Ex-Celtic boss Gordon Strachan claims Rangers blew 2007/08 title hopes

Gordon Strachan has rubbished George Peat's claims (Photo: Getty)

Strachan's comments come following a claim from former SFA prsident George Peat that an unnamed 'prominent club' chairman asked for the Scottish football body not to 'go easy' on a Rangers side facing a congested fixture pile-up.

The Celtic boss denied the accusations, instead questioning Peat's timing.

He said: “I have never given it a thought and I’m still not going to give it a thought now. This is 10 years ago. Where have you been George?"

Celtic racked up seven straight wins as their city rivals stumbled at the season's climax.

And Strachan says that he and the club were more concerned about the death of assistant manager Tommy Burns than Rangers fixtures.

“To tell you the truth, I didn’t even know there was a debate about it at the time," said the former Scotland manager.

“I was totally focused on what we had to do.

“I seriously couldn’t tell you a thing about it.

“We had bigger issues on our plate at the time, like dealing with Tommy’s situation.

“I can honestly say I never gave Rangers’ fixtures a thought.

“It was never put to me and I never discussed it with Peter Lawwell or anyone else for '¨that matter.

“Wasn’t that the season when Rangers had two games against us and they just needed to draw one of them to wrap up the title?

“We had to play them twice in the space of a couple of weeks at home knowing they only needed to take a point away from our place but we managed to beat them twice.

“They had the opportunity to put it to bed with a draw but we won the two games, with big Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink scoring a last minute winner in one of them.”

In trademark fashion the former Celtic manager jested that fans at Parkhead were too busy calling for his head to be bothered by their Old Firm rivals' fixtures.

“I wasn’t looking at what Rangers were doing, I was too busy trying to stop the Celtic fans booing over the last eight games of the season when they were all shouting for my head.

“It wasn’t a fixture pile-up they were bothered about.

“They might have been hoping I’d be involved in a pile-up of a very different kind.”