Old Firm’s Midweek Tests Set Up Sunday’s Cup Showdown

Two Wednesday night fixtures set the tone before Celtic and Rangers meet at Ibrox on Sunday in the Premier Sports Cup quarter-finals.

Celtic travel to Perth to face St Johnstone knowing a perfect domestic record is still intact, while Rangers host St Mirren at Ibrox looking to make it four wins in a row. Both Old Firm sides are effectively using this midweek round as a final tune-up before Sunday’s cup collision, and neither manager will want any slip-ups getting in the way.

Celtic have bounced back from the Champions League qualifying trauma in Austria with a run of domestic wins, adding a batch of new faces at the end of the transfer window along the way. Rangers, by contrast, are only now finding their feet after dropping points in their opening two league outings and falling out of Europe altogether.

Fixture Logistics

Full details on the match officials appointed for Perth have been covered separately by The Celtic Star.

Team News and Selection

The obvious headache for Martin O’Neill is replacing Yang Hyun-jun, who has departed for the Asian Games with South Korea after his decisive goal at St Mirren. Camilo Duran’s three goals and two assists in three games through the middle make him an unlikely candidate to be shifted back out wide, which opens the door for Shim Mheuka to make his first start, with Sebastian Tounekti also in the frame. Kasper Hogh and Kieran Tierney are both in contention after brief injury spells, while Mheuka and Oliver Sorensen are the only two of the six late-window arrivals to have been used from the bench so far.

St Mirren travel to Ibrox without Paul Nsio, who cannot face his parent club, while Rangers have lost Lawrence Shankland to an injury expected to keep him sidelined for up to four months, thrusting Kevin Kelsy into the spotlight sooner than planned. James Penrice, Olwethu Makhanya and Emmanuel Fernandez have started every game since a settled defence helped turn results around at Ibrox.

Match Narrative and the Bigger Picture

St Johnstone are chasing a third straight home win and will look to play through the phases as they usually do, with Josh Fowler having scored three of his four goals at McDiarmid Park and Taylor Steven catching the eye with his crossing in the win over Hibs. Cheick Diabate and Zach Mitchell will not shirk a challenge at centre-back, though Saints are yet to keep a league clean sheet. Celtic, even when short of their fluent best as they were at St Mirren, have found ways to win regardless, a point explored further in Celtic’s recent comeback at Paisley.

Rangers currently trail third-placed St Mirren only on goal difference, so a win tonight matters as much for positioning as for momentum heading into Sunday. With the title race still finding its shape early in the campaign, as discussed in our recent look at the run-in demands, this midweek round could tell us plenty about who is genuinely building something and who is still just getting going. Full details on this fixture were previewed by BBC Sport.

Mon The Hoops.