Former Rangers star clings onto fading title chances with escalating radio rant his colleagues just aren't having
Former Rangers keeper Cammy Bell wasn't ready to admit his old team are out of the Premiership title race - much to the skepticism of his colleagues live on air.
The Ibrox side go into the international break nine points behind runaway top two Celtic and Aberdeen after a rough start to the season. Brendan Rodgers' Hoops, the defending champions, are overwhelming favourites to retain the title, and there's a growing feeling that Rangers have it all to do to even finish second with the Dons currently joint top on 31 points.
Speaking on Clyde 1 Superscoreboard, Bell, who made 57 appearances for Gers between 2013 and 2016, mentioned a couple of times that he felt it was too early to write them off as possible challengers. One caller pressed him on that, and host Gordon Duncan zeroed in, asking him to clarify what he meant, and if he actually felt they could still win the league.
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Bell said: "There's a lot of football still to be played. There will be bumps in the road for Celtic. They could go unbeaten, but there's going to be challenges ahead. The longer they go on in Europe, which is their big challenge, they'll want to get into the knockout stages of the Champions League.
"It's going to need to be an incredible turnaround if it was to happen. But there's so much football still to play."
He was on air with fellow former Ger Gordon Dalziel who was equally curious. He asked if he felt Rangers were on the sort of form where they could capitalise if Celtic did hit a bump in the road, and Bell replied: "I can't. But I still think there's enough football to play for there to be some sort of turnaround."
Dalziel then went to make his next point before Bell abruptly cut in: "Aberdeen! We're saying Celtic are too good of the league at the moment, but they're sitting joint top at the moment. So they're not sitting on their own. Aberdeen drew with them at Celtic Park, so why are we writing Aberdeen off?"
And Dalziel then replied: "They deserve all the plaudits in the world. But over the course of the season, Celtic are far too good. Rangers won't get there, and Aberdeen won't get there either, let's be honest with ourselves.
"Chances of Rangers catching Celtic? None. Zero per cent, not a chance."