STEPHEN McGOWAN: Watching Euro elite struggle has brought joy back to jaded Champions League

When the president of Paris Saint-Germain spoke of making the Champions League bigger than the Super Bowl, it was an instruction rather than a promise.

A former Davis Cup tennis player and chairman of the beIN Media Group, Nasser Al-Khelaifi is accustomed to having his own way.

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin took the hint and replaced the jaded, tired old format with a new single league of 36 teams. 

A blueprint for more big games, more inclusion, more jeopardy, more competitive balance and more money must have seemed like a top idea until the super computer pitched PSG up against Manchester City, Atletico Madrid, PSV Eindhoven and Girona at home, and Bayern Munich, Arsenal, RB Salzburg and Stuttgart away.

When the draw finished, the camera panned to Al-Khelaifi’s shell-shocked face and the image was so striking they should have hung it in the National Portrait Gallery.

Even Mbappe hasn’t been able to stop Madrid slumping to 18th place, with Liverpool up next

PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi looked shocked when Champions League draw was made

The Champions League is the one competition that the Qatari-owned aristocrats of French football can’t buy. And, gloriously, UEFA’s new club formats are testing that old saying about the cream always rising to the top. 

Languishing in 25th position with four points from four games – three less than Celtic – a trip to Bayern on matchday five offers no guarantees of a late surge up the table. Lose in Bavaria and the Qatari works’ XI will spend the last three games trying to nick a place in the play-offs.

Of course, it’s only the halfway point and, when the going gets tough etc. Right now, however, the top eight of the Champions League features Sporting Lisbon, Brest, Aston Villa, and Monaco.

If those four go all the way to the round of 16, while Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and PSG finish up slumming it with the also-rans you can put the kettle on for Florentino Perez citing voter fraud in Pennsylvania and slapping an injunction on UEFA.

After years of tedious predictability, the emergence of Champions League upstarts feels like a breath of fresh air. Even if they stumble and fall away in the next four games, the spectacle of panicked entitled super clubs scrambling to make the top 24 has put the fun back into the Champions League.

Thrashed 4-0 at home by Barcelona in El Clasico last month, Carlo Ancelotti’s Real lose two games-in-a-row as often as snow falls in Madrid. Yet Tuesday’s home defeat to AC Milan leaves the 15-time winners slumming it in 18th place, with a game against league leaders Liverpool on matchday five.

Bayern aren’t exactly revelling in the new format either. The emphasis on more marquee games between the big clubs exposed the German Goliaths to uncomfortable nights against Aston Villa and Barcelona. Despite Wednesday’s win over Benfica, Harry Kane and team-mates are only one place above Real – and play PSG next.

Unsurprisingly, Celtic are one of the clubs revelling in the most significant revamp of European competition in 32 years.

PSG have struggled in this season’s tournament despite their Qatari riches

Harry Kane’s Bayern Munich have so far failed to impress in elite tournament this year

Celtic players celebrate after their superb 3-1 victory over RB Leipzig

Nicolas Kuhn savours acclaim of the crowd after his two goals in Celtic’s win

Scotland’s champions used to turn up, take their beatings, bank the cash, pray for a Europa League safety net, then rinse and repeat.

Since the change, the Parkhead club have rediscovered something that was lost in the post years ago. Hope.

Leaving aside a favourable draw, the 3-1 win over RB Leipzig was the marquee result they’d been chasing for 12 years. A terrific performance which built on a dogged point against Atalanta in Italy.

A change of format couldn’t do much to stop them losing seven goals in Dortmund. What it *did* do was guarantee four more games to secure the three points they need to book at least a play-off place. All this while Bayern, the two Madrid clubs and AC Milan shake an angry fist in the rear-view mirror.

It’s not just the Champions League. Slot this Rangers side into a 36-team Europa League and they discover a level they can’t reach in the SPFL.

A team trailing Aberdeen by nine points in Scotland are now lording it over Manchester United, Roma, Porto and the same Dynamo Kyiv team who dumped them out of the Champions League qualifiers.

Watching some of Europe’s biggest clubs jockey for a top-24 finish in UEFA’s biggest competitions, the volatility of a 36-team format isn’t what the likes of Real Madrid and AC Milan signed up for.

Four years ago, those two were up to their necks in a plot to create a European Super League and toss the likes of Celtic and Rangers out on the street with a blanket and a begging bowl.

Savour these new formats while you can, then. Too much competition endangers the revenue streams of entitled clubs with a low failure threshold. And right now Icarus is flying a little too close to the sun.  

Tavernier has already been axed… now Shankland should be next

Dropping his captain might be the hardest decision a manager ever has to make.

And, when Hearts travel to Ibrox on Sunday, Neil Critchley might want to pull Philippe Clement aside for a quiet word on the pros and cons.

The Tynecastle boss is standing by his ‘frustrated’ skipper Lawrence Shankland, sticking by the line that the PFA Player of the Year will find the way to goal soon.

After last season’s stunning haul of 33 goals, however, Shankland has only scored once in his last 17 games. And a decision can’t be put off forever.

Hearts are not scoring enough goals, and missed chances cost them`a result against Heidenheim in the Conference League. There’s no secret to why this is the case; Shankland has stopped scoring.

It’s time for Shankland to be taken out of the firing line by Hearts boss Critchley

Rangers skipper James Tavernier has already been dropped by Rangers manager Clement

It barely seems like five minutes since the striker was carrying the team on his shoulders, punters lining up to demand that Steve Clarke stick him straight into Scotland’s starting 11 at Euro 2024.

Whether it’s fitness or confidence or another issue entirely, the decline has been precipitous and, for Critchley, it’s time to think the unthinkable.

Clement already knows how that feels. Rightly, Rangers captain James Tavernier was left out of the starting line-up in Thursday’s 1-1 draw with Olympiakos.

A poster boy for the good times, Tavernier has now become a scapegoat for the bad.

And, as Ally McCoist pointed out, a captain isn’t really a captain when he’s left out of big, important games.

In hindsight, Tavernier should have instructed his agent to find him something after the defeat to Celtic and slipped out the side door at Ibrox when the abusers had gone home for the night.

Dujon Sterling is now the better option at right-back. And Clement would rather throw on Nana Kasanwirjo than take a punt on a player diminished by the passage of time.

By hanging around a season too long, Tavernier’s demise has become an awkward distraction. Where other players slip out of the team and nobody notices, there is no way of quietly dropping a captain with fading powers.