Little at stake yet loaded with meaning for Old Firm managers

Scottish Premiership: Rangers v Celtic

Venue: Ibrox Stadium, Glasgow Date: Sunday, 4 May Time: 12:00 BST

With his final Old Firm game looming into view, legendary Rangers manager Walter Smith admitted he was “delighted” to be leaving the Glasgow derby firepit.

It was 2011, coming at a time when retirement was on the horizon and when off-field matters were dominating the headlines. The latter emphasising his desire to call it a day.

It is unlikely Smith’s former captain Barry Ferguson will want Sunday to be his last taste of a fixture that means everything in Glasgow but counts for little on this occasion.

Celtic’s latest title success, their 13th in 14 seasons, has left a bitter taste in Ferguson’s mouth as the interim head coach prepares for what may be his final game against the champions, with the Ibrox club’s incoming paymasters expected to make sweeping changes.

As a former Rangers skipper, Ferguson knows the fixture inside out, having made his derby debut in the midfield boiler room alongside Giovanni van Bronckhorst and Jorg Albertz in 1998. He knows what wins over their neighbours can do when it comes to longevity in the post.

But, despite ending an almost five-year wait for a victory at Celtic Park the last time they locked horns, Ferguson’s short stint in the hotseat looks to be coming to an end with inauspicious results elsewhere and an inability to win at home.

Putting it up to Celtic has not been Rangers’ problem in recent months.

They have won the past two derbies and were a penalty shootout away from winning the League Cup against Brendan Rodgers’ side in December.

They have scored three goals in three successive games against their old rivals for the first time since 2002 and are chasing a third straight win over them in the same season for the first time since 1996-97.

And yet it feels like Rangers are as far behind Celtic as they’ve ever been.

Goals have rained in on them and points have been shed against the other Premiership sides with staggering regularity.

For Rodgers and his team, there will be a determination, if not a desperation, to come out on top.

Yes, the title has been wrapped up with ease yet again. But those two defeats to Rangers will irk the Celtic boss. There was a time when the outcome of these games indicated where the title was going, that has not been the case this term.

Rodgers’ Old Firm record still stands above all others and that is something he will want to maintain.

He likes to have records in mind as he goes along and one still to achieve is beating the 106 goals his invincible side scored in 2016-17 during his maiden season at Parkhead. Celtic are five away from achieving that having scored five in each of their past three matches.

Having secured honour number 11 as Celtic boss, Rodgers has moved himself into sixth place in Scottish Football’s managerial roll of honour. He now stands behind only Willie Maley, Bill Struth, Jock Stein, Smith and Scot Symon. The latter two are catchable if Rodgers plans on sticking around for the next few seasons.

For Ferguson, he has three more chances to register a victory at Ibrox with the club setting an unwanted benchmark of six home games without one.

The 47-year-old will have spent many a night since replacing Phillipe Clement wondering why this group of players can beat Celtic twice yet lose to Queen’s Park, St Mirren, Motherwell and Hibernian on their own patch.

Not all of those have come on his watch but Ferguson knows it is a level of ignominy that won’t wash at Rangers and if it is to be the end of his spell in charge, he will personally want a 100% record from his games against Celtic.