Rangers face up to trophyless season after Europa League quarter-final exit
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00:00Hello and welcome to the latest episode of National World's Fitba Talk, your weekly lowdown on all things Celtic and Rangers.
00:08It's been another busy week of action, both in Europe and in the Scottish Cup this weekend.
00:15Rangers, of course, out of the Europa League after a 2-0 defeat to Athletico Bilbao on Thursday of last week in Spain.
00:24They crashed out of the quarterfinal stage. They had a weekend off, of course, not involved in the Scottish Cup semi-final.
00:31A real breakthrough over the last 24 hours following Leeds United's promotion back to the English Premier League.
00:38This prospective takeover by the San Francisco 49ers consortium has certainly been a long time in the making, Martin,
00:46but a major breakthrough in negotiations over the last couple of days, it appears.
00:52And now another major hurdle has been cleared that Leeds now guaranteed to be back in England's top tier going forward.
01:02This will be music to the ears, I'd imagine, of Rangers fans.
01:05It's rumbled on for quite a number of weeks now, but they seem like it's going to be on course to be completed by the end of May at the very latest.
01:14Yeah, obviously the EFL rules are a lot stricter around multi-club ownership and had Leeds gone into the playoffs and not gotten promoted,
01:25that would have presented more challenges.
01:26Now that they're going to be a Premier League club next season, it takes a lot of those hurdles out of the way.
01:32And yeah, with everything that's happened this week in terms of the takeover news, it looks like we are going to see a deal for this deal being struck by the end of May.
01:44And then obviously the Rangers fans can start getting excited now.
01:48I would be surprised if anything at this stage forces a potential move to collapse.
01:55But really, you just want the initial excitement.
01:58You want to get out of the line and then we want to start looking at, right, who's the manager going to be and how much money is he going to have to bring new players in?
02:05Yeah.
02:06Yeah.
02:07Is it going to be Jose Mourinho?
02:09Yeah.
02:11Yeah, it'll be an interesting one.
02:13So, yeah, just on that then, I guess your opinions probably haven't changed at all on Barry Ferguson's situation.
02:24That was kind of a real nail in the coffin for him, wasn't it, last week in terms of his potential job prospects.
02:30We always knew that they were relatively slim when he took over in a caretaker capacity.
02:35But you'd imagine that he'll be very much out of the running now, you'd imagine.
02:41Yeah, I mean, he's not, it was always unlikely he was going to get the jobs, unless, I think I said, maybe if he got to the Europa League final and closed the gap on Celtic.
02:55But, yeah, they've got an old firm derby coming up and that in and of itself, I think, will be, that's their biggest game of the season now, obviously.
03:09And if Barry Ferguson can win that, if he can win an old firm derby as a Rangers manager, he'll have, he'll always have that moment to go out on.
03:18And maybe if they need a caretaker manager in the future, maybe we'll see him again in the Ibrox dugout.
03:25But no, I don't.
03:27Barry Ferguson will always be beloved by the Rangers fans, and rightly so.
03:31But I think any chance of him getting the manager's job on a full-time basis, I think even he surely would admit that there's, that the fans expect a, with new owners, they expect an ambitious appointment.
03:47And it's no disrespect to Barry Ferguson, but you can't describe giving your caretaker manager the position as in any way ambitious.
03:56Yeah, just finally then, we're moving into the first of the post-split fixtures this weekend.
04:04Five pretty much dead rubbers now, isn't it, for Rangers.
04:07We know the league is pretty much done and dusted.
04:10Celtic have the opportunity to win it this weekend at Tanadice.
04:14Can you see Celtic finishing the job this weekend, Martin, or do you think could rumble on into that old firm meeting?
04:22I would think Celtic will finish the job off this weekend, but you never know.
04:28St. Johnston proved that last week.
04:31Tough game.
04:32Dundee United are a good side.
04:34It's Jim Goodwin's Dundee United, so I think Celtic fans will know what to expect from him as a head coach.
04:41Pretty likely they're going to camp in their own half.
04:44They'll be more than thrilled to take a point out of this game.
04:48And anything more than that would be an incredible result for them.
04:53They've got their threats with the likes of Sam Dalby up front.
04:56Decent, you know, creative players in the midfields.
04:59I don't think, I think Celtic fans can expect probably not too dissimilar to what we saw in the Scottish Cup semi-final there at the weekend, I expect.
05:08As they do in most games, they will have the bulk of the possession, they'll have most of the dangerous chances, but I think particularly unless Jim Goodwin decides to pull a 180 and actually somehow take a positive approach into this match, I think we're going to see Dundee United pretty much back to the wall and doing everything they can to hold on to a point from the first minute right through to injury time.
05:34But of course a point would be enough for Celtic to secure the title, so maybe they'll both just settle for that.
05:42Doubt it, but...
05:43Well, the champagne's been on ice in recent weeks, so it's only a matter of time before Celtic do get their hands on the trophy.
05:51That's all we've got time for on today's show.
05:53Thanks to Martin Simpson for joining me to discuss the latest news surrounding both clubs and stay tuned for more Football Talk over the coming weeks.
06:04We'll see you next time.