Key events
Peeeeeeeeeeep!
The Old Firm derby is underway.
You’ll Never Walk Alone plays out. It is a spectacular rendition.
The teams are out! The atmosphere is electric at Parkhead, even with an absence of away supporters.
An email from Phil Withall.
Good evening from oppressively warm Queensland, So, here we go again, an early season Old firm derby and all to play for. If Celtic win then that’s pretty much it for the season. Not grumbling, as that is the way of football. Just as in most leagues around the world, money dictates, Rangers use theirs like a 18-year-old on a bender. The upper echelons of football have started to lose their appeal. Give me the absolute chaos of the Combined countries Premier league division south any day. Celtic to win 3-1, bring on the parade of diminished enthusiasm.
Rangers’ transfer business has certainly been a bit more scattergun. I was also surprised to see Todd Cantwell move to Blackburn on transfer deadline day. Will he be a big miss this season, Rangers fans? Or did he underwhelm last season?
Both clubs lost key personnel this summer, Celtic sold their player of the season last year, Matt O’Riley, to Brighton for £25m, a record for a player sold by a Scottish club. That’s good business for Celtic, even if it does leave a hole in their midfield. One they will hope is filled by Arne Engels (on the bench today) and Paulo Bernardo (starting). Neither is a like-for-like replacement, remember O’Riley was Celtic’s top scorer last season from midfield. Celtic will be relieved that Manchester City’s interest in Kyogo Furuhashi came to nothing.
Both managers have been talking to the cameras. We are 15 minutes away from kick-off.
Celtic’s Brendan Rodgers:
Making ourselves really difficult to play against, that’s the key. The bench is strong today. We’ve had a fantastic market, in terms of who we have brought in.
Rangers’ Philippe Clement:
We come with confidence. We are in a different stage of building a squad [to Celtic]. But we are in a process. This is the next step. I have a lot of belief we can win today. We have to do a lot of things right. You also need a lot of luck. It was really tight in the four games last season, we had two red cards in the two games here. We have a really young, exciting squad. We know they want to start with the high pressing, aggressive.
Hahahahahaha. The patter.
Something to get the juices flowing.
I had the pleasure of meeting Henrik Larsson earlier this year in Sweden. He spoke about the Old Firm derby.
When we played against Rangers, we hated each other. But when it was finished, we were friends. Mostly Rangers fans were no problem. There was once when I was with Giovanni van Bronckhorst [his friend and then Rangers defender], who had just bought a new Porsche. We were in Uddingston because we were picking up some takeaway food. We used to order Chinese food a lot, peking duck after a game. There was this drunk Rangers supporter who wasn’t happy when he saw me and the new car. He was walking towards it, until Giovanni took him away. I loved the rivalry. It took some time to get used to it. I understand what it’s all about now, but not in the beginning.
Here is the rest of the interview:
The teams!
New signings Igamane and Kasanwirjo are in the Rangers squad today for the first time.
Preamble
When my son was born a couple of years ago, I remember standing in the maternity ward at a chart on the wall as my wife and I waited to go into a room. It indicated how many babies had been born in that maternity ward that calendar year, reading exactly 160 boys, 160 girls. Of course, these numbers were equal – that’s how it works – but in my dazed, sleep-deprived state, I was still struck by the equilibrium of this small sample size, of this particular maternity ward, in this particular corner of north London.
The equilibrium of the Old Firm derby may not be decided by X or Y chromosomes, but it is remarkable that the long history of this fixture, 441 matches dating back to 1890 in the Scottish League, Scottish Cup and League Cup, there have been exactly the same number of wins for both Celtic and Rangers: 169, with the two sides also playing out 103 draws.
Is there a bigger club rivalry in the world? Possibly not (with apologies to River Plate/Boca Juniors and Galatasaray/Fenerbahce). It is something that both divides and unites a city, and neither Celtic or Rangers would have it any other way.
Celtic are clear favourites to go one ahead in the all-time stakes today, which would put early daylight between themselves and Rangers in the early league table. A win here for the Bhoys would put them five points clear of their biggest rivals with just four games played, quite the early season statement. Kasper Schmeichel, in the Celtic goal, is yet to concede in the league this season.
Rangers looked fluent in their 6-0 win over Ross County last weekend, but are still reeling from their 0-0 draw with Hearts on the opening day, and their elimination from Champions League qualifying to Dynamo Kyiv. The pressure is already on Philippe Clement to deliver today at Celtic Park.
There will be no away Rangers fans today, due to ongoing issues around supporter safety at Old Firm matches. Both clubs have been asked to make improvements at their stadia, and despite a deal being struck in March, the first two league meetings this season will not house away fans. Celtic may well be within their rights to refuse to allocate tickets, apparently through concern Ibrox will not be appropriately updated to house away fans in January, but the issue is difficult to assess properly while nobody at the champions speaks out on the matter.
We’ll be focusing on matters on the pitch. As ever, it’s a mammoth game for all sorts of reasons.
Kick-off: 12.30pm BST.