Celtic fans deserve better than the Record’s Rangers love-in
The Record’s glowing Raskin–McInnes feature offers sentiment when Rangers’ record demands scrutiny.
Phillip Cooney 
The Daily Record’s Rangers love-in has reached the point where Celtic supporters could be forgiven for expecting wedding invitations.
Scott McDermott’s latest celebration of Nicolas Raskin and Derek McInnes opens by suggesting it would have been a “travesty” had their paths never crossed at Ibrox.
A travesty. That is the language being used about a footballer potentially changing employers.
What follows reads, to me, like a Rangers publicity department’s dream: affection, understanding, reassurance and the promise of better days. The hard questions barely disturb the mood.
The Rangers love-in leaves out the awkward context
Only last month, the Record reported Raskin’s admission: “I was mentally ready to leave.”
He was disappointed that a move had not happened. Now we are invited to admire how right it feels that he remained.
That contrast deserves examination. A player staying after hoping to leave is hardly the irresistible romance McDermott’s introduction makes it sound.
Yet the emotional packaging dominates. McInnes understands him. Raskin feels valued. Everything points towards a happier tomorrow.
Where is the same energy for examining what Rangers have actually achieved?
European failure deserves more than a footnote
McInnes’s Rangers lost to Jagiellonia Bialystok in Europa League qualifying. Then Jablonec ended their Conference League campaign.
Two opportunities. Two failures. European football finished before September.
Those results should sit squarely beside any glowing assessment of the manager’s work. Instead, this feature gives us warmth where searching questions would be considerably more useful.
McInnes’s managerial honours comprise two second-tier league titles and Aberdeen’s 2014 League Cup. His record contains no Scottish top-flight championship.
That is the record against which this praise should be measured.
McDermott also acknowledges that Raskin has yet to get his hands on Rangers silverware, having missed their 2023 League Cup triumph.
Nevertheless, Raskin’s ambition stretches to both cups and the league. Fine. Ambition is easy to announce in an interview. Delivering it is the difficult part.
Celtic supporters deserve scrutiny, not salesmanship
Going into this weekend’s fixtures, Rangers were four points behind Celtic, following a 2–2 draw at Dundee.
There is a title race. There is also a substantial gap between describing that race and wrapping its challengers in this much sentiment.
My frustration with Scottish mainstream football coverage is precisely this: access to a player should produce insight. It should never require the reader to supply the missing scrutiny.
I have demanded answers over Celtic’s European decline and O’Neill’s coaching operation. Rangers deserve equally uncomfortable questions.
Instead, the Record serves up another helping of reassurance, with disappointment softened and future success doing the work of present achievement.
If Rangers want a feel-good brochure, they can publish one themselves. A newspaper should make them answer questions.
