King: This why Celtic have huge advantage over Rangers, has another dig at Warburton
By Alex Stevens
Dave King has claimed Celtic have an “easy run” to the Champions League because of Rangers’ failure to match their spending last summer with results.
The Ibrox chairman said the board “consciously outspent” Aberdeen in terms of transfer fees and player salaries.
But King admitted some of the expensive acquisitions demanded by former manager Mark Warburton, namely Joey Barton, Niko Kranjcar and Philippe Senderos, failed to deliver the goods.
The result is that Celtic have maintained their stranglehold on the Scottish Premiership and Aberdeen have been their closest challengers.
“Celtic’s big advantage is getting an easy run at things like Champions League and Europe,” said King, as quoted by the Daily Record.
“That is the big money and they are getting a run at that because we are not there to take it away from them. We can only really bridge that gap on the field.”
King knows Rangers will have to spend money to catch the Scottish champions, who are closing in on sixth consecutive title and the possibility of a place in the money-spinning Champions League group stages if they make it through the summer qualifiers.
The Light Blues are currently 33 points adrift of Celtic and are also eight behind second-placed Aberdeen despite a bigger transfer budget.
King had another dig at Warburton and his management team for their recruitment last summer, when so many of the signings failed to pay dividends.
“The [Rangers] team has underperformed relative to the quality of what’s available,” added King to the Daily Record. “Having said that there were a lot of guys who weren’t playing. There has been injuries.
“There was also the fact the Joey Barton transfer didn’t work out, which was a large cost.
“We didn’t get the advantage this season of outspending Aberdeen.
“We were outspending them in wages but weren’t getting the guys out on the park. Senderos, Kranjcar and some of the youngsters got injured.
“We were consciously outspending Aberdeen, knowing we couldn’t match Celtic yet, but it wasn’t playing for us on the park.”
In other Rangers news, one of the club’s midfielders has agreed the terms of a mammoth new deal.
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