Analyzing the Old Firm's season

It feels like, at some point in every season, I believe, briefly, that someone can challenge the Old Firm's dominance of Scottish football. On the pitch, that optimism tends to be more poorly thought-out than the building of nuclear power stations in an earthquake zone (too soon?).

And, apart from a moment in February where Hearts, after upsetting Rangers at Tynecastle, looked like an outside bet to get in on the act (they lost 4-0 at Celtic Park three days later, and that was the end of that), there was never any real doubt over who would finish in the top two positions in the table. The gap between second and third was 29pts, the largest such margin in six seasons. So, whilst the overall standard of the eleven players Rangers and Celtic can put on the park has dropped considerably compared to a decade ago - when the likes of Stefan Klos, Giovanni Van Bronckhorst, Barry Ferguson, Ronald De Boer, Claudio Reyna, Henrik Larsson, Chris Sutton and Stiliyan Petrov were wearing Old Firm colours - the Gruesome Twosome are as far ahead of the rest of the pack as ever.

Of course it was Rangers who prevailed, despite having a squad thinner than an anorexic's waist, and the credit for that has to go to three folk: manager Walter Smith, who managed to keep calm, collected and dignified whilst everything was going off around him (more on that later); striker Nikica Jelavic who, after missing the first half of the season with an ankle problem, hit an explosive streak of form after Christmas and more than made up for Kenny Miller's January departure to Turkey; and Lady Luck, who shielded the Huns from having too lengthy an injury list at any one point.

And it's easy to forget that they gave an excellent account of themselves in the Champions' League as well, giving Manchester United and Valencia a very hard time, and then were unlucky to be eliminated from the Europa League by PSV Eindhoven. Walter Smith's final season as Rangers manager was as successful as any other he has had, and the pressure is on his groomed replacement, Ally McCoist, to hit the ground running.

If you'd told me Rangers would win the title after Celtic stuffed them 3-0 in February, I would have found a mental health officer to sign the other part of the sectioning papers. At that point Neil Lennon had defied doubts about his lack of managerial experience, making up for occasional tactical lapses partly through his spirit and passion, but mostly through a string of excellent buys - Emilio Izaguirre, Beram Kayal and Gary Hooper will go on to much better things, whilst Kris Commons was a shrewd January acquisition, managing 14 goals.

But Celtic ran out of steam, and it's certainly worth debating how much the off-field issues surrounding their coach impacted on the team itself. For the second half of the season was all about the off-field events at Ibrox and Celtic Park. At the former, the issue of sectarianism raised it's ugly head (we're talking Barbara Streisand ugly here, so pretty damn ugly) again, both domestically and abroad, though the Hoops were hardly saints themselves. For the record, on my way to games at the Caledonian Stadium this year, I have heard Rangers fans singing raucously about killing Catholics while publicly downing bottles of Buckfast, and Celtic fans singing raucously about killing protestants while publicly downing cans of Strongbow.

Rangers also had to deal with the protracted, and now completed, takeover bid from Gregg Whyte; there remains some doubt over whether he can put his money where his mouth is. But that was a minor distraction compared with the storm that engulfed Lennon in the second half of the season, and which I've covered at length before. In the end, a promising season for Celtic finished with only a Scottish Cup, though the cult of personality developing in the support at Celtic Park should give Lennon plenty of leeway yet.

So, sadly, from a neutral point of view, it was depressing to see these two sides utterly dominate the league again. If that was bad enough, it was soul-destroying to watch as their off-field antics dominated the headlines and further defiled the already lousy image of Scottish football.

Next season? There are too many uncertainties to be able to say which side of the Old Firm will be stronger. The only certainties in life are, as they say, death, taxes, and that Rangers and Celtic will finish in the top two positions in the SPL.

RANGERS
League: 1st, 93pts
Scottish Cup: 5th round
League Cup: winners

Star man: Miller in the first half of the season, Jelavic in the second. The latter not only scores lots of goals, he has proven he can score them from anywhere.
Waste of space: The Rangers fans (or at least the moronic element) might have hailed El Hadji Diouf as a hero, but he contributed relatively little to the team apart from s**t-stirring in the Old Firm games.

Confirmed first team departures: Kyle Bartley (end of loan), El Hadji Diouf (end of loan), Richard Foster (end of loan), Vladimir Weiss (end of loan) David Healy
Other likely departures: Andrew Little
Needs for next season: A new centre-back to replace David Weir; at least one winger.

CELTIC
League: 2nd, 92pts
Scottish Cup: winners
League Cup: finalists

Star man: Honduran full-back Izaguirre, though his form dipped alarmingly in the final weeks of the season.
Waste of space: Freddie Ljungberg's January signing was a complete waste of time and money, as he made only two starts.

Confirmed first team departures: Fraser Forster (end of loan), Freddie Ljungberg, Ben Hutchinson
Other likely departures: Andreas Hinkel, Efrain Juarez
Needs for next season: A new keeper (unless Forster returns), another centre-back.

L.