Playing as Rangers or Celtic - Who's first to come 3rd?

I'm in the year 2015 in my Rangers game (I'm not a fan, but they seem to be the only team I can actually score goals and win games with.)

Anyway, I've won the league every single year since I took over, and Celtic have always come second, the closest they came to 3rd was a few years ago when Hibernian got 83 points while Celtic got 85, however Hibs have since slipped up and two seasons later they are 10 points behind Celtic in February.

I really don't see a change in this at all, while I beat Celtic nearly every time, they also beat every other team nearly everytime. I really want Hibs to take over Celtic in 2nd, but I guess the only way might be to buy one of their players for millions, giving them a bit of cash to spend.

I'd like responses from people who played as Rangers or Celtic, because I'm sure there are some good people on here who like, won the league with Hibs or something.

Ibrox is a 70000 seater now

Iv seen hearts pull off 2nd a few times in the early years, but then they seem to sell up their top players and replace with coca cola league one, dried up scotsmen such as Martin Woods or whoever.

never seen it in my games, aways just rangers and celtic. maybe take over hibernian and do it yourself

In my current save I've yet to manage in the SPL and it's 2021, but as I'm Scottish and a Celtic fan I keep a close eye on it.

Hearts have just won their 4th title, and Aberdeen have one, Hibs have just won Div 1.

While Celtic are still the dominant force they once finished 7th, but won the title the season after. Ranges finished 8th season just gone and havn't won the league in last 7 attempts. Have to point out that their cup form is still steady and they will still be in the Uefa Cup next season despite the bottom half finish.

In my save neither team won it between 2012 and 2015. I'm a Rangers fan so I followed their progress in my game and in 2016 they came 8th with David Moyes in charge.

Strachan got fired, went to Toon, and Moyes was put in charge of Celtic (which was good because ever since I've been able to bang in like, 5 goals when I play Celtic)

Originally posted by JAStewart:

Strachan got fired,

He got fired in mine as well, then went on to manage AC Milan and Valencia Luckily for Milan fans, they replaced him with Billy Davies in 2016.

Rangers were relegated in my Celtic save in 2017. In late January 2015 I noticed in the news that Rangers had made bids on 4 players. Having already completed my planned transfers that window and still having over 90 million to spend, I decided to be mean and block Rangers transfers. I made outrageous bids for the players they wanted and used player interaction to chat them up. All of Rangers bids were rejected and mine were accepted. I didn't have anywhere to actually play these guys so I never offered them contracts and just let the transfer window close. It was too late for Rangers to go after different targets. I took a look at their roster and saw that they had sold off their best 24-26 year olds to bigger clubs and were left with aging vets and kids not yet ready to play. Their morale went way down and they slipped to 4th in the league.

After that season, their manager resigned and at least half of their players requested transfers. I blocked their targets again that summer; this time having to actually aquire a couple of the players, but oh well. Rangers still had a ton of money, so I figured they'd be back eventually as I couldn't keep blocking them forever. For some reason though they didn't try to make any moves that January I deemed worthy of blocking and they quietly finished 7th in the league.

I thought they would have to make some big moves in the summer of 2016 as their best players were really getting on in years, but Rangers were very quiet and stood relatively pat for the season. Bad idea on their part. That season they finished the league with something like 11 points in last place and were relegated. Surprisingly, they didn't pop right back up the next season. I stopped playing that save at that point, but I imagine I'll get back to it someday. Just wanted to try something different, but I am curious how long it will be until Rangers get themselves promoted back to the SPL and if they can regain their former stature. I think I just managed to mess with them at the perfect time to send them into a tailspin.

I think Hibs fans might argue with your theory that Celtic and Rangers buying their players for big money will improve them...

Anyway, in the one game I played as Celtic, Rangers fell away badly after the third season or so, only to come back strongly and push me for the title after 6 or 7 years. Never had the pleasure of seeing them relegated.

Agree that a better option would be to take over one of the other teams yourself. Certainly in older versions it wasn't as hard as you'd imagine to break the duopoly.

Celtic finished 3rd second season in my current save

I love the feature where your assistant manager tells you if a player 'isn't looking their usual self in training' because they want to move to a bigger club.. I just offer them the longest contract and they accept! I've had Lulinha, Ever Banega and Sinama-Pongolle for over 7 years now.

Sinama-Pongolle has scored more goals than he has made in league appearances (well over 300)

I holidayed a game in the SPL from the start to about 2020, during that time Celtic won the league from 2008-2015, Rangers, Aberdeen and Dundee United won it once and Falkirk won it twice.

During the time that Celtic never won it they constantly finished in the bottom half of the table

Kancit5667 you are like THE most evil man i know, but i love you for it. That's like the greatest thing ever...i'll be trying that one day. In answer to the question, Hibs and Motherwell are the strongest outside the top 2. I'm in my 5th season, moved to Juventus after 3 years of glory with Celtic, and there were times when Hibs and Motherwell outshone Rangers. I won the league cup and championship in my 1st season, and got beat in Scottish Cup final 4-0 by a dominant motherwell...so that shows there's some good quality out there...

I've seen Rangers and Celtic go 5 years without winning the SPL. It was daft teams that won it.

Falkirk, St.Mirren and then Kilmarnock done 3 in a row before i quit leeds to take over Rangers. Who where on level points with Gretna (I think) on 11th place. I had to save them.

PS. Come on Lafferty!

Im always Rangers and had Celtic do shockin in one season yet to win all their last few games to be 10 points behind me, maybe its rigged they just always come around there.

I have had Hearts come second, but that was 07.

Kinda realistic but some of the teams are gettin stronger in my game cause Im loanin some wonderkids out to them.

During my 5 seasons at Celtic it was always Ranger running 2nd. By the time I left to join Chelsea I had built up a team that would just about win the Premiership so Celtic remained on top for the next 4 or so years with rangers still running 2nd every year. Thats the position I'm currently at in this save. Currently jobless I'm considering taking over one of the other Scottish teams and trying to overthrow the all conquering Celtic team which is still 80% my players (the rest i took with me to Chelsea) currently being managed by Martin O'Neill

i think celtic are better than rangers in the game so people managing celtic are more likely to see a downfall in rangers. i dont think it will be this way in the next game.

Originally posted by gcormack:

i think celtic are better than rangers in the game so people managing celtic are more likely to see a downfall in rangers. i dont think it will be this way in the next game.

It makes sense for it to have been this way though, given the mess Rangers were in last season. I agree that both sides will probably start on a level playing field come FM 09, after the close run season we've just had.