"I am the manager of Celtic and I am one of the privileged few who have been lucky enough to do this job. I enjoy it, I love what I do.
"I can't stop speculation about players or myself but at this current period I am Celtic manager and I don't see any reason for that to change in the future.
"Does it flatter you? It just means that you might be doing a decent job along the way.
"But why are we talking about me leaving Celtic all of a sudden? I am only three years into the job. I am doing my job, I haven't done a job.
"I want to improve myself, the team, the players and take the club forward.
"We have made huge strides this season. It is going to be difficult to replicate it next season but that is the challenge that lies ahead."
Having been at Celtic as both player and manager, Lennon is well served to comment on the pressures and pleasures that come with being at the club.
As such, he has told his players that while they may earn better money elsewhere, they will find it hard to match the intensity that comes with playing for the Glasgow club.
"I have told the players this before; they may not get it better than this," he explained.
"They may not get to play at such a big club, to play in the Champions League and to have the chance to win trophies year-in, year-out.
"The only thing that hampers us is that we are in a difficult financial climate.
"We can't compete with smaller clubs elsewhere who get more money from TV revenue, that is the environment we are in and we understand that.
"But as I have said I don't want to stop players' progress, I want them to go and succeed."
And although he was gutted at the manner of the defeat to Juventus, the Northern Irishman looked back fondly on "so many" highlights in this season's Champions League campaign.
He said: "Qualification (for group stages) against Helsingborg was fantastic.
"In the first game we had to weather a 15-20 minute spell where it could have gone belly up.
"The win against Spartak in Moscow was monumental for everyone and then the two titanic games against Barcelona.
"It was like sitting ringside watching a heavyweight world title fight and it going 15 rounds. It was magical."
Replicating this season's success will not be easy; nest season Celtic will face three qualifying rounds simply to make the group stages, with the first game coming mid-July.
This season, the standard has been set.
Rangers
Rangers will not, as feared, be stripped of any titles they won during the years in which they controversially employed an EBT scheme.
And the Ibrox manager has revealed that he would have walked out on Rangers had the club accepted the offer made by the Scottish football authorities last summer of a place in the First Division in return for five titles and other honours being stripped of the club.
Since then, Rangers have won their First Tier Tribunal contest with HMRC over the scheme - although the tax authority has been granted leave to appeal the verdict - and at the end of February the independent tribunal appointed by the Scottish Premier League and chaired by Lord Nimmo Smith cleared the club of gaining a sporting advantage despite their failure to disclose to the football authorities 'side' letters which detailed to players the benefits accruing from their individual EBTs.
McCoist said: "There was categorically no way that I personally would have been responsible for any admission of guilt over title stripping. The fact that the question was asked was wrong.
"The club would never have overruled me on this issue. Such was the strength of feeling on this subject there was no way that was going to happen. I would never have been the Rangers manager if we were going to admit to titles being taken away from us and that for me was a total non-starter.
"Charles Green knew the depth of feeling and it was made clear within the club and when he met the supporters. I was there at every meeting of the four-way or five-way agreements - that were never ever agreed anyway - and I could not believe what I was hearing.
"Gaining a sporting advantage or call it what you will it is cheating and that is the worst thing in the world to accuse any sportsman of doing."
While Rangers have been cleared effectively of cheating, there remains a lingering ill-feeling within the Scottish game that they acted improperly. While there were many observers who felt that the punishment of going down to the Third Division was too harsh and that the removal of titles was unfair, there is still an accusation that the Ibrox club have acted without humility and have behaved badly.
"In the grand scheme of things I am not trying to belittle anything but what we were accused of and what we were found guilty of has been night and day," said the Rangers boss. "The most important thing is that we were accused of trying to gain a sporting advantage unfairly in other words cheating and that for me was by far the biggest thing.
"We have been clearly vindicated of that. Whether it was disguising or administrative errors we have been disciplined for them and I am fine with that and let's move on."
Scotland
Gordon Strachan has warned the Tartan Army not to expect too much, too quickly.
The Scotland manager feels that he has a squad capable of making progress, but has also pointed out that many of those in the national squad are playing at bottom end of the Premier League.
He said: "We're Scots, we think we're great at this and great at that. But over the last couple of years we've had a reality check.
"When you look at our opponents - where their players play, who for and what they're doing in the world - you think 'Not bad'.
"We need to watch when we talk about our guys who are playing in the Premier League.
"Look at Serbia's back four - Chelsea's Branislav Ivanovic, the Lyon centre-half Milan Bisevac and Manchester City pair Matija Nastasic and Aleksandar Kolarov. That's up there. That's not bad.
"Our guys aren't with the glamorous teams of years ago. But they have made it to the Premiership so well done for that."
Four years ago when Scotland played Holland in Amsterdam, George Burley only had one Premiership player in his squad - captain Darren Fletcher.
But Strachan's not sure whether to take that as glass half-full or half-empty.
He added: "Maybe it's down to the SPL being a lot stronger five years ago.
"It wasn't bad picking players when Rangers were doing well and Celtic were spending £6million on players."
Either way, he's happy with what's at his disposal. A team full of confident, attacking players - most of them playing and most on form.
Strachan said: "Sometimes we need to put players in with experience. You say 'The guys are playing in the Premier League but not getting games'. And that's the problem.
"We had to speak to people in the Premier League last week who aren't getting games. We're saying, 'Listen, it's a huge problem'.
"I know for a fact that when Charlie Adam is playing 35 to 40 games a season he is a terrific player. It's about getting games."
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