Dave King feels Celtic should be further ahead of the Rangers despite their historic treble winning season under Brendan Rodgers last term.

The Hoops went unbeaten through the 2016/17 league campaign thus ending a clear 39 points ahead of their rivals. In spite of this, the Ibrox chairman insists that Celtic have not managed to bridge a much bigger gap as the Rangers climbed back up through the lower divisions.

Rangers boss Pedro Caixinha has gone on a huge spending spree to recruit the likes of Bruno Alves to his ranks, and King insists that his team would be strong contenders to end Celtic’s dominance in the Scottish Premiership, he said: “Given that we were in the wilderness for four years, I don’t think that Celtic did as much in that time as they could have done.In footballing terms I don’t think Celtic are as far ahead as they could have been – certainly with our new signings.We are clearly behind them squad-wise but I really would expect to give them a run. You never know how the season is going to go and I certainly don’t expect a repeat of last season.”

While Rangers have developed their squad this summer, Celtic are more concerned on keeping hold of their treble-winning squad with the likes of Moussa Dembele and Kieran Tierney linked with potential moves to the Premier League. Celtic have previously lost the likes of Victor Wanyama and Virgil van Dijk to the English top flight, both of whom have made a huge impression, and Rodgers will hope to avoid such an instance by placing hefty price tagson the high-performing players. Regardless of this, there is every possibility of a deal going through in this day and world, given the vast sums gained by Premier League clubs from the television revenue.