The former Parkhead manager has endorsed his old club’s decision to keep the suspension in place.
Gordon Strachan believes it is a GOOD thing that away fans are still barred from attending Rangers and Celtic games.
For the first time, Brendan Rodgers will face Philippe Clement in the Scottish Premiership, although as has been the case in other derbies at Ibrox and Celtic Park, no visiting fans will be let inside. That’s because the Glasgow giants are still at differences over ticket allocations for the top flight’s biggest encounter – with the newest round of sparring between the titans involving safety concerns, with Rangers bringing their case to the SPFL.
The Ibrox side claimed they won in front of a board subcommittee in a furious statement taking aim at Celtic’s decision to continue the lockout. Celtic would then release a statement standing by the decision and the ban – before stating they hope to welcome away fans in the fixture again next year.
However, for the next head-to-head Celtic Park will be full of home supporters – and in a bizarre twist Strachan reckons that the move is a positive for the atmosphere inside the derby day cauldron. While veterans of the fixture have often criticised the spat between the rivals over visiting punters the former Celtic and Scotland boss flipped the script on the cynics.
He told Old Firm Odds: “It is going to be noisy, aggressive and nasty. Anyone who hasn’t been already, you need to go and see it. It is exhilarating at times but sad at times when you listen to the songs. There are no away supporters this time, which some people think is a bad thing but I actually think it is a positive. We don’t need to give a platform sometimes for the people and we need that nonsense out of the game.”
Strachan, whose son Gavin is a first team coach, also had his say on the current wobble from his former club with Brendan Rodgers suffering successive league losses. He said: “The thing about Brendan is, he knew what was coming because he knew about the stress of managing Celtic. However, he wouldn’t have known what it was like to lose at Celtic because he wasn’t used to that in his first spell, apart from maybe in Europe. It’s not easy going back somewhere, I’ve not done it before myself, so this is a real test of his management.
“But he has experienced tough times with Liverpool and Leicester before so it gives you experience and knowledge to deal with moments just like this. There is no secret and no shortcut to dealing with tough times as a manager sadly.
“The only thing that matters to Celtic or Rangers is just being better than the other. It doesn’t matter about the style of play, the formation, the players or anything like that – you simply have to be better than the other and winning games of football.
“Don’t forget, Brendan has had to deal with an awful lot of goals going out of the team. Jota leaving was huge, but then also injuries to Liel Abada and Daizen Maeda really harmed the squad – that’s almost 40 goals that has just left the team there. What has happened is that when they had the front three of Kyogo, Abada and Jota, that is a front three where all of them can score goals. Now, you have wingers in their place and they are not goalscorers, which is a huge difference.”
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