THE four teams - Rangers, Celtic, Kilmarnock and Aberdeen - that are representing Scottish football in Europe this season may not like being back in competitive action so early in the summer.

But our game, as a whole, only has itself to blame and the teams are the only ones that can stop this situation by raising the co-efficient as quickly as possible.

Our teams are in the Champions League and Europa League this week because we don’t win enough games in European competition and the only way to alter that is to go on a run through the respective qualifiers over the next month or so.

Rangers are all-but in the second round after their 4-0 win over St Joseph’s on Tuesday night and Celtic should progress after beating Sarajevo.

Aberdeen and Kilmarnock both played on Thursday and will fancy their chances of progressing but only time will tell how far they can advance as the ties get tougher.

The Old Firm have suffered their share of poor results in Europe at times but they have more than done their bit for the co-efficient and you are looking at the rest of the teams, like Aberdeen and Killie this season, to start playing a part.

It would be great if we could get another team in the Champions League like we had a few seasons ago but the first aim has to be to avoid these first round qualifiers.

Scottish teams have lost to some very average sides over the years and results like that are so damaging to our place in the co-efficient.

Hopefully that will change sooner rather than later but it will be a long road back for our representatives on the European stage.