The outcome of Sunday’s Glasgow Derby is not going to change the destination of the Premiership title.
Does that suggest this is a meaningless encounter? Absolutely not. There is no such thing as a meaningless game when Celtic face Rangers.
Look, the stakes are lower for Celtic. A defeat would cut the gap to 13 points but there’s no way Rangers are going to find the miracle needed to claw that back in the remaining seven games, even if they were to win the next derby at Ibrox. It's not like the dead rubber derby from a couple of years ago when the title was mathematically gone.
It makes me SAD there is nothing tangible resting on this match. I’d much rather seeing these two going at it hammer and tongs going down the stretch.
But Celtic’s incredible consistency combine with Rangers’ woeful inconsistency has left us looking for other angles of meaning. There are still some.
The pressure is probably more on Rangers. They’ve endured a horrible season domestically and they could do with some positively heading into the summer, to go along with all the takeover talk.
It’s also a huge encounter for Barry Ferguson. Does he have to beat Celtic to have a chance of getting the manager’s job on a full time basis?
I’m not sure it will count too much either way, but he certainly couldn’t afford to be on the end of a sore one. Avoiding a loss is probably must. But where does all that leave Celtic in terms of motivation?
It shouldn’t be hard to get up for this one no matter what. If I was in that dressing room I’d see this as a chance to bury Rangers and get the title in the bag as soon as possible.
They will also be desperate to right a few wrongs from Ibrox at Christmas. That was Celtic’s poorest performance of the season and it
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