The final Glasgow Derby of the season is finally upon us and, with the league already sown up, has the air of a dead rubber about it. Not that Ange Postecoglou will be treating the game lightly as he prepares his team for the Scottish Cup final and a shot at the treble.
Saturday’s game at Ibrox will be the 6th meeting of the sides this season, with Celtic looking to silence the home support and finish the season undefeated against their closest rivals.
The Hoops have won four of the five encounters so far with the only blemish coming in the 2-2 draw at Ibrox on the 2nd January. Kyogo’s late goal breaking Rangers that day to ensure a share of the points. Since then, Celtic have defeated Rangers in a Cup final, Cup semi-final, and crucial league game that all but tied up the title.
Similar to the last league meeting between the sides, Saturday’s game will take place without away fans in attendance, at least, officially. As has been well documented, Rangers has effectively taken the stance to lock Celtic fans out of the fixture. The Ibrox club made a paltry number of tickets available to Celtic, however, with no guarantee of fan safety, and Celtic’s request for a larger number of tickets refused, the game will go ahead without an official away support.
REMEMBERING COLLINS AND THE LOCKOUT OF ’94
Celtic has previous of playing in, lock-out games at Ibrox. John Collins famously silenced the Ibrox hordes in 1994 with a glorious freekick, his first goal wearing his new Predator boots. More recently, in September 2019 goals from Odsonne Edouard and Jonny Hayes made sure the 800-strong Celtic support inside Ibrox would leave the stadium happy.
While Saturday’s game will have no bearing on the outcome of this season and very little influence on next season, Ange will not want to hand any impetus Rangers way.
Speaking to the press ahead of the game, the Aussie said, “We’ll put a team out there that we think is going to win the game for us.” However, the manager did, dangle the carrot of potential surprises in his starting line-up adding, “It (the game) does give us a chance to maybe take a look at next year and some of the things we want to do, and give some guys some game time.”
In true Ange style, the Australian will leave us guessing as to who, or what, those things could be.
WILL ANGE CHANGE IT UP?
Could we see the likes of Oh given a run out up front in place of Kyogo to give the Rangers backline a new threat to worry about? Perhaps Iwata and McGregor will form a more defensive double pivot in midfield, allowing Hatate or even Haksabanovic licence to roam in the number 10 role.
Or could it be that young Rocco Vata is given the chance to win his second Glasgow Derby of the week following his exploits in the Glasgow Cup on Wednesday evening?
Whatever team and system Ange selects for the game, you can rest assured it is one that he believes is good enough to win the game. A game that Alan Morrison highlighted on Friday’s ACSOM bulletin is more important for the home side to win than it is for Celtic.
As Alan noted, Rangers have been under more pressure to win every Glasgow Derby this season and despite running Celtic close on a couple of occasions, have come up short each time.
Saturday is the last throw of the dice for Rangers. If they win, it will give them renewed false hope for next season but will mean nothing towards the current campaign. Defeat, and not only will the Michael Beale myth be well and truly blown apart, but serious questions will also be asked if he will see out the season.
The bigger question though is whether Jota will continue his iconic fist raised-to-the-sky celebration or adopt a Peter Grant-style celebration should he score again at Ibrox; hopefully we’ll get an answer to this one before the first-half is through.
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