Angelos Postecoglou’s Celtic went into the World Cup break with a comfortable nine point lead over Rangers, who are second in the table.
On Monday, the Ibrox club showed the exit door to Giovanni van Bronckhorst. The Dutchman has left the club a year after he was appointed as Steven Gerrard’s successor. His sacking at Rangers has been widely covered in the Netherlands.
We focus on Algemeen Dagblad’s coverage, where they cite the Rangers rivalry with Celtic as one of the reasons for the 47-year-old’s exit.
Van Bronckhorst helped Rangers beat Celtic in the Scottish FA Cup semi-final in April and it was his only success over their Glasgow rivals. He had also guided the club to the Europa League final last season, which they lost to Eintracht Frankfurt.
AD say Celtic ‘actually turned out to be too strong for Van Bronckhorst’s team’, which did not please the Ibrox club. In addition to this, Rangers never came close to competing for the title under the Dutchman’s orders, and this season Postecoglou is way ahead.
Despite winning the Scottish FA Cup last season and taking Rangers to the Europa League final, the Dutch newspaper says ‘only one thing really counts in Glasgow’ and that’s for Rangers to be better than Celtic.
AD add this is the criteria on which Van Bronckhorst has been judged and unfortunately, he failed to deliver, which has resulted in his exit.
