Where Ange Postecoglou ranks among Celtic and Rangers title turnarounds when compared to Steven Gerrard, Martin O'Neill and Wim Jansen

It is indisputable that, in the modern period of Scottish football, there hasn’t been a top flight triumph quite like that achieved by Ange Postecoglou’s Celtic this season.

Never before have the winners of the championship overturned a 25-point deficit from the previous campaign; never before have they been so comprehensively remade by an unfancied managerial appointment that nine of their first choice XI arrived in the previous 10 months.

Considering that Postecoglou and his, largely, newbies were ranged against a Rangers that hadn’t lost a league game the entire previous season, there has been a rush to paint this reversal of fortunes as beyond any witnessed in the 37 years the Glasgow behemoths have monopolised the Scottish game’s most prized silverware.

It is understandable for such a claim to be made, but it is contestable. For one, there was a freakish element to how the championship panned out in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions of 2020-21, which led to all games being played behind closed doors. Without question, Steven Gerrard’s triumphant team were phenomenal. However, there were so many abnormal situations that handicapped their rivals in chasing a record 10th title - denied key personnel for crucial games through where they sat on buses, planes and even simply when on a Playstation - the gap between the two clubs was exaggerated by circumstances. Moreover, although Postecoglou was shorn of three Celtic mainstays as Kristoffer Ajer, Odsonne Eduoard and Ryan Christie departed from the paper-thin squad, in replacing them he had a spending power that outstripped that of Rangers. As well as the country’s biggest salary bill…even if only 27% higher than their bitter rivals.

Financial advantages