Michael Beale already regrets "bigging himself up" in the buildup to the Viaplay Cup final, Chris Sutton reckons.
The Rangers boss made the headlines with his comments claiming counterpart Ange Postecoglou was a "lucky man" in a reference to the two sides' relative spending power. Sutton was one of the critics of his comments at the time and while he hasn't said so publicly, he believes Beale will be wishing he hadn't said it.
The Record Sport columnist was speaking on The Overlap's Old Firm special as he said: “Michael Beale came in and had the quip about ‘Lucky Ange’. I suspect that right now, at this moment in time, he regrets saying that. I understand he has to come in and make his mark, and there’s that great rivalry, but I think he could have played things a bit differently. And from things that he’s said in recent weeks, I think he’s watering things down a little bit.
"I think if you asked him privately, I suspect he’d regret coming in and trying to big himself up.”
Ally McCoist though put it down to "inexperience" more than anything malicious. He replied: “It was perhaps a little bit of inexperience. When you look back at my time in Old Firm games, whether it was Billy McNeill, Tommy Burns, there’s was always a healthy respect in what was said. Always.
But Sutton wasn't buying it as he said: “He should have known better, shouldn’t he? You talk about healthy respect. Ange Postecoglou had been coaching for 25-26 years, virtually always been a success. But what he had to take over at Celtic at the start, you can’t say that was lucky. It was a real mess the situation which he took over.”
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