When talking about the Old Firm fixture it can be dangerous to make predictions, because we never really know what is going to happen.
Just look at the last league game at Celtic Park when I thought that Celtic would win quite handily, and of course, they didn’t.
But I think that I can say with a degree of certainty that Rangers will be right up against it if they are to get anything from the final fixture between the sides this season.
Anyone who watched the Scottish Cup semi-final on Sunday would have to say that Celtic are in a different league from Rangers. I don’t think that’s overstating it.
For Rangers to take something then they will have to be at their absolute best, and Celtic will have to have an off-day. But even then, that might not be enough.
If you look at last week, Celtic were good, but certainly not great. They didn’t have to be, because Rangers were so poor.
Pedro Caixinha will have to have a look back at what went wrong and have a re-think for this one.
The midfield will be important, and a five-man midfield is probably what you need against Celtic. Rangers are not going to beat Celtic in a pure footballing contest, so they have to do something to nullify their creativity in the middle of the park.
That probably amounts to taking a look at what happened in the last league game when Rangers were better, but whatever he does, I think there’s a pretty good chance that by the end of this round of fixtures it will be impossible for Rangers to finish second.
Even if not, it’s only a matter of time before that becomes arithmetically impossible.
Despite what Pedro Caixinha said before the last game, there is no doubt that Rangers would rather face Celtic minus Scott Brown, presuming his appeal against his red card at Ross County is dismissed, and Moussa Dembele.
They are two of Celtic’s most influential players. Brown has had one of the best seasons of his career and Dembele has been a sensation.
But it’s an opportunity for others to come in, and the component parts around those players are good enough to cope.
Even without these players, Celtic are better. Far better, in fact, and I think most fair-minded Rangers fans would admit that.
There’s a lot of rebuilding that has to be done at Ibrox, and it’s not going to happen overnight.
In a one-off game, strange things can happen of course, but I think Celtic will be motivated by trying to go through the whole season unbeaten and I think that will be enough to carry them through.
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