Will Rangers suffer another Celtic collapse during this Saturday’s Old Firm derby?

There will have been mixed emotions for Rangers last season. They were finally back in the Scottish top flight for the first time since the financial troubles of 2011/12, and finished in a respectable 3rd place. However, that positioning flatters the Gers. It took them 3 managers to end up 9 points off of 2nd place Aberdeen, and a laughable 29 adrift of the unbeaten Celtic .



Most damning was their record against the Bhoys. The pair met 6 times in 2016/17, with Rangers failing to win a single game. Not only that, they also racked up some truly wretched results across the season. In the league a pair of 5-1 hammerings – one at Celtic Park, one at the Ibrox – bookended a 2-1 home loss in December and a 1-1 away draw in March. They were also dumped out of both the League Cup and Scottish Cup semi-finals by Celtic, in 1-0 and 2-0 defeats respectively. Still, then, a long way to go until the Glaswegian rivals are back playing top spot hot potato like they did throughout the Noughties.

So far there hasn’t been much to suggest that Rangers will be challenging for the title this season either. Though they’ve picked up wins against Motherwell, Ross County and Dundee, they lost at home to Hibernian and drew against both Hearts and Partick Thistle. They also failed to get past the 1st round of Europa League qualification, slipping to a 2-1 aggregate defeat against Luxembourg’s Progres Niederkorn.

In contrast Celtic have gotten off to a typically flying start. The only blemish on their domestic record is a 1-1 draw against St Johnstone; they’ve won their other 5 games, scoring 4 goals in half of their fixtures. The Scottish League Cup has seen them similarly dominant, with 5-0 and 4-0 victories over Kilmarnock and Dundee respectively.

Like Rangers, however, Celtic have endured a rough time of it in Europe. They stumbled a couple of times on their way to the Champions League proper, only to be drawn in a nightmare group consisting of Anderlecht, Bayern Munich and PSG. Their first game came against the French giants, and went about as well as expected, with the terrifying Cavani/Neymar/Mbappe front-line dealing out a 5-0 stomping.

Nevertheless, while they whimper abroad they roar at home, with Brendan Rodgers likely expecting a big performance on Saturday. So too our traders – Spreadex are offering a Celtic/Rangers (h) Goal Supremacy spread of 0.65-0.85 alongside a Total Goals spread of 3-3.2.