NafisaDespite Celtic securing their fourth consecutive Premiership title, it’s evident that the club’s league performance against Rangers has been subpar.
Indeed, the Hoops launched the Glasgow derby campaign with a 3-0 triumph in September and followed it with a tense penalty shootout victory in the Premier Sports Cup final.
Celtic were off their game that day, with the match ending 3-3 after 120 minutes. But fortune favored them at Hampden Park from the penalty spot.
However, the Bhoys then fell in the subsequent two derbies to Rangers, the most crushing being a 3-0 defeat at Ibrox at the beginning of January.
The next loss stung even more, as Celtic rallied from 2-0 down only to succumb to a 3-2 result due to Hamza Igamane’s late strike.
Celtic captain Callum McGregor, however, is determined to rectify this on Sunday and conclude the season’s final Glasgow derby with an away victory.
Boyd wary of McGregor’s defiant Rangers vs Celtic statement:
This sentiment within the Celtic squad, despite having already clinched the Premiership title, certainly caught the eye of former Rangers striker and current Sky Sports pundit Kris Boyd.
Boyd, writing for The Scottish Sun, acknowledges that Rangers must be cautious of Celtic’s drive to recover from the prior two derby losses, sparked by McGregor’s six-word declaration.
Boyd clearly appears apprehensive. He wrote: “I tell you what, though. They better be ready for Celtic coming for them because, from what Callum McGregor has been saying this week, they are desperate to win.
“‘We want to put things right’, was how he put it.”
“He could easily have talked about how Celtic are champions, and that this derby doesn’t really matter in the context of the season.
“But his message was that Celts aren’t happy with how they have done against Rangers this season, and how they have to change that at Ibrox in tomorrow’s derby.”
What did Callum McGregor say about Rangers vs Celtic?
Boyd is referring to the press conference McGregor attended earlier this week while promoting the PFA Scotland Player of the Year award nominations.
Naturally, the 31-year-old was questioned about the upcoming derby, and despite many suggesting the game at Ibrox holds little significance for both teams, McGregor dismissed that notion.
He said: “It’s the perfect game for us after winning the league and we’ve actually got four really good games still to go, plus the cup final.
“So that’ll keep us focused and motivated and wanting to arrive at the cup final in the best possible way.
“We can enjoy being champions, but obviously we know what’s riding the game at the weekend as well. We want to put it right after what happened in the last one. So the perfect game for us, really.
“I think we’ve always got a point to prove, especially when you lose a derby game then it hurts even more and there’s everything that goes with that and the sort of media stuff around it.
“So we want to try and answer that is quickly as we can and obviously Sunday gives us a chance to do that. Hopefully we can go and set the record straight from our point of view.
“When you lose a game like that and then when you lose it at home, it hasn’t happened too many times. So you then feel it, you feel the gravity of the situation and then you want to put it right as quickly as you can and obviously this is the first game since then and we have everything to play for.
“So the players will understand that. We’ll come come back in tomorrow and we’ll have a good week’s training and our intention is to go and win the game.”
Nafisa
