GORDON Strachan has expressed his opposition to the prospect of Rangers being granted an extension to their season in order to cope with their fixtures backlog.
The Celtic manager saw his team move within three points of Rangers once more at the top of the SPL with the 3-0 defeat of Gretna at Almondvale to set up an intriguing meeting of the Old Firm at Ibrox next Saturday.
Strachan now knows Celtic can t
ake top spot, albeit having played a game more than Rangers, with a win as they approach the closing stages of a campaign which sees the defence of their title as their only route to silverware.
Rangers, having already won the CIS Insurance Cup, remain active on three fronts with their continuing participation in the Uefa Cup and Scottish Cup creating the fixture pile-up which has seen the issue of their SPL campaign being extended beyond the official final day of 18 May.
Peter Lawwell, the Celtic chief executive, claimed that would "threaten the integrity" of the championship, prompting a response from his Rangers counterpart Martin Bain, who suggested the remarks were made because the reigning champions are currently behind in the title race.
"It's probably more to do with the fact that there is a points difference at the moment," said Bain during a radio interview on Saturday. "Why would we want to play eight games in four days? Our preference is to extend the season if it comes to that.
"But it might not come to that and I have to say that both Lex Gold (SPL executive chairman) and Iain Blair (SPL secretary) have put a number of options to us which we are considering, but it might be taken out of our hands.
"I'm not prone to comment on other's comments but what I would say to you is that to ask this football club to play four games in eight days, when we could be possibly competing in European competition, is not something that I think the SPL would do to be quite frank."
Strachan last night refused to directly respond to Bain's comments, but said: "We would advocate just getting on with it. I remember Aberdeen playing a lot of games in 1982-83, but the season wasn't extended. We just got on with it and it turned out to be a pretty good season for Aberdeen."
The Celtic manager was more satisfied with his team's result than their overall performance yesterday and recognises that they will require improvement for the Old Firm game.
"That display was not great," said Strachan. "That result was very good, but our performance against Aberdeen on Tuesday was better than this one. We are happy with the three points, but the performance can get better and we will try to do that."
Scott McDonald, whose 26th goal of the season gave Celtic the lead yesterday, was later replaced by Georgios Samaras and has pulled out of the Australia squad for their World Cup qualifier in China on Wednesday.
"Scott hasn't been as free in his movement as we would like him to be," said Strachan. "He had a bit of a calf strain today and he has phoned the Australian FA to tell them. It wouldn't do him much good to sit on a plane for that long."
Scott Brown picked up his 13th booking of the season to incur a three-match suspension which will see him miss at least one of the remaining Old Firm games, at Parkhead on 16 April. "He has to deal with his own indiscretions," said Strachan. "We will miss him and he will miss the games even more. If it is an unnecessary challenge, then he has to make sure he cuts it out of his game."
Gretna caretaker manager Mick Wadsworth was gratified by the performance of his makeshift side, but unhappy that a pay-at-the-gate facility was not available at the match which attracted just 3,561 spectators.
"Where is the common sense in that decision?" he asked. "If people were able to pay at the gate, what did they expect to happen, that the Khmer Rouge would come through with kalashnikovs? Every single £10 is important to us at the moment and it was a crazy situation.
"I thought our players were superb in terms of attitude. If Nicky Deverdics hadn't fluffed his lines with his chance at 1-0 down, it might have been a different outcome. But I honestly thought the club was going to the wall on Friday, so good on the SPL and the administrator for getting us to this stage."
Wadsworth revealed that French pair Aurelien Collin and Mickael Buscher have exercised their right to leave the club, while Uruguayan midfielder Fabian Yantorno has been released as Gretna cannot afford to pay for medical treatment on his injured knee. Physiotherapist Kenny Crichton has also departed to take up a post at Falkirk.
The full article contains 837 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
