Old firm are Championship teams at best

WELL that was embarrassing! Rangers 1, Liverpool 7.

Rangers’ Champions League campaign never even got off the ground and on Wednesday evening they were well and truly put to the sword by six times champions Liverpool in their own back yard – ouch that would have been painful for the Ibrox faithful!

Mind you it wasn’t much better for Glasgow neighbours Celtic when they were beaten 2-0 just 24 hours earlier by RB Leipzig on their own patch.

Between them Rangers and Celtic have managed a solitary point in eight Champions League outings this season. It’s hardly surprising that both are propping up their respective groups and chances are that’s where they’ll finish. That wouldn’t be a good look for the Scottish game – more on that later!

A little over two weeks ago Rangers were well beaten 2-0 at Anfield and but for 40-year-old goalkeeper Allan McGregor it could have been much worse. However the Rangers fans who had made the long journey south may well have been heartened by a late rally from their team.

Some might even have dreamed of putting one over on Jurgen Klopp’s misfiring team when they came north a week later. After 45 minutes that dream was still very much alive after an early Scott Arfield goal had allowed his team to go into the interval on level terms following a headed equaliser from Roberto Firmino.

However, after Firmino grabbed a second 10 minutes into the new half and Darwin Nunez added a third on 66, the wheels came off the Rangers wagon in spectacular fashion. A fastest ever Champions League hat-trick (less than six minutes) from Mo Salah and a late volley from Harvey Elliott completed a thoroughly embarrassing night for Giovanni Van Bronckhorst’s team.

Had they lost to Liverpool by that score line last season, the result might have made some kind of sense but this season? Remember, this is a struggling Reds team that has won just two of their opening eight games and are currently 10th in the Premier League table.

Rangers can be thankful that they weren’t drawn in the same group as Man City and Mr Haaland – he probably would have scored seven himself!

Rangers did fantastically well to reach the group stages but it does appear that Van Bronckhorst’s men and Celtic are out of their depth among Europe’s elite.

Recent performances by Glasgow’s big two has re-iginited the debate of their standing, not only in Europe, but within the British game.

Personally I never really warmed to the Scottish game.

I don’t think it was anything to do with the standard of the game north of the border; it was probably more to do with the fact that as far as the Old Firm goes it provided a platform for sectarian rivalry. Anyone who disputes that is in denial.

In fact, for many – not all I hasten to add – from this neck of the woods the only reason they support either club is it allows them to express and promote their identity – Protestant, Catholic, Unionist, Nationalist and so on.

That’s fine if it floats your boat but quite frankly sometimes it has little to do with football or sport for that matter.

But I suppose the main question following Rangers and Celtic’s poor showing in Europe is this, where is their place in the football landscape?

Every now and again the old chestnut of an all-British League raises its head. Any proposals thus far has essentially promoted the idea of the Glasgow giants joining the Premier League.

Some would have us believe that Rangers and Celtic could compete in the Premier League; some even dare to suggest that the SPL pair would finish in the top half of the rankings. Not on your nanny!

Right now both are nothing more than a good Championship teams and I believe that has been underlined this season and, in particular, at Ibrox on Wednesday night.

There may have been a time when the Scottish rivals would have been on a par with the likes of your Uniteds, Liverpools, Chelseas and so on. I think back to the 1992-93 season when a quality Leeds team and Rangers faced each other in a Champions League tie dubbed ‘The Battle of Britain’.

The Rangers starting line-up back then was Andy Goram, John Brown, David Robertson, Dave McPherson, Richard Gough, Trevor Steven, Stuart McCall, Ian Ferguson, Ian Durrant, Ally McCoist and Mark Hateley and maybe not surprisingly they won both legs 2-1.

But it’s a different story in the modern era.

Backed by unprecedented sponsorship and revenue, the Premier League has surged ahead and right now is light years ahead of the SPL. The quasm between the game in England and Scotland has never been greater.

One day well into the future Glasgow’s big two may well again compete on a level playing with the top clubs in England but for that to happen they have some serious catching up to do in most aspects of the game.