Scottish Football / Total Goals Guys / 28 March 2008 /

The "Total Goals Guys" know a thing or two about what the Old Firm is all about so here's what they had to say about Saturday's match betwen the two Glasgow giants...

Rangers host Celtic in the Old Firm derby this Saturday. The match is live on Setanta Sports with a 12:30pm kick off and we couldn't let the occasion pass without assessing the betting opportunities.

The 2002/03 Season is quite pivotal when assessing the recent history of Premier League Old Firm encounters. A 3-3 draw at Celtic Park in October was followed up 2 months later by a 3-2 home victory for Rangers at Ibrox. What we have here is two strange occurrences back-to-back.

Since the first of these, there have been no fewer than 20 matches and only two have ended in a draw. The second is a real rarity in this fixture - either of the Glasgow Giants coming from behind to win an Old Firm game. Chris Sutton opened the scoring after just 18 seconds in a match that Rangers eventually ran out 3-2 winners in but 19 league encounters have passed since without such an occurrence.

So in the last 6 years we have seen 21 Old Firm league encounters with 11 Home wins, 7 away wins and 3 draws. At Ibrox specifically there have been five home wins, the same number of away wins and only the one draw.

Rangers haven't dropped a single point in the league since a 1-1 draw at Pittodrie in December. Their recent form is good results-wise but the Scottish Cup draw with Partick Thistle raised some eyebrows, as did being taken to penalties in the CIS Cup Final win over Dundee Utd.

They are still involved in the Uefa Cup and the fixtures are coming thick and fast. Saturday's match will be their 51st of the season and tiredness has been muted as a factor in the recent blips whilst on cup duty. They are grinding out results however and there is definitely a winning mentality imbedded in the current Rangers side.

Whilst Rangers have been on a magnificent run in the league, Celtic have been doing well to still be within 3 points of Rangers (who have a game in hand). A lot has been made of Rangers' defensive strength but its actually Celtic who have conceded the least amount of SPL goals this season (19), two fewer than Rangers. It's been a difficult time for Celtic recently however - on the cup front the Champions League defeats to Barcelona were compounded by a Scottish Cup quarter final exit at the hands of Aberdeen.

Add to this a 0-0 draw at home to Dundee Utd in the league and questions are being asked of Celtic and of Gordon Strachan in particular. The wee man has yet to taste anything other than defeat over a Walter Smith-led Rangers who have won the last three meetings.

The untimely death of Phil O'Donnell and a treacherous Scottish winter has led to an almighty fixture pile up for the SPL and with 9 games remaining (10 for Rangers) and three of these are crucial Old Firm derbies. Rangers are currently [1.48] to regain the SPL title with Celtic at [3.05] but one point worth noting is that after this weekend there are still 2 outstanding Old Firm fixtures at Celtic Park to contend with and an away win at Ibrox on Saturday would surely swing things back in the visitors favour.

The key battle will undoubtedly be Aiden McGeady v Kirk Broadfoot. The Celtic youngster is being touted as a strong possibility for Scotland Player of the year but this is a real test for him. He doesn't have a great deal of Old Firm experience and was snuffed out by Alan Hutton when he made a late appearance as a substitute in the 3-0 defeat in October. Broadfoot is no Alan Hutton however, he is naturally a central defender but has turned in some fine displays under the pressure of filling the Spurs full-back's boots. This is set to be his Old Firm debut and he could well hold the key defensively for Rangers in terms of cutting of the supply to the Celtic front two.

The motivation is there for both sides at Ibrox on Saturday but if Rangers ([2.36]) apply themselves in a similar fashion to the 3-0 victory back in October it would be hard to see Celtic ([3.4]) taking anything from the game. The draw is priced up at [3.45]. In the build up you always hear the 'experts' say "the form book goes out the window" well that's not strictly true and these games have a habit of going in favour of the team that has the psychological upper hand and that is undoubtedly with Rangers at present.

These matches aren't shy of a goal or two either - the last 6 Ibrox encounters have produced 15 goals with at least two in all but one of these. Goal backers might be looking at [1.38] for 2 goals or more or maybe even the [2.2] available for over 2.5 goals.

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