SOCCER ANGLES:While Celtic live the Champions League high life, Rangers struggle in Scotland's basement, writes MICHAEL WALKER

JUXTAPOSITION: say it a certain way and it could be a Basque midfielder playing for Athletic Bilbao.

But say it another way, in Glasgow, in the context of Scottish football, and it is rather different. Folk there would understand, though, because the sensation is increasingly familiar on the Clyde. It was felt again this week.

On Thursday evening as Rangers fans – 26,000 of them – began making their way to Ibrox for a Scottish League Cup game against Falkirk, Celtic supporters were tuning in to events in Monaco, where the draw for the group stage of the Champions League was being made. As Rangers digested Falkirk’s line-up, Celtic were making plans to host Benfica, Spartak Moscow and most gloriously of all, Barcelona.

Celtic will mark their return to the group stages after four years away with a game at home to Benfica – and all the Lisbon chatter that will entail – on September 19th.

That same midweek, yesterday re-scheduled to Tuesday 18th, Rangers will be involved in an advanced state of another competition, the Ramsdens Cup. You may not have heard of it as it does not include SPL clubs.

Rangers’ state means that as Neil Lennon conducts his pre-match press conference at Parkhead and gives his thoughts on Benfica, at Ibrox they will be preparing to meet Queen of the South.

Benfica. Queen of the South.

Rangers fans irritated by the inevitable comparison will be irked further by the knowledge that, the following weekend when they entertain Montrose in the Irn Bru Scottish Third Division, Celtic will be hosting Dundee in the SPL.

Montrose versus Annan Athletic attracted 267 spectators last Saturday. Such figures grate with Rangers weekly, but particularly on that weekend of the 22nd – because if things were as they were, and not as they are, this would have been the first Old Firm game of the season.

It would have made for some week at Parkhead. It will be still, with Lennon able to focus all Celtic efforts on Benfica without the awareness of Rangers waiting at the back end of the week.

Many have speculated on the true effects of Rangers’ demise for Celtic, especially economically, but this fixture change is surely a benefit.

Facing Dundee at home should, logically, be Celtic’s easiest game of the season. Dundee finished 24 points behind Ross County in Scotland’s First Division in May but that did not prevent them taking Rangers’ place in the SPL once the Ibrox club’s implosion had been confirmed, examined and their “newco” voted upon.

Dundee have taken Rangers’ SPL place and have played four games so far. They are yet to score. As it happens, Dundee were in Glasgow three days ago, at Hampden Park. They lost there to the amateurs of Queen’s Park in the League Cup. Meanwhile, across the city Celtic were beating Helsingborgs.

The juxtaposition goes on. The fact that Celtic have got through the Champions League qualifiers also means a Uefa “solidarity payment” windfall for all the other SPL clubs of £1m – not each, but it all helps. Rangers, three divisions below, do not gain. Dundee do.

Celtic have also reacted to Champions League qualification by dropping ticket prices for the three home games to less than they were four years ago.

This is part of a conspicuous warm feeling. Lennon, given “pelters” from time to time, is now being seen by supporters as having moulded an emerging, hungry team, one with an average age around 24. Lennon has “one of us” status at Celtic but is also seen as a young manager in his first job.

How much of the green goodwill survives the visits of Benfica, Barcelona and Spartak will be seen in December.

Where will Ally McCoist be then? The unforeseen ramifications of Rangers’ liquidation now extend to the manager and playing legend that is Super Ally. He confirmed this week he has the opportunity to buy 4.5 per cent of the newco Rangers and “it’s something I would absolutely be considering.”

McCoist has the same status at Ibrox that Lennon does at Parkhead. It scarcely needs to be cemented but ownership would do it. Yet the news of McCoist’s option broke at a time when his credentials as a manager are being questioned by some of the faithful.

Look at the Scottish Third Division table and Rangers are fourth. The expectation was Rangers would stage a rout on their way back to top-flight respectability with a told-you-so swagger. It has not quite worked out like that, not yet anyway.

It required a 90th minute equaliser on the season’s opening day at Peterhead to get Rangers a point and last Sunday they were grateful for a poor refereeing decision that chalked off a Berwick Rangers second in the same minute.

That would have made it 2-1 to the English club. As it was, McCoist called the afternoon “agony”. In turn, some Rangers supporters started asking a question of McCoist: “Is he the right man to lead Rangers from Scotland’s abyss?”

That is just not the blue order of things. But then Scottish football is in a new world. Berwick’s late “scorer” was Chris Townsley, who, until this curious, curious season, has not, presumably, appeared in the same sentence as Lionel Messi.

Saints show how to go marching on

Rangers followers seeking encouragement in this of all seasons could do worse than look to Southampton.

Two years ago this weekend, Southampton lost to Rochdale in a League One game that left the Saints 18th in the division. It was the first of three straight defeats that followed Alan Pardew's dismissal.

Southampton were suddenly staring at the old fourth division. Tomorrow, in the Premier League, Southampton host Manchester United.

To go from Rochdale to Manchester United in two years is to travel from extreme cold to snug heat, from despair to hope. It is some accomplishment that manager Nigel Adkins has helped to engineer, and its speed is only one part of it.

To win consecutive automatic promotions, as Paul Lambert did at Norwich City, is not just a sign of managerial talent, but of a coherent club. The manager is the driving force but there must be unity, and investment, behind him. The Saints had that.

The sheer slog of the 46-game Championship season saw Southampton lose three of their last seven games and Reading pip them to first place by a point. But they got there.

Now they meet United having just lost at home to Wigan and undoubtedly there will have been a shiver around St Mary's last Saturday. Southampton may even lose again tomorrow; it still beats going down at home to Rochdale.