The great Celtic gamble

There’s a wave of optimism spreading across the east end of Glasgow.

Tony Mowbray has strengthened his side considerably, bringing in three strikers and two defenders as he continues the chase for his first league title since becoming Celtic boss. The gap between Mowbray and Walter Smith remains ten points, but with Rangers selling rather than buying, can Robbie Keane and the rest of the new Bhoys make the difference between a league title and possibly a very expensive gamble?

As the Scottish transfer window closed at midnight, there was a lot of fuss around Parkhead. The club had been extraordinarily busy in the January transfer window, bringing in another three ‘big name’ signings. Season-long loan signings Diomansy Kamara, Edson Braafheid and, most spectacularly of all Robbie Kean have all been trying on their new Celtic top this week. Together with Jos Hooiveld (£2 million), Ki Sung-Yeung (£2.1 million), Morten Rasmussen (undisclosed), Paul Slane (undisclosed) and Thomas Rogne (Bosman), all signed earlier during the transfer window, there’s quite a lot of new faces at Parkhead.

Across the great divide, it was an altogether quieter night at Ibrox. Much as expected, there were no dramatic last-minute transfers and no surprise signings. It’s safe to assume that for all involved at Ibrox it was a good evening. No new players were brought in, true, but more importantly, there was not the great exodus that the club had feared. Pedro Mendes aside (he’s away back to Portugal in a £1m transfer deal), Kris Boyd, Alan McGregor, Madjid Bougherra and Steven Davis all remained at the club; the English raiding parties that had been circling Ibrox instead choosing to stay away, preferring to wait until the summer to pick up the likes of Boyd for free.

For Rangers, the contrast between themselves and Celtic could not have been greater.

For the third transfer window in a row, the fax machines in the Ibrox board room have been silent as the club tries to work its way out of the financial troubles it finds itself in. Until a buyer is found for the club – and none have come forward so far to even register interest – it’s likely that Walter Smith will be waving more players off down Edmiston Drive in the coming years.

So while the Rangers management might have been happy with the club reasonably intact, the Rangers fans must be concerned that their rivals across the river are now a serious threat. You can’t help but think that the 10-point gap - a gap which looked reasonably secure for this site to proclaim the season as being effectively over – suddenly looks a lot smaller.

But should Rangers fans be worried?

The loss of Pedro Mendes, a quality player right enough can be absorbed in a midfield that has options; Lee McCulloch, good for four goals this season, Kevin Thomson and even Maurice Edu can slot into the space vacated by Mendes, while the retention of Steven Davis will be welcome news. Nevertheless, with injuries a constant worry for Smith, he’d probably have wanted to bring in a left-sided midfielder, if only on loan, with the money freed up by Mendes’ departure.

Up front, there’s no denying the quality of Kris Boyd (the SPL’s all-time top scorer) and Kenny Miller, good for 31 league goals between them. Contrast this with Scott McDonald, Celtic’s top scorer this season with 10 goals, who has just been sold to Middlesboroug. Defensively Rangers have come in for some criticism, but the line is holding – Rangers have the tightest defence in the league, with only 14 goals conceded, 9 less than Celtic.

Tony Mowbray now faces a challenge to fit his new players into his team. Diomansy Kamara is a name familiar to Tony Mowbray – the Senegalese striker was part of Mowbray’s West Bromwich Albion side. Completing the revamp of Celtic’s attack is Morten Rasmussen, signed from Danish side Brondby, for whom the 25-year old has been scoring with some regularity – he got his Celtic career off to a flyer with the winning goal against Hamilton Accies last Saturday.

Robbie Keane is a legend of course, and a real coup. A self confessed Celtic fan, the Irish national team captain has a string of clubs and success behind him, most notably in his first spell at Spurs. His career took a bit of a swerve with that largely disastrous move to Liverpool, and since his return to Spurs he’s been largely keeping the bench warm. Harry Rednapp admits that Keane needs playing time, time he won’t get at Spurs with Jermaine Defoe and Peter Crouch being the preferred strikers.

