Lee insists under-achievers are up for it
His father, Edward, is a lifelong Celtic fan, but the interim Rangers boss believes his dad will be hoping his son can win this afternoon’s clash at Parkhead.
Murty, who takes charge of the Light Blues for the last time before handing over the reins to Pedro Caixinha, has little experience of matches at the stadium.
He sat in the stand when he was part of the Scotland squad for a game against the Faroes, and played there in a couple of pre-season games.
That doesn’t mean the white- hot atmosphere of a Glasgow derby will come as a shock to him.
He grew up hearing all about the madness of the Old Firm games.
The 42- year- old got a reminder of the rivalry when he broke the news that he was moving north to become a youth coach at Rangers last summer.
He said: “My dad and all his family are from Glasgow, so I was brought up in North Yorkshire understanding the history of the game, knowing what it’s about and what the occasion means.
“Standing on the sidelines, though, will be very, very new.
“My dad is still a Celtic fan. All of my father’s family are Celtic fans, and they fixture in that manner which was unacceptable, and it was a hurting dressing-room.
“They’ve individuals that can hurt us – they’ve done that already and done it in every single game they’ve played in this season. We respect that.
“But we can’t just sit there, accept it and applaud it.
“We’ve got a plan, we will go there and we will try and win the game.”
Wallace maintains he isn’t feeling extra pressure because Brendan Rodgers’ side could move by 36 points ahead of Rangers by 2pm.
Any gap is too big for the 29-year-old to accept.
He went on: “It won’t get to me reiterated that to me earlier this year when I met up with them – and got four hours of absolute dog’s abuse!
“They said: ‘ What are you doing?’, and I replied: ‘ This is what I’m doing’, and I sat back and accepted their backlash.
“The thing is that my old man is a great believer in self-determination.
“He doesn’t believe in telling you anything that he believes should be your belief.
“We have endless debates on all sorts of subjects – religion, sport, most definitely about football – because he has got his way and I have got mine.
“I ’m really thankful that h e’s broad- minded enough to give me a any more than how I feel about the gap that already exists.
“I think if it is 36 points, 33, 39, 23 or whatever, it has not been acceptable from us.
“We’ve been really disappointed. It’s been there and growing for a number of months.
“We did maintain at the start of the season that we wanted to be as competitive as possible, and it’s not proven to be case.
“Of course, if it gets worse, then it gets worse. But right now, it’s a disappointment where it is.
“We’ve got them two more times in the league, plus the chance to go and be my own person. He’d better want me to win against Celtic! I’m reasonably content that he will want me to do really well.
“We haven’t had the discussion yet. I’m biding my time.
“I’ll chat to him about it before kick-off, but to be perfectly honest, I didn’t think I would be in charge against Celtic.
“I thought i t would have been incredibly arrogant for me to say that I would be in charge for this game.
“My old man will give me some abuse, give me some stick, but I’ve got no doubt that deep down inside he will want me to do really, really well.”
Edward Murty will be watching Scottish Cup semi-final, and we want to stop them doing the clean sweep on us.
“If we do that, we’ll generate a bit of belief and confidence from our own point of view, and hopefully finish the season really strongly.”
Wallace still believes in the current Rangers squad. He hopes some of the younger players can emerge stronger from their recent struggles.
He said: “The world gets the impression that we are in turmoil, and a bit disillusioned with what’s going on. But that’s never been the case.
“The new manager is inheriting a squad that under-achieved and under-performed for Mark proceedings from his retirement home in Spain’s Murcia region.
His son admits his future career could be decided by how the game unfolds.
He went on: “I think this could be a seminal moment in my life, not just in my career as a coach.
“It will go a long way to educating me as to whether I want to do this full- time, or whether I want to go back to long- term development of young players.
“Whatever happens, I’m still going to take my time. The worst thing I could do is go and jump into something after an experience like this.
“I feel that Rangers is a fairly unique football club, and I can take a lot of lessons from it.
“But I can’t take everything from here going into the next football club that I work at.
“This club is a very good generator of emotions, and I have to make sure that those emotions don’t cloud my logic.”
Murty, naturally, would love to exit the stage with an unlikely victory under his belt.
He said: “I don’t think anyone outside of the club gives us a chance.
“All we can control is our work- rate, intensity and understanding.
“The players have got a fantastic opportunity to show themselves in the best possible light to the new manager.” Warburton and Davie Weir up until the point they left.
“But he’s also coming into a very good squad, a talented, young squad that is evolving.
“There has been 45 minutes here, 15 minutes there, but we’ve not shown anywhere near the consistency we should have with this group.
“I won’t be able to sit back and smile until we’re back winning titles and in the Champions League.
“Until that point, we’re still fighting to get the club back to where it belongs.”