Tomorrow’s Glasgow Derby as usual has a deal riding on it, for both clubs, but more so than usual. Last time it was all about the Summer Bragging Rights were in the games before it was about determining where the Scottish Premiership, League Cup and Scottish Cup would end up. The answer to the former was of course Ibrox whereas poor old Celtic had to settle for just a Treble of trophies.
Going into the game on Sunday, both sides are under considerable pressure due to poor form, Celtic of course under the microscope due to being winless and goalless in the past two games. For our opponents, they are feeling the heat due to the 5-1 thumping they received in midweek as PSV dumped them out of the champions league, having fallen behind Celtic in the league due to their opening day defeat at Kilmarnock.
So on Sunday both the players and managers will under extreme pressure to get a result. These games are always intense so this will heap the pressure even further on both camps.
The bookies may well have theRangers as favourites and the mainstream media will be talking put eerie chances but we should know by now to ignore all that. They have manufactured a situation where they will have backing of the entire stadium – until at least Celtic score.
We are also very limited defensively wise, so the pressure you could say is huge on them, with once again a draw being a better result for Celtic than for Mick Beale’s side, just as it was back in January when a late Kyogo goal set the current Ibrox manager on a run of not winning any of the big games he’s managed them in, including the 5-1 hammering from PSV in midweek that presented Celtic with a tidy £2.5m UEFA windfall, cheers Mick!
The knives are getting sharpened as we speak regarding Michael Beale, the bears are not happy. Of course a percentage of the Celtic support are already taking aim at Brendan Rodgers who can get some redemption tomorrow with the less forgiving sections of the Celtic support if he can bring home the three points, but if we don’t take anything from this game he will dodge any bullets fired in his direction.
Yes it’s a must win for theRangers, but for Celtic coming away without defeat will be seen as satisfactory. The countdown is on.
