Former Rangers striker Billy Dodds offers surprising words of support for Celtic

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Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic side will surely face stiff competition from Steven Gerrard’s Rangers this season.

Former Rangers striker Billy Dodds sat down for an exclusive interview with the Daily Record, and insisted that Celtic still remain the team to beat this season, despite their poor recent run of form.

Dodds was part of Dick Advocaat’s Rangers team that won back-to-back league titles at the turn of the century, before being overhauled by Martin O’Neill’s Celtic side in the 2000/01 campaign.

The 49-year-old doesn’t foresee Celtic suffering the same fate this season, though.

Dodds spoke exclusively to the Daily Record, and highlighted Brendan Rodgers’ relationship with his players as a major reason why the Hoops will not collapse this season:

“It’s blown up a bit because Celtic have gone out of the Champions League and couldn’t defend at that level. But it hasn’t quite imploded like at Rangers after similar success in Dick Advocaat’s first two years. Dick did well for me and for 18 months it was great and then I was out the team but he didn’t handle fringe players well once they’d done a job for him. Brendan isn’t at that stage because the players love him so that’s a big difference but you can’t take winning the league for granted despite being the best team by far last season. The performance level is still there with Celtic. When it went wrong at Rangers that season you could see the contrast in the performance levels. There are problems at Celtic but there needs to be a bit of perspective. Nobody can tell me Celtic didn’t play well in Athens.”

After crashing out of the Champions League on Tuesday night, Celtic will be desperate to get their domestic season back on track, and Saturday’s trip to Partick Thistle will present them with the ideal opportunity to do just that.

Rangers currently sit one point ahead of their bitter rivals in the Scottish Premiership table, and Celtic will be determined to send a message to Steven Gerrard’s men this weekend that they are far from done this season.