But we didn’t hold back from tackles just because it was David Beckham or Roy Keane We got stuck in. Against Arsenal it was the same, and Leeds away.”Holland departs for his son’s school, thanking you for coming to meet him. You wish him good fortune, but somehow you guess that this determined young man won’t be requiring any positive omens Not even the luck of the Irish.. The late Jock Stein was as shrewd at public relations as he was at tactics. Celtic’s legendary manager would, on the few occasions in his reign that Rangers grabbed more attention, carefully leak a story of a possible signing simply to steal his rivals’ thunder More often than not, it was fiction rather than fact. However, it worked, galvanising Celtic and their supporters, while Rangers never truly received the credit they deserved.

The late Jock Stein was as shrewd at public relations as he was at tactics. Celtic’s legendary manager would, on the few occasions in his reign that Rangers grabbed more attention, carefully leak a story of a possible signing simply to steal his rivals’ thunder More often than not, it was fiction rather than fact. However, it worked, galvanising Celtic and their supporters, while Rangers never truly received the credit they deserved.
It is often overlooked that during the Stein era of nine successive Scottish titles and the European Cup, Rangers played in the Cup-winners’ Cup final twice, winning the trophy in 1972. Yet, still it is described as a period of failure – perhaps it was Stein’s greatest confidence trick.Martin O’Neill is a disciple of the Big Man, having grown up as a Celtic supporter during the late 1960s.

If he is borrowing Stein’s philosophy, he may notice that the price of publicity has outstripped inflation. It cost Celtic £5.85m to secure Neil Lennon but their manager coveted the player who had been his alter ego on the pitch at Leicester City. The triumphant headlines and smiling faces that leapt out of newspapers from Parkhead on Friday morning were in stark contrast to those which clung to Rangers.Defeat by Kaiserslautern on Thursday brought not just elimination from the Uefa Cup, but a torrent of criticism. Sliding out of the Champions’ League a month before on a wafer-thin margin had been honourable, but a third defeat by German opposition in a year brought a public rebuke for Dick Advocaat. “The Buck stops with you, Dick,” screamed the Daily Record, in a reference to one of Kaiserslautern’s goal heroes, Andreas Buck. The paper’s reporter, David McCarthy, wrote frankly: “Advocaat has now had two bites at the European cherry in each of the last two seasons and choked on both. Out of two competitions by Christmas for the second year is damning evidence.”Rangers’ inept performance, especially defensively, in the Fritz Walter Stadion echoed their torment in the Scottish Premier League in their black October when they lost three successive games.