Structure, control and stability amidst the chaos of Scottish football is why Brendan Rodgers and Celtic will continue to reign supreme over Rangers.
Gary Holt believes no amount of changing of the guard at Ibrox will shift the status quo from a club so ahead of the game compared to the anarchy engulfing their rivals on the opposite side of the city. Rodgers has added Michael Beale to a list of managerial casualties which include Mark Warburton, Graeme Murty and Pedro Caixinha and the onetime Hoops midfielder expects that list to extend into the future.
Holt has seen the other side of the chaos coin during a spell under Lou Macari and Tommy Burns back in the 1990s when gaffers came and went at Parkhead in a similar regularity now being witnessed with the Light Blues. But the former Livingston and Falkirk boss believes both Rodgers factor and forward planning is such that the Rangers recruitment process is already doomed to failure.
He said: “There is a structure and a continuity plan in place at Celtic regardless of who the manager is. The culture of a club should be of massive importance, it allows everyone to buy into exactly what it is trying to do.
“The manager then goes hand and hand with the beliefs of the club and Celtic have that with Rodgers, it’s been a seamless transition from life after Ange Postecoglou and much of that is down to the structures already time served and in place.
“Rodgers talks about an ethos and about what Celtic are trying to achieve and I look at the infrastructure, the backroom staff, the different elements within the business side of things and the football department and it’s a well oiled machine. It shouldn’t be forgotten the troubles Celtic had to reach this point.”
Holt is convinced the template for the success Celtic are now enjoying was put in place by a club legend and is being carried on by coaching servants which is a contradiction to the constant upheaval at Rangers. He said: “Tommy Burns was the catalyst for what Celtic are all about and his mark can still be felt at the club.
“You can trace the current success all the way back to when he came back to the club in 2000 and worked in a variety of roles under Martin O’Neill and then Gordon Strachan. The value of having a backroom structure has been continued with Chris McCart, Stephen McManus, John Kennedy and Gavin Strachan all being a part of the club for a while now. Some of those guys have been there for over a decade. There’s no huge turnover or upheaval and that’s a huge benefit.
“Kennedy, Strachan, Stevie Woods and Harry Kewell are mainstays and even with a change of manager this summer they are instrumental in the workings of the club.”
The Burns legacy is also about loyalty and Holt recalls a Celtic side which he signed for which mirrors the current crisis at Rangers and of a club rudderless both on the field and off it.
He said: “When I signed for Celtic they were a kind of basket case club in a similar way Rangers are at the moment, it was a club trying to find an identity and managers were coming and going but then Fergus McCann arrived and a foundation was laid for progress and for the future. Everyone began moving in the right direction and in the one direction.
“It’s been built on since then and look at the success they have had. That has been fundamental to that success and look at clubs who chop and change in pursuit of success. You can relate that to Manchester United and how they have been all over the shop trying to find a winning formula with manager after manager.
“The lack of discipline, lack of club ethos and the lack of everyone pulling in the one direction in the way they had under Alex Ferguson and in the way Celtic are under Rodgers and before him is clear to see.”
Celtic’s success under Rodgers has only served to accelerate the revolving door to the manager’s office at Rangers and he’s adamant Beale’s successor shouldn’t get too comfortable once he gets his feet under the table.
He said: “I’ve been in the opposite dugout to Rodgers as a manager and watched him up close and he’s a superb tactician. He was superb during his first spell and that was taken on by Postecoglou and Rodgers has come back and enhanced that again.
“Celtic don’t need to change things which are working, they install people into positions which suit them and they work to the traditions of the club and they understand the club. Rangers have had none of that in recent years so whoever comes in is starting from a standing start and is on a hiding to nothing but there needs to be a starting point.
“You can only see domestic success for Celtic in the foreseeable future. Beale has now left and he’s taken a four man backroom team with him so whoever comes in will bring in his staff and the cycle inevitably repeats itself. When Postecoglou came in he brought nobody with him and eventually recruited Kewell who is still in place and when Rodgers came in he brought in nobody. That tells its own story.
“We won’t know if Beale could have built a legacy at Rangers as you don’t get time if you fail but I like him, he’s a good guy but the truth is he was always up against it, especially a Celtic side under Rodgers.”
