The Times Sport - UK (2020-08-01)

Football Sport

the times | Saturday August 1 2020 2GS 9

Newcastle United look set to start next
season still under Mike Ashley’s un-
popular ownership despite club chiefs
saying he is committed to selling.
A Saudi Arabia-backed consortium
pulled out of a £305 million buyout
yesterday after failing to gain Premier
League approval, mainly because of the
country’s facilitating of pirate broad-
casts of English top-flight football.
Hopes of a new takeover by a rival
American consortium appear slim and
Lee Charnley, Newcastle’s managing

Ashley still ‘committed’ to Saudi buyout

director, said the club would now focus

on buying new players for the manager,

Steve Bruce. However, Charnley insist-

ed that Ashley, owner of the Sports

Direct chain, remained committed to

the Saudi deal. “We acknowledge yes-

terday’s statement,” Charnley said.

“Never say never, but to be clear Mike

Ashley is 100 per cent committed to this

deal. However, our current focus must

now be on the transfer market and on

preparations for the new season.”

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund

PIF had been due to take 80 per cent

of the club, with 10 per cent each to

Amanda Staveley’s PCP Capital

Partners and the Reuben brothers.

The collapse of the deal came as a

blow to fans, who are desperate for Ash-

ley to sell the club. No bid has been

lodged by the American consortium

and Staveley told The Times they never

had to deal with any rival bid. Ashley’s

chances of finding a new buyer are likely

to be hampered by the economic uncer-

tainty caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Premier League buyouts either

need very deep pockets or a high degree

of borrowing,” Rob Wilson, a football

finance expert at Sheffield Hallam

University, said. “There is risk asso-

ciated with the latter in an unsteady

market, hence with no Saudi

acquisition it looks difficult.”

Moore to leave Liverpool role

Billy Hogan is to be promoted to the

role of Liverpool chief executive, with

Peter Moore set to leave the club.

Moore’s three-year contract is not

being renewed and he will leave the

club at the end of this month after help-

ing Hogan, who is the managing direct-

or and chief commercial officer at

Anfield, through a transition period.

Moore said he had “mixed emotions”

to be leaving as part of a reshuffle in the

Premier League champions’ hierarchy

that cements the standing of the

American-born Hogan, who has

worked for the owner, Fenway Sports

Group, since 2004.

Hogan moved to Liverpool in 2012

and has been responsible for trans-

forming the club’s commercial strategy.

He negotiated the new kit deal with

Nike which officially begins today.

The contract, which Liverpool

pushed through after a High Court

battle with their former supplier New

Balance, is guaranteed to make the club

£30 million a year.

Moore, a lifelong Liverpool sup-

porter, joined the club in the summer of

2017 from the gaming company

Electronic Arts, replacing Ian Ayre.

Martyn Ziegler
Chief Sports Reporter

Paul Joyce

Northern Football Correspondent

Today

Aberdeen v Rangers (12.30)

Dundee United v St Johnstone

(3pm)

Hibernian v Kilmarnock (3pm)

St Mirren v Livingston (3pm)

Tomorrow

Celtic v Hamilton Academical

(4.30pm)

Monday

Ross County v Motherwell

(7.45pm)

Opening weekend

the Boat Race. Without their vast

supports filling every ground the

Glasgow teams may be vulnerable to

some surprise results in the opening

weeks behind closed doors.

Aberdeen must bridge a £3.8 million

funding deficit because of Covid but

they should still have the resources

to finish third ahead of Hibernian,

whose £250,000 outlay on

Dunfermline striker Kevin Nisbet was

unusually large for a club outside the

Old Firm. Dundee United are back in

the top flight for the first time since

2016. Incredibly their place was
      confirmed only on Monday when
      Hearts failed in a legal bid to
      overturn their relegation, having been
      only four points adrift with eight
      games left when the season ended
      prematurely. United should
      comfortably stay up under new
      manager Micky Mellon.
      The smallest club in the top flight,
      Hamilton Academical, enter their
      seventh Premiership campaign in a
      row. Hamilton start tomorrow, away
      to Celtic: two clubs in the same
      division and different worlds.

Rodgers and Fraser Forster could

walk away from the club rather than

hang around for “the ten”. In fact

players and managers are largely

unmoved by it compared to those

coming through the turnstiles and

they understandably follow the

money.

