Michael Beale makes surprising Rangers v Celtic claim | OneFootball

Michael Beale’s claim today that Rangers’ squad is as good as Celtic’s might sound like delusion, but it’s worth remembering that the past 6+ months have been far from an accurate reflection of this squad’s merits.

When we actually look at Rangers’ squad, fully-fit, it is a hell of a lot better than results and performances for a large portion of this year have suggested – the problem is that bad performances and results make a potentially £20M+ asset like Ryan Kent look weak and feeble.

It makes a potentially £20M+ striker like Alfredo Morelos look disinterested and a joke. And it makes a-once £20M asset like Borna Barisic seem ‘backwards’. These guys all suddenly appear £5M value ‘if they’re lucky’.

A team is only as good as it is playing and performing at any given time, only as valuable as results – it’s absolutely no secret Celtic, domestically, are getting the results and generally performances, so all the players they have are juiced out to their maximum values.

Look at Rangers earlier this year – we sold Patterson for £16M, final year Aribo for £10M and Bassey for £23M – back when the state of our squad seemed a lot better and fortune was favouring us more. Now that shoe is on Celtic’s foot, and it’s Michael Beale’s job to raise Rangers performances so that Kent is once again properly a £20M winger, that Morelos gets up to his £20M range, that Barisic looks valuable.

Because Rangers’ squad is definitely not as bad as it’s looked in recent times. I mean, if we include injuries here, we’re talking Helander, Goldson, Davies, Ridvan, Souttar, Hagi, Lawrence and one or two others – these bulk up the squad standard by a significant amount, and the ex-boss was denied most of them for most of his time at Ibrox.

Is Beale wrong? He’s got no way of proving he’s right unless he does so with results. But we can see the logic behind the Rangers manager claiming Celtic aren’t much better.

Has to show it on the park, do the business and a little bit less of the talking.