‘They look almost impossible to beat’ - Ex-Celtic star backs old club to complete clean sweep of trophies

Former Celtic midfielder and Open Goal pundit Paul Slane reckons his old club will complete a clean sweep of domestic trophies this season if they continue to maintain their impressive performance levels.

The reigning Scottish champions eventually managed to see off Hearts 4-3 in a gripping Premiership match at Tynecastle as VAR took centre stage on a historic weekend for Scottish football.

Slane has been hugely impressed by the style of football adopted by manager Ange Postecoglou and believes his side will be incredibly difficult to stop this season.

He told Grosvenor Sport: “You never know and we’ve got to remember that even though Celtic have played much better football, Rangers are only two points behind in the league and they’ll be delighted with that.

“When it comes down to the cup competitions Celtic will be favourites but when you look at last season, Celtic were six points clear in the league, Rangers were playing every week in Europe and it came to the Scottish Cup semi-finals and Rangers beat Celtic.

“You never know what will happen in cup competitions but I think it’ll be very hard to stop Celtic from being successful. Going to Fir Park in a cup tie is always going to be difficult but Celtic were unbelievable and when they play as they have done in the last two games, they look almost impossible to beat. Teams don’t know how to set up against them.”

Across the city, Slane reckons it will be interesting to see if Steven Gerrard would be open to a return to Rangers if the Ibrox club decide to part ways with Giovanni van Bronckhorst.

The former Aston Villa boss was sacked by the Midlands club in the wake of their 3-0 Premier League defeat to Fulham in midweek and with Van Bronckhorst under increasing pressure amid a poor run of performances, Gerrard has been touted for a second spell in Glasgow.

Slane admitted: “Every Old Firm manager is under pressure in every single game to win and play a certain way and because the performances haven’t been great for Rangers, the pressure will be on Giovanni van Bronckhorst. I don’t think there will be any rash decisions but I think they’ll review things come the World Cup break.

“I think Gio will be fine, I think he’ll keep his job but if things don’t improve then they will fall away in the league. It would be interesting to see if Rangers fans would take Steven Gerrard back at the club because although he won the league title with them, there was a lot of anger when he left and it was all very sour so it’ll be interesting to see what the fans would think about that.”