Experience can help Rangers see off old foes, insists Foster

RICHARD FOSTER admits experience will be Rangers’ greatest asset as they prepare to face Celtic for the first time in three years.

Although the fixture has been absent from the calendar since the Ibrox club’s financial meltdown and re-start in the lower leagues, there are seven players on the club’s books who have played in the fixture before.

Foster is one of them, having featured twice during a loan spell at the club under Walter Smith in season 2010-11.

But the former Aberdeen defender cites skipper Lee McCulloch and veteran striker Kenny Miller as the most important players in the dressing room this week.

No one disputes that Celtic have the superior squad and, with eight Old Firm veterans, the Scottish champions also have the slight edge in terms of experience.

However, Foster believes there is enough nous in the Rangers ranks to make a game of next Sunday’s QTS League Cup semi-final at Hampden.

‘There are guys in our squad who have never played in one and they will just have to find their feet,’ said Foster.

‘Lee and Kenny played in a lot more than I have, and they will try to relay their experiences to the rest of the guys.

‘The fixture is incredible and the atmosphere unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced in my career. You can only fully appreciate it when you have played in one of them. The pace of the game is 100 miles per hour... for the first 85 minutes!

‘They come with a lot of pressure. It’s probably better to have played in one previously but I wouldn’t say it is essential.

‘You try to tell people to keep their head for the first wee while because the speed and intensity of the game can take your breath away.’

Foster acknowledges that Celtic will be well backed to win the game but insists Rangers can get a result by frustrating their opponents.

‘We go into the game as underdogs because Celtic will be massive favourites,’ he added.

‘That’s a new experience for us but, once you cross that line and it’s 11 versus 11, anything can happen.

‘I watched Celtic not that long ago. They keep the ball well and they have a lot of pace going forward in the wide areas.

‘Young Callum McGregor is a very good player, as is James Forrest if he is fit.

‘But we aren’t going into the game fearing a big defeat. We know we’ll have to be on our guard. I don’t think we can go into the game with three strikers and go for it. Celtic are too good for that.

‘So it will be about us staying in the game for the early part, maybe frustrating them a bit and doing to Celtic what a lot of teams have done to us this season by sitting back and then hitting them on the counter-attack.’

Rangers caretaker manager Kenny McDowall will be the man charged with coming up with a tactical plan and he will draw on the experience of his first Old Firm match as a coach.

McDowall was appointed alongside Ally McCoist to assist Smith a few weeks before a game at Parkhead in March 2007.

‘The one which sticks out is my first one when Ugo Ehiogu scored with an overhead kick,’ he recalled. ‘We were underdogs that day, as well.

‘Celtic are favourites this time and rightly so as there is probably as big a gap between the teams as there has ever been.

‘But it has been said a thousand times, form goes out the window and you must turn up on the day.’