Key events
Röhl has been chatting away on Rangers TV before the match. “We’re looking forward for this game, it will be an exciting game,” he said. “We want to perform well, we want to show our fans a good game and, of course, we try everything to win this game. It would be a fantastic afternoon for us, and for this we prepared the whole week.
“I expect that at first the game will be very even. There will be a lot of duels, it could be that also sometimes there’s no rhythm in the game. All those things are what I expect. But I want to see a good team who is organised from our side, looking forward, attacking forward. [We must] have some good actions because it’s important that we win the crowd straight behind us in moments to create a good atmosphere.”
Team news
For reference, Schmeichel has not returned to the Celtic lineup. Here are the teams:
Rangers: Butland, Sterling, Souttar, Fernandez, Rommens, Chukwuani, Raskin, Skov Olsen, Moore, Chermiti, Naderi
Celtic: Sinisalo, Araujo, Murray, Scales, Tierney, McGregor, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Nygren, Yang, Maeda, Adamu
Unsurprisingly, there has been some needle in the buildup to this match. After Röhl said it would be “interesting” to see whether Kasper Schmeichel would return to the Celtic lineup after a strong performance from Viljami Sinisalo against Stuttgart in midweek, Martin O’Neill was not best pleased. “So he is picking our team? Well done old Danny. He’s only in less than a year,” said the Celtic manager. “I have to laugh. He’s made a comment about the picking of our team? Absolutely extraordinary. He hasn’t been in Glasgow long. There’s no need for him commenting on my team.”
Plus, Barney Ronay on this season’s three-way Scottish title race. “For once this is not a title decider. It could be a title eliminator. It could be a step towards neither of Celtic or Rangers winning the league for the first time in 41 years. A draw in Glasgow could leave Hearts six points clear at the top. But by now it is a startling transformation whatever the outcome.”
If you’re looking for some pre-match reading, here’s our match report from Hearts’ win against Aberdeen, with Sir Alex Ferguson in attendance, and Ewan Murray’s preview on this game.
Preamble
It could be a seismic day for the Scottish title race, this. When Rangers host Celtic in a derby at the sharp end of the season, it’s usually a given that one or the other is top of the table. Instead, with Hearts edging out Aberdeen yesterday, second-place Rangers are now seven points off the summit, with Celtic nine points off the pace in third. Danny Röhl’s side have a game in hand on Hearts and Celtic have two but, regardless, they are running out of chances to haul in the table toppers. Victory today could make all the difference. It doesn’t get much bigger than this.