Celtic, experienced winners at Ibrox

You will remember being concerned going into ‘these games’ in the past with too many Celtic players who have either no experience of them, or mainly poor experiences.  Not so on Sunday.  The Celtic side and those in the dugout have  experienced overwhelmingly positive outcomes when facing Newco, including at Ibrox.

The same is not true the other way.  Some of their starters will have played in the dead rubber at the end of last season, when Ange left half our team out.  Tavernier and Goldson have at least won meaningly 90 minute games against Celtic, but that’s about it, and even they will still need therapy to cope with memories of players in green and white hoops.

What happens at the side of the pitch will be as important as what happens on the turf.  For months, Brendan Rodgers has been privately suggesting that as long as Celtic are in touching distance when we get to Ibrox, we will be in good shape after the game.  The manager has an outstanding record at that ground, it seems to bring the best out of him.

Joe Hart, our back four, and Callum McGregor will feed confidence off each other.  Daizen and Matt O’Riley will use the relative freedom of an open game to exercise their abilities.

In my entire Celtic watching life, no striker has so dominated either of the Rangerses than Kyogo, even the Great Swede, and he dominated them into a wonderful tax efficiency scheme.  Nicolas Kuhn will be the one player in a Celtic shirt who will need to find he bearings.  If he is against Barisic, that will not be a challenge.

Having the better team does not guarantee anything, but the Celtic team you see on Sunday will be the best assembled side in Scottish football for many months.  Bring it on.