Stiliyan Petrov believes Celtic are so far ahead of their Scottish rivals they are capable of completing the treble for the next three years.
But the club’s former midfielder, who managed the feat as part of Martin O’Neill’s side in 2000-01, fears a lack of serious competition domestically could lead to Brendan Rodgers and his top players moving on to seek a greater challenge in England or abroad.
The Glasgow giants have the chance to complete the second leg of a clean sweep of domestic trophies on Sunday when they face Rangers in a Ladbrokes Premiership game at home.
If they beat their city rivals for the fourth time this term and finally sew up their seventh consecutive Scottish title they will then have the chance to make history.
A win over their top-flight rivals Motherwell in the William Hill Scottish Cup final at Hampden on May 19 would ensure Celtic become the first club to complete back-to-back trebles in this country.
However, former Bulgarian internationalist Petrov has predicted they can win the League Cup, League and Scottish Cup five years running.
“I think Celtic have got a chance to win the treble again next season as well,” said Petrov, who was back in Scotland last week to play in the John Hartson Charity Foundation golf day at Trump Turnberry.
“If Rangers keeps going the same way, they have a chance to do it over the next three years. We predicted it a year ago and they are going to do it strongly. I would say that it is sad in one way because, if we see that happen, Scottish football will lose its identity.
Read more: Rangers: Fans’ safety can’t be compromised after Easter Road ticket cut
“The advertising in Scottish football is Celtic vs Rangers. I come from a different country and every time the game came up, I’d watch it.
“The build-up, the excitement, the electricity. Everything. If that is lost, it would be very sad for Scottish football. I’m saying that as an outsider.”
Petrov reckons that could hasten the departure of Rodgers – who has been installed as one of the favourites to replace Arsene Wenger at Arsenal at the end of the season – and players like Moussa Dembele, Tom Rogic and Kieran Tierney.
The 38-year-old, who helped Celtic reach the UEFA Cup final in 2003, feels his old club may struggle to attract decent players to replace them if they continue to dominate in Scotland.
“Celtic have a lot of young, exciting players,” he said. “These players would like to improve and be challenged. If they are not challenged here, if they don’t have someone to push them, then they will go. Can you blame them? No.
“If someone comes for Moussa Dembele and he is not being challenged here then he will move on.
“People talk about Henrik Larsson, but he explained why he stayed. The push, the build-up, the physicality – everything about that Celtic v Rangers and how it was shown around the world – kept him here.
“If you don’t have that, how are you going to attract the good players to come to Scotland?”
Petrov continued: “Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to be a Celtic player at the moment because they are making history. You can only play what is put in front of you and they have a chance to do two trebles on the bounce.
“That is something that has never been done before so these players will be in the history books at Celtic. But they haven’t been challenged. And these players are good enough that they need to be challenged.”
Why are you making commenting on HeraldScotland only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel