Old Firm isn’t a match made in heaven now

STEVE CLARKE says it would be nice if Rangers and Celtic weren’t clashing three days before Scotland’s dust-up in Denmark.

And the national coach admits he’s facing a stressful few days of assessing club action, hoping his men get through unscathed before the World Cup qualifier in Copenhagen a week tonight.

Clarke has a raft of top stars tackling huge games at home and on the continent before his squad gathers for a triple-header that also includes matches against Moldova and Austria.

The Old Firm showdown is one of the league games moved back to Sunday due to commitments on the continent tomorrow night.

Clarke said: “It is just one of these things. It’s part and parcel of the modern game and the players will tell you they are used to it.

“But it would have been nicer if Celtic and Rangers had been on the Saturday and not the Sunday.

“Listen, we will just get on with it. I’m not in charge of the fixtures.

“I don’t know how they feed the balls into that computer which comes up with the fixtures. Sometimes you look at that fixture and think, ‘How did that happen?’.

“I don’t know how they plan the fixtures but it’s one of those things and we will deal with it.

“If you look at the squad, we’ve got Nathan Patterson from Rangers and I hope he gets some minutes in the next couple of games.

“We have a few Celtic boys too.

“But listen, they’re professional footballers and they’ll just get on with it because they understand the game for us next Wednesday night is a big one in terms of World Cup qualification.

“There are still some games midweek. European games for the Scottish clubs and League Cup games for the English boys.

“Then there’s a full fixture programme at the weekend. Unfortunately we’ll have a lot of players involved on the Sunday and we play on the Wednesday night.

“It is going to be quite a stressful weekend for me, I think, waiting to see who is fit and who is not.”