If the pressure on Gerrard and his

players to stop ten is great, there is

also strain on Neil Lennon and his

side to deliver an achievement which

has been pre-celebrated by

supporters. Mohamed Elyounoussi

has re-signed on another loan from

Southampton and £5.5 million, a

Scottish record fee for a goalkeeper,

went on landing Greece international

Vasilis Barkas when Forster opted not

to extend his loan. Celtic are proven

winners with mental strength as well

as a greater spread of goalscorers

than Rangers, having scored 25 more

in the league. Celtic should reach the

emotional peak of their cherished ten

and leave Rangers crushed.

For the rest of Scotland, ten in a

row is as relevant as Oxford or

Cambridge having a winning streak in

opening game away at Aberdeen

could be one of his last.

Gerrard is the only Rangers

manager to keep his job after winning

nothing in his first two full

campaigns. He has handled the Ibrox

job calmly and been impressive in

Europe but he understands Glasgow

and knows he is judged against Celtic,

who have won every domestic trophy

available in his time. The Old Firm

environment chews up losing

managers. It is hard to see Gerrard

lasting beyond the season if Celtic get

their ten.

Deals are being worked on but so

far the £3 million Rangers spent to

convert Ianis Hagi’s loan to a

permanent transfer from Genk is

the only move that affects their

strongest XI. Without reinforcements,

they do not convince as likely

champions. They lack goalscorers

and have yet to prove that their

consistency or nerve would hold if

the title race stretched into the

closing weeks.

It mystifies some Celtic fans that

the likes of Kieran Tierney, Brendan

The new Scottish season will begin in
deserted stadiums and end with one
Old Firm club feeling desolate and
empty inside. The SPFL Premiership
begins today and for a while the
narrative will be about games behind
closed doors, Covid-19 tests, the fear
of infection and postponements and
fake crowd noise fed into the
broadcasting output.
The plan is for supporters to be
allowed back into grounds from
September 14, in a trickle at first until
there can be the usual waves of them.
But it isn’t for the novelty factor that
almost 100,000 Celtic and Rangers
fans have snapped up season tickets
when not a single one of them will be
permitted to watch their team in the
first weeks of action. For the Old
Firm legions this isn’t the campaign
of Covid; it’s the season to get —
or to prevent — “the ten”.
Celtic and Rangers measure their
successes against each other and
gradually that has been amplified by
their joint retreat as significant forces
capable of going deep into the Europe
competitions.
Their duopoly has dominated
Scottish football for most of the past
13 decades but occasionally one reigns
alone. While both have won nine
consecutive Scottish league titles —
Celtic from 1965 to 1974 under Jock
Stein, Rangers from 1988 to 1997
under Graeme Souness and Walter
Smith — neither has reached ten.
Celtic will make history if they
complete the feat this season. Their
fans have been chanting about it
since about title number five.
This is the fifth summer of the
same general question being asked
about Scotland’s title race. Can
Rangers stop six? No. Can they stop
seven? No. Can they stop eight? No.
Can they stop nine? No. So can they
stop 10? The answer is yes they can,
but they probably won’t. After play
was halted by the pandemic, last
season’s Premiership was terminated
by a vote of the SPFL board.
Celtic were declared champions
on the basis that their average points
per game was superior (2.67 to
Rangers’ 2.31) after what turned out
to be the final set of games in March.
Celtic were 13 points clear with eight
games left.
Had Covid shut the season down

six weeks earlier, ie at the mid-season

break in January, Rangers would have

been declared champions if the same

points-per-game measure was applied

(2.63 to 2.6).

Who cares about that, Celtic can

say, but it does show that for half a

season Rangers more than matched

them. Under Steven Gerrard, Rangers

have won Old Firm derbies home and

away but twice finished a distant

second in the league. In his third

campaign in Scotland it is up to the

club’s iconic 40-year-old leader to

make sense of an unfathomable

collapse in the second half of the

season — for the second year in a row

— in which they won only half of

their last ten games.

Their on-field talisman is still with

them, but probably not for much

longer. Alfredo Morelos’s 60 goals

over the past two seasons carried

Rangers, especially in two impressive

Europa League runs that did much

to enhance Gerrard’s managerial

reputation. Lille want Morelos and if

they meet the near £20 million asking

price his appearance in today’s spicy

Can Gerrard stop Celtic’s perfect ten?

Rangers manager is

unlikely to stay in his job

if Old Firm rivals reach

historic landmark,

writes Michael Grant

CRAIG WILLIAMSON/SNS

Gerrard celebrates Old Firm success

with Borna Barisic in December but

Celtic still won the Scottish title, left