Celtic pulled out all the stops to bring Keane to Glasgow; Keane is reputedly earning £65,000-a-week in wages at Spurs, a tab that is being picked up by Celtic, an amount that probably far outstrips any other player at the club. But the money is probably worth it; there’s no denying the man’s talents especially against the more fragile defenses seen in the SPL, but there’s also no denying the immense pressure on Keane to score the goals and secure the wins Celtic need to keep up the title chase.

So, those are the players, those are the facts. But the crucial question is whether any of this will make any difference to the outcome of the league campaign?

The truth is that Rangers, with a squad that has remained more or less intact through the transfer window will be playing pretty much the same teams as before. It’s hard to imagine Smith worrying about Steven McLean or Jim Paterson, the Plymouth pair who joined Aberdeen yesterday, or Scott Severin and Rob Keirnan at Kilmarnock; as long as Rangers keep winning, the league title is theirs to lose.

As I see it, there are two possible ways that Rangers will foul up what appears to be a pretty solid lead. One, by going on a bad run of form and two, by suffering a massive injury crisis.

A bad run of form is possible in as much as it's possible for Celtic too. After all, bringing in so many new players in the middle of a season is bound to unsettle any team - it'll be a test of Mowbray's management skills to make his array of talent gell, and gell quickly.

But Rangers have only lost one game all season (against Aberdeen) and on paper at least anyway face a reasonably easy run in to the league split. Of the teams they've still to face between here and 10 April, only Celtic, Hibs, Dundee United and possibly a rejuvenated Hearts under new manager Jim Jefferies could lead to a loss of points. The remaining games will see them face Kilmarnock, Hamilton, St Johnstone and St Mirren.

The chance of that bad run of form is heightened by the second possible way in which Rangers could still fluff it up, namely injures.

There where scares earlier in the season when Kris Boyd was forced to undergo a hernia operation; he was expected to be out for several weeks but his recovery has gone quicker than had been hoped and the clubs top scorer looks set to be available again in time for the game against Hibernian on Valentines Day. Likewise, Kenny Miller, DeMarcus Beasly and Maurice Edu all look set to return around the same time, easing Smith's injury worries.

Where the differences will come is in the two remaining Old Firm games of the season, the first of which takes place at the end of this month, with the second after the league split in April. It is in those games that Celtic have the chance to narrow the gap to four points, assuming both sides win all their games between now and the end of the season. And no matter how solid Rangers' form might be at the moment, footballs is a funny old game, and slip-ups do happen.

Mowbray knows that he’s only got the rest of the season to make the best of his latest signings and quite possibly his own future. While being the manager of one half of Scotland's footballing elite brings many rewards, it also brings tremendous pressure: there's a big difference between keeping a side that no one expects to survive in the Premiership and winning the title.

The gamble for Mowbray then is whether his expensive new signing(s) will bring him the league title, or failure and the financial impact it brings. His bravery at splashing out as much as he has is to be admired, for being manager of Celtic is a thankless task: just ask Gordon Strachan. His new signings - and especially Keane - need to make a big impact. Failure is not an option, not in the eyes of the fans or the board. Anything less than a league win with the squad now at his disposal may well cost Mowbray his job, and the money spent, particularly on Keane's wages could put Celtic's finances back years.

As an Aberdeen fan, it makes no odds to me who wins the league. Quite frankly, it's two sides of the same coin. But wat I'd like to see, aside from Aberdeen putting together a miraculous, if unlikely run of form to finish fourth, is an exciting end to the season; a nail-biting final day do-or-die round of games.

I can't see it happening to be honest. Celtic may have the players, but Rangers have the lead.

As a neutral, what I do hope for is that Keane & Co give us back a bit of glamour to the game, in the same way that Larsson - a previous owner of Keane's number 7 shirt, along with Dalglish and Johnstone - did. If nothing else, it would liven up our Saturdays to see a truly great player ply his trade north of the border.

And goodness knows Scottish football could do with some glamour.