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Ibrox ladder 13: ‘We never saw our friends again’ Scottish Premiership: Rangers – CelticVenue of events: Ibrox Stadium, Glasgow Date: Saturday january 2 Time: 12:30 GMTCoverage: Listen on BBC Radio Scotland and follow live text commentary on the BBC Sport website and app.
History tells us that there were 66 victims of the Ibrox Stadium disaster on the second day of January 1971. Sixty-six deaths, sure, but the count of those affected is much higher than that. Mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers, sisters and brothers, friends.
The 66 will be remembered in Ibrox on Saturday on the 50th anniversary of his death, but everyone else who was left behind to deal with the serious loss of loved ones should also be on everyone’s mind.
This desperate tragedy caused anguish for many. His sadness continues, from generation to generation.
Footballers and fans of Rangers and Celtic can’t do much; they can only bow their heads to contemplate what happened then and in gratitude for how lucky we are now.
Covid has been a real pain, but we still have this game to enjoy. It is not life or death. It’s not the end of days, whatever happens. But in our own little world it is important. It matters.
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‘If the Rangers play fit, they should win’
The Rangers are 16 points clear at the top of the Scottish Premiership. Another triumph in a league season that has already brought 19 of them (plus two draws) and its advantage amounts to the stratospheric 19 points.
Give Celtic three wins in his three games in hand (generous and presumptuous, maybe, but let’s keep going) and the gap is still in the double digits. That is not insurmountable, but it is coming. A win for the Rangers and they become overwhelming favorites to take the title and stop the 10 in a row.
His statistics are impressive. They are scoring an average of 2.6 goals per league game. To put that in context, Brendan Rodgers’ Invincibles from 2016-17 recorded 3.05. That’s a very high water mark, but the Rangers aren’t within a million miles of it.
They are conceding 0.2 goals per league game, a defensive stability on which everything else has been built. Once again, a comparison with the excellence of the Rodgers team: they awarded at a rate of 0.65.
This is something impressive. James Tavernier has 11 league goals and eight league assists. Kemar Roofe is 10 and two. Ryan Kent is five and four. Ianis Hagi, who can blow hot and cold, has scored three and helped eight others, numbers that outnumber Celtic’s most trusted creative force, Ryan Christie.
The Rangers have made their way despite modest contributions from their two top attacking weapons from the first half of last season: Alfredo Morelos and Jermain Defoe. No one would have imagined a title change possible without those two firing on every cylinder, but it is happening.
Coach Steven Gerrard and his coaches have placed themselves in a glorious position. Their equipment is safe, tough, dangerous on one side and stingy on the other.
A relative fortune has been spent on the equipment, but much of the recent outlay has paid off. Team depth hasn’t been better at one time. If they play form, they should win.
‘Lennon has to make big calls right’
Much of the preamble has focused on Celtic. That is understandable. While the Rangers have been stable and consistent, their rivals have been everywhere. They may not have fans at their games, but the drama has visited Celtic in a big way.
Neil Lennon is still standing. He has received brutal treatment in the middle of this soccer soap opera, a story that has seen the coach, the players and the management being verbally and physically attacked by some supporters as the performances and the results headed south. It has been chaos in the past.
They have managed to calm things down in recent weeks. Celtic have won six games in a row, one of them a Scottish Cup final. They have scored 16 goals and four clean sheets.
David Turnbull, finally confident and emphatically delivering, has scored three out of three. Odsonne Edouard, who is starting to look like an interested player again, is three out of four. Leigh Griffiths, back on the team, is also three out of four.
His recovery is undeniable, but it is a smooth recovery. The clean sheets against Dundee United, Hamilton, Ross County and Kilmarnock do not make them a defensive force. They conceded two against Lille in the Europa League and three against Heart in the cup final.
Only if they beat the Rangers can you say that they have turned a corner and left their dog days behind.
Lennon had to make a big decision to get the momentum he has. That call was to use their captain, Scott Brown, more sparingly. Ismaila Soro has started the last three games and has offered more energy and more ballast than Brown has delivered in quite some time.
If Lennon goes back to Brown, like he did against Hearts, then it’s a big gamble. The Celtic coach has to get this right.
You have other calls to make. You may have to find a replacement for Christopher Jullien, who is struggling to make it. As a left back, he has traded between Diego Laxalt and Greg Taylor in recent games.
Laxalt has a pedigree, but his desire to move on doesn’t always match his desire to return when attacks fail. It tends to leave acres of space behind it. The Rangers will be eager to see who gets the yell on Saturday.
Taylor comes with no South American glamor and no World Cup experience. It has also been criticized by the fans for not being ‘Celtic quality’, whatever that means. The reality is that Taylor is a more diligent defender than Laxalt, has assisted on four Premiership goals compared to Laxalt’s, creates more chances and hits more crosses.
Soro or Brown; Taylor or Laxalt. These are the decisions that could prove crucial for the day as the fate of the title and Lennon’s future at Celtic are determined.
The last time these parties met, the Rangers stormed Celtic Park. The home team’s bland performance, not a single shot on goal in the 90 minutes, pushed their fans into an advanced state of apoplexy.
However, as a guide for Saturday, it is of limited use. Celtic were without Edouard and Christie that day. Also missing were a few others that could have made a difference from the bench. This will be a more fair fight. The stakes are high. An exciting contest is surely waiting for you.
Source: bbc.com
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