Paul Lambert thinks Rangers manager Danny Rohl made the wrong call by taking aim at Martin O'Neill over Stuttgart. The criticism was not limited to that one comment, though, because Lambert used it to question Rohl's judgment and to attack Rangers' wider standards on silverware.
Why Lambert picked out the Stuttgart remark
Rohl's comments came after Celtic lost to Stuttgart in February, when the Hoops had a 4-1 first-leg deficit to overturn. Lambert's view was blunt: "He made a mistake by trying to have a go at Martin about the Stuttgart game and have a go about his team. He shouldn't have done that. Someone from the PR situation at Rangers should have handled that better for him."
That is the sharper point in this story. Lambert is not arguing over a stray line in isolation, he is saying Rohl chose the wrong target and the wrong moment. Whether the comment was meant as mind games or simply a post-match jab, Lambert clearly thinks it was poor judgment.
Why Lambert widened the criticism
The second part of Lambert's argument is harder for Rangers to shrug off. "In terms of silverware, no he has not. And that is the reality of it," he said of Rohl. He added: "It's definitely not acceptable for Rangers not to win anything and they are still not going too. I don't know Danny Rohl. He is probably a nice guy, but what I do know about being an Old Firm footballer is you have to win, and the Rangers fans will certainly tell him that."
Lambert also went straight at the league position issue: "Finishing third is 100 per cent not good enough. If you finish second you are last. Finish third? Forget it."
The results behind that criticism are ugly enough. Rangers are 32nd in the Europa League with 4 points from 8 games, a run that sits badly beside Lambert's point about standards at the club.
The wider picture is not much kinder to Celtic, either. They have already lost eight league games this season, with defeats to Dundee, Hearts twice, Dundee United twice, Hibs, Motherwell and Rangers. The brief says the last time a club lost as many as eight games and still became Scottish champions in a 38-game season was Rangers in 1934/35.
That is why Lambert's comments land beyond the Stuttgart row. He is treating the episode as part of a bigger complaint about what Rangers have delivered, and the numbers do not help them. Celtic are 21st in the Europa League with 11 points from 8 games, but the league defeat count remains the awkward fact in the background.
Lambert's line on Rohl is sharp, but the stronger part of his argument is the old-fashioned one about trophies and standards. At Rangers, he says, the manager has to win something, and the club's current record does not make that case for him.
Written by Sam Whitfield with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 2 outlets. How we work →
