Walter Smith brought his highly successful career to an end with a tenth league title win with Rangers last weekend. The much experienced manager, in his second stint with the Glasgow club, finished his time in the game on a high note by leading them to a third Scottish Premier League title on the bounce, completing a domestic double with the League Cup while he was at it. He leaves Rangers having masterminded nearly one fifth of their 54 top flight league victories.
Smith leaves Scottish football bracing itself for a completely new era. He was much lauded by fellow managers, pundits of the game and the vast majority of writers when he said goodbye to the Ibrox crowd one last time, but in his absence I see an exciting future ahead.
Ally McCoist, Smith’s successor, and his Old Firm rival Neil Lennon, are very much in it for the long haul. They aren’t going to want a couple of quick trophies and an even quicker exit to a “bigger” club. For both men, Celtic and Rangers are as big as it gets.
Last year McCoist signed a two-year contract extension with Rangers. The fact that Smith only signed on for a single year came as the first sign McCoist would be the next boss. At the time of the announcement, he told the BBC:
“We’re [McCoist and first team coach Kenny McDowall, who also penned a two year deal] thrilled, absolutely thrilled to get it sorted. I think it was fairly common knowledge we didn’t want to go anywhere at all. This place is our home and, thankfully, we’ve had a reasonable amount of success in the last few years. I’m hopeful the majority of the supporters will be very pleased we are staying. We’ve had some great times and, going forward, it is our aim and our objective to create some more for them. They have been fantastic to us over the years and we want to repay them for that with more trophies.”
If a club like Birmingham City or Wolverhampton Wanderers were to come knocking for McCoist, do you think he’d go just because they are a Premiership outfit? No, me neither. And Lennon is exactly the same. Last week, after finishing the league season a point shy of Rangers. he made his intentions clear:
“I love this club; we’ve started something we want to see through. I’ll speak to the board, if they want me to carry on then I will certainly do that. It’s a very privileged job. I love the job.”
They are hungry managers keen to establish dynasties at the expense of their opposite number. Even if Lennon’s season ends with victory in the Scottish Cup final today he won’t be happy with returning one trophy from the season, even if it is only his first full year in charge. Both managers have got their coaching careers in front of them and there’s plenty of time for McCoist to free himself from Smith’s phenomenal legacy.
McCoist turned his back on a lucrative television career to study under Smith in 2007 and, with his graduation around the corner; he’ll be under no illusions about the size of the job in front of him. As if taking the reins of one of the Old Firm clubs wasn’t high-pressured enough, he’s doing it immediately after one of their most successful managers ever. In the last week, I saw a quote from him that likened the task to following Frank Sinatra on stage. Given the choice, I think many would prefer to walk on at Madison Square Garden and try to bring The Main Event to a close.
Luckily for McCoist he is inheriting a squad of players that he knows, has worked with for some time and will have had input on their recruitment. Most if not all of the Rangers will be players that McCoist wants to continue coaching. He doesn’t have to do the same level of squad reconstruction that Lennon was forced to undertake last summer. Even if new owner does allow a transfer budget for recruitment, he won’t need to bring in 19 players to completely revamp the squad like Lennon was forced to do. The former Scotland striker starts with a strong, solid foundation.
Lennon has not had the easiest of first terms in charge and he’ll be keen for a fair crack at matters next terms. The hideous off-the-field behaviour of some disgusting cretins can’t have gone unnoticed by the Celtic manager, and it will have stopped him from putting his full and complete focus into the Celtic role. Next year he’ll do want to do that after a first campaign that promised much.
His tactics and methods of motivation have been solid and his ability to unite the crowd has been unprecedented. His transfer policy has worked out much better than can have been expected. Simply cast your eye over the constant stream of rumours linking his signings Emilio Izaguirre and Beram Kayal to the top clubs across his Europe and you’ll quickly see that Lennon has managed to bring some players of real quality into the Scottish game.
It’s not unreasonable to say that Celtic produced the performance of the season when they swept their bitter rivals aside 3-0 in February. Unfortunately for the Northern Irishman, he wasn’t able to coax the same execution from his players on a regular enough basis over the seven Old Firm games that they played.
Knowing that the other occupies the opposing dugout will force both men into action and constant improvement. A league championship win for either side will create even more improvement to make sure of a repeat outcome. Anything else will be unacceptable and will need to be rectified as quickly as possible. A great rivalry has been born thanks to McCoist’s appointment and it could just be the catalyst needed to reignite the Scottish game.
The tit-for-tat battle between Rangers and Celtic builds a pretty picture of season-on-season improvements causing the coefficient of the Scottish game to increase as they both go deeper into European competition. In turn that would make it easier for the other teams of Scotland to qualify for the European competitions proper, meaning they can attract better players to ply their trade north of the border.
Forget the current plans to reform the Scottish Premier League and reduce the number of teams down so that Celtic and Rangers play each other even more times. Forget that everyone was fed up of seeing Rangers and Celtic play each other after they faced off seven times this season.
Don’t even worry about the fact that of the five clubs to finish in the two places behind the Old Firm over the last four seasons all have struggled to remain consistent season-on-season. Don’t read much into the fact that they all usually finish in the bottom half of the table twelve months later after Celtic and Rangers have plucked their better players out of their side for pittance in reward. That’s irrelevant.
From here, Scottish football can grow even after having sunk so low. I’m not even going to mention that Kenny Miller and Conor Sammon finished first and fifth in the goalscoring table even though they left the SPL in January. Try not to worry about the fact that I haven’t covered Scottish football for this site in a couple of months because I’ve been that uninspired by the league. None of that is important right now.
I appreciate that I’m asking you to do a lot of forgetting and no worrying at all, but please trust me. All that bad news and horrible suggestion is behind us. What’s important is that Scotland has the spark it needs to be great again. Neil Lennon and Ally McCoist are both in it for the long haul and, with that commitment, they’ll do everything they can to better each other. It’s going to be a rivalry for the ages. Scottish football is on its way back.
Tags: Ally McCoist, Celtic, Neil Lennon, Rangers
Excellent piece and I admire your optimism. Let’s hope we have hit rock bottom during a season which was truly awful for so many reasons, but particularly for what Neil Lennon has had to contend with. As well as the league structure, pricing is another issue which needs to be addressed quickly with fans currently paying way over-the-odds.
If Lennon and McCoist are allowed to concentrate on matters on the field, it promises to be a fascinating season. Should Celtic retain the two players you’ve mentioned (I believe they will) along with Ledley and Hooper, they have a potentially outstanding side. The title wasn’t lost in the games against Rangers, it was down to some horrible performances against other sides e.g Kilmarnock and Inverness CT at home, Hamilton and Motherwell away.
The biggest danger for McCoist is trying to change Rangers’ style of play too quickly. When he took charge of the side for domestic cup-ties, his teams appeared more expansive than the over-cautious, though ultimately successful, Smith. It’s natural that McCoist will be eager build a team that’s seen as his own but that will be a gradual process, and he has a squad of players who have the experience of tense title run-ins having twice clinched the championship on the final day of the season.
Once again, an enjoyable read.