East of Scotland’s Shame’s Europa League bounce

BRENDAN RODGERS welcomed the Rangers progress to the Europa League Group stages as being good for the game in Scotland.

Other than the obvious financial boost it will give to the Ibrox club, which is less welcome , we too saw the advantages of Rangers making the group stages this season – see HERE.

Essentially we were pointing out that Celtic could have been at a serious disadvantage having to play 6 tough Europa games in midweek, and had Rangers – at that stage the team talking up their own league challenge – had had 6 free midweeks, they could have gained some ground on us.

This morning, after dropping two points against St Mirren Celtic sit only two points ahead of Rangers but a rather surprising 5 points behind leaders Hearts – who don’t have European football to distract them!

“I said at the outset that it would be great if we could get as many Scottish teams in there,” Brendan said.

“It’s great that Rangers have got in there and they will be happy with the experience and everything that comes with that.

“It’s important too for Scotland as a nation to have them in there with ourselves, and hopefully it proves that. That’s the aim.

“Hopefully over the next few years we get other teams that will join in that fight to try and climb up the rankings again.”

Now if you re-consider the argument that we made in the link above and update it to where we are this morning, then both Celtic AND Rangers could drop point after tough European action and Hearts could look to benefit. Given that they already have a 5 point start on us at this stage, they really are for the watching.

And talking of Hearts, did you see the video of their bigoted support leaving Fir Park on Saturday? They had just won again to maintain their 100% start to the season so they were singing in praise of their team, right?

WRONG! They were chanting about being up to their knees in blood. East of Scotland’s Shame…