Clement: Old Firm derby won’t decide the title race
◆ Post-split derby likely to have more riding on it ◆ Draw wouldn’t be worst result for the title rivals ◆ Referee Beaton is sure to be under microscope
Rangers boss Philippe Clement insists tomorrow’s Old Firm game at Ibrox will not be decisive in terms of the cinch Premiership title race.
With eight fixtures remaining, Rangers are one point behind reigning champions Celtic with a game in hand.
Rangers lost 1-0 to Celtic at Ibrox in September when Michael be ale was in charge and went down 2-1 at Celtic Park in December in Clement’s first experience of a Glasgow derby, and there will be another Old Firm game at Celtic Park after the split.
However, the Belgian somewhat played down the significance of tomorrow’s lunchtime clash in Govan.
“It is always a big game, it is a six-point game and we know we have another one in a few weeks but it is not yet a decisive game,” said Clement, who revealed that left-back Ridvan Yilmaz, who injured himself on international duty with turkey, will be assessed for his fitness.
“So whoever wins is not champions. it is not like that. I am happy with what I have seen from my team after the last Old Firm game.
“We have had 11 games until now and we took 30 points from 33 and we could have taken more points in the Motherwell game, it could have been better than that and we scored more goals than celtic in that period and less goals against.
“So that is really good consistency but not a guarantee for anything.
“It is a really big step forward from the beginning of the season and my first part of the season that there has been more consistency. But don’t forget this, there are still a lot of games to play, not only the two Old Firm games.”
Ahead of a fixture featuring championship contenders colliding head on, Glenn Gibbons, the late former chief football correspondent of The Scotsman, was fond of a particular quote.
It was not one taken from a film or from the scriptures. Nor was it from the Wee Red Book, the annual pocket-sized publication that Scottish football fans once swore by. Rather, the wise words were penned by Charles Schultz and delivered through the mouth of the eternally world weary but often perceptive Charlie Brown. “Winning may not be everything,” he once mused. “But losing isn’t anything.”
Three points for Rangers or Celtic at Ibrox tomorrow afternoon will settle nothing at all and yet a loss is not to be borne. A draw? It might not be the worst result for either side given there's still some road left to run.
Philippe Clement, the Rangers manager, is still sizing up a fixture that his opposite number Brendan Rodgers seems able to produce results from in his sleep, after just two defeats in 16 matches across two spells. Clement will be doubly anxious to avoid defeat. No Old Firm manager since the clubs began passing Scottish league titles between themselves in 1986 has gone on to win a league championship in Glasgow after losing their first two Old Firm encounters, with the Belgian suffering a 2-1 defeat in his debut game in December at Celtic Park.
Now comes a second chance. If Rangers claim the three points that they so desperately desire, they will leapfrog their rivals at the top. If Rodgers’ side can triumph for the second time this season at Ibrox then they will stretch their lead to four points, although Rangers will have a game in hand against Dundee to come on Wednesday, weather very much permitting.
Come rain or shine at high noon tomorrow, the temperature is guaranteed to be hot. There has already been one slightly depressing forecast from Ally Mccoist of all people. Confected pre-match controversies are inevitable when there's so much hype about a single game. However, surely few had Mccoist, while speaking on national radio, dobbing himself in along with around 50,000 others on their Old Firm countdown bingo card.
The Rangers legend declared that he and every other fan at Ibrox will be at risk of falling foul of the new Hate Crime Act that became law in Scotland on Monday, just in time for a game that might have been designed to prove the contention of Calum Steele, a former general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, that “within a short time we will have data suggesting Scotland [is] one of the most hateful countries on earth”.
Mccoist has since found something else to do tomorrow afternoon. As for the much-discussed new hate crime legislation, never mind data, anyone with working ears should be able to confirm that Scotland can sometimes be a very dark place. Old Firm matches can bring out the very worst in people. Even those who have no interest in either team are ghettoised and placed in boxes, told they must be for one team or for the other. Some even try to forbid use of the term "Old Firm", as if language itself must bend to their partisan will.
There’s even quarrelling over how much importance ought to be attached to the upcoming game. No one can seem to agree about the last time an Old Firm match had so much riding on it. The most important in nigh on a decade, according to former Rangers – and Celtic – striker Kenny Miller. Indeed, well over a decade, since he eventually plumped for one near the end of the 2008-09 season, when Rangers were chasing Celtic down. “We [Rangers] won that game and went on to win the league title,” he said. “That's the last fixture I can really think of … there's no doubt that from 2012 onwards, there's not really been a situation where an Old Firm game will have meant more than Sunday.”
Perhaps, perhaps not. Sky Sports haven't quite cleared the schedule since Manchester United v Liverpool follows soon afterwards but both games will at least share the broadcaster's Main Event channel, reserved for the “biggest live events across our Sky Sports portfolio”.
The truth is, Main Event billing or not, this meeting might not even be the biggest Old Firm game this month, depending on when the postsplit meeting between the teams is scheduled. Then there’s a potential Scottish Cup final between the clubs, which would be the first time they have met at this stage since 2002.
So while tomorrow is significant, and could well turn the title tide in someone's favour, it's not quite Celtic v Rangers in 1999, when the Ibrox side actually secured what was then known as the SPL championship at their rivals' ground amid genuinely distressing scenes, including referee hugh
The truth is, Main Event billing or not, this meeting might not even be the biggest Old Firm game this month
Dallas being left bloodied by a thrown coin.
That was quarter-of-a-century ago and yet the welfare of a referee remains a valid concern today. John Beaton was, it seems, very deliberately handed a lower profile game last weekend to try to minimise the chance he would be involved in any controversial drama prior to confirmation arriving on Tuesday that he would be the man in the middle at Ibrox.
Perhaps predictably, that plan didn't go as smoothly as hoped. One of his decisions during Partick Thistle v Inverness Caledonian Thistle was reckoned to be egregious enough for an appeal to be lodged, with Inverness outraged that onloan Dundee utility player Cammy Kerr was sent off for two yellows, the first of which was for what Beaton interpreted as simulation and the Highlands club argued was a genuine hack from not just one defender, but two.
Although angering Caley boss Duncan Ferguson, the rumpus garnered barely a ripple of media interest, perhaps proving the SPFL'S point about shielding the referee. (Kerr won the appeal, if you care to know, and will line up for Inverness against Arbroath this weekend.) By contrast, Beaton knows that nearly every time he moves his whistle towards his mouth at Ibrox he risks a situation where he might be forced to request police protection at his own home.
And then there’s the players, who we'd like to think – and let's pray turns out to be the case – are the most important people in this drama. One of the best ones, if not the best, could be set to make a return after weeks out through injury. Celtic skipper Callum Mcgregor can prove a totemic influence and may well tip the midfield balance in the visitors' favour should he make the starting line-up.
Pressure does different things to different people. There will be some, perhaps as many as two on both sides, who are sampling an Old Firm game for the first time. Celtic have Adam Idah and Nicolas Kuhn, while for Rangers, there’s Mohamed Diomande and Fabio Silva.
It’s a different experience right now of course with no away fans permitted. Mercifully, that wretched situation is about to end though only because of SPFL intervention. Without it, you do wonder how long both clubs might have been prepared to see a fixture, which, in the modern era has title-deciding connotations each time it takes place in the league, devalued.
In a two-horse race, the old rivals can't be separated when it comes to stubbornness.