The intellectually-challenged supporters who racially abused Celtic’s Kyogo Furuhashi will be given a severe introduction to their diversity training at Ibrox this afternoon.
The indefinite bans imposed on the fans by Rangers means they will be denied access to the ground on a day when Celtic supporters should brace themselves for what could potentially be a day to challenge their pain threshold.
The enforced absence might teach the morons a valuable lesson in minding their manners in future, which is all to the good, but that will not diminish Celtic’s difficulties.
The only thing more pathetic than Celtic’s attempts at defence against AZ Alkmaar on Thursday were Rangers’ attempts at
goalscoring against Alashkert in Armenia earlier in the day.
Particularly embarrassing when you’re playing 10 men for more than half a game. Celtic should get someone red carded at Ibrox. It worked for Malmo after all.
But even Steven Gerrard ’s misfiring team must be rubbing their hands at the prospect of confronting Ange Postecoglou and his flawed philosophy in front of 50,000 fans who could have a profoundly unsettling effect on players who wilted under pressure in the Netherlands.
If “Angeball” is fundamentally a belief that attack is the best form of defence then everyday efficient defenders become a prerequisite.
If you don’t have any then you have to compromise your principles and make concessions in the interests of common sense, otherwise arrogance gets in the way of ambition. Celtic’s football is expansive, but the mistakes are expensive.
It is not thrill-a-minute stuff. It is asking for trouble. You can’t go out swinging, as the manager puts it, if you have a glass jaw.
Joe Hart’s display in midweek hinted at a keeper who now has to prove he hasn’t arrived at Celtic too late in his career.
Carl Starfelt is a dangerously underachieving defender and, if you take the first letter from each of those three words and put them together, you’ll get a harsher summary of his capabilities.
The shambolic nature of Celtic’s transfer dealings means costly reinforcements like Boli Bolingoli can’t be brought off the bench, even under duress in a Europe League qualifier, because he’s even worse than what’s on the park.
So you send on a teenager instead, allowing Adam Montgomery, in fairness, to give a creditable account of himself.
The bottom line is Celtic and Rangers have gone into the Europa League group stages, and gone out of the Champions League before that, on the back of pretty tawdry performances.
But none of that will matter today when they retreat into their private world of mutual dislike and mistrust. A place where their inadequacies on a bigger stage can be forgotten about in the midst of tribalism.
At least they’re still part of the European narrative, I suppose.
A penny for Scott Brown’s thoughts today as he prepares to face up to Ross County at a subdued Pittodrie.
Celtic miss their former captain for the fortitude he would have brought to the occasion at Ibrox.
And he must wonder if he’s made the right call by going to a team who have gone out of the Premier Sports Cup to Raith Rovers and made an ignominious exit from the Europa Conference League at the hands of FK Qarabag before the first month of the season’s out.
Likewise, St Johnstone’s indiscipline leading to implosion against Lask is of greater relevance than a visiting manager evidently lacking in social graces at the end of another European disappointment.
Speaking of which, the notion has been floated that a Rangers player could wander over to Furuhashi before kick-off today and demonstrably sympathise with him over his ordeal, as Brown did when Glen Kamara was similarly victimised last season.
I have always thought the most symbolic way of sanitising relations between two estranged clubs would be for someone to swop jerseys with an opponent at time up in an Old Firm derby.
I won’t hold my breath.
