Chris Sutton doesn’t see any motivational problems for the Celtic players going into Sunday’s Glasgow Derby.
Nico Raskin, Ianis Hagi and the usual suspects were all out in force after the January fixture claiming that there wasn’t much between the two clubs despite the evidence of the SPFL Premiership table.
Celtic left Ibrox in January with their lead trimmed to 11 points, at kick-off time on Sunday they have a 16 point lead, goal difference advantage of 37 and a new manager to face, the third since Brendan Rodgers took over from Ange Postecoglou less than two years ago.
Sutton took to the old Glasgow Derby in an instant, scoring three minutes into his debut as a 6-2 home win turned the tide Celtic’s way, almost a quarter of a century on that situation has been reinforced multiple times over the club formed by Charles Green in 2012.
For almost a decade Sutton has observed a familiar pattern from the side-lines, noise from Ibrox matched by delivery, results and dominance from Celtic.
Joey Barton discovered that it wasn’t a wise move to noise up Brendan Rodgers and Scott Brown, following a six goal thriller his coffee machine was soon unplugged and returning to the backwater of Burnley.
Urged on by their media messengers trash talking is a constant from the 2012 Tribute Act with James Tavernier an expert at claiming how different things will be this time next year.
Sutton has heard it all from Kris Boyd, Grame Souness and a cast of thousands. The script rarely alters with the former Celtic striker sensing that his old club are ready to deliver a very significant message on Sunday.
Addressing the motivation for a squad of players 16 points clear with nine matches left to play Sutton told the Daily Record:
It shouldn’t be hard to get up for this one no matter what. If I was in that dressing room I’d see this as a chance to bury Rangers and get the title in the bag as soon as possible.
They will also be desperate to right a few wrongs from Ibrox at Christmas. That was Celtic’s poorest performance of the season and it just seemed to come completely out of the blue.
Back then Rangers were toiling and people were wondering how many they’d lose by. Instead, it was Philippe Clement’s last stand as his team ran riot. Fair play, they were terrific on the day and Celtic were way off it.
You can forgive Celtic for that as those off days have been few and far between. Yet that is the kind of result and performance that sticks in the throat of Brendan Rodgers. You could see it at the weekend with his stuff about Rangers stealing Celtic’s game in Govan.
He is rightly proud of his incredible derby record – and he’d love to put Rangers in their place again. This is the chance to make a statement, to show who is boss in Glasgow.
Rangers are great at the big talk. They are always coming or back, or whatever. Celtic are the ones in pole position in the league and they will be out to show why.
This reminds me a bit of the final derby of the 2003/04 season. We’d ran away with the league and there was seemingly nothing much to play in the last encounter at Celtic Park.
We’d beaten Rangers in all three previous league games and in the Scottish Cup and the title race was over. We treated it like a must win though. It was nice to seal it in style with a finish most people will agree was world class.
The long ball, the flick on to Henrik Larsson, taking the return, shrugging off Frank de Boer and then chipping Stefan Klos from 30 yards. To be honest, I think it was more me knowing my capabilities end not fancying attempting to dribble the ball in.
It was my son Ollie’s birthday as well and it’s still known as his Green and White Wash birthday.
No one can say that game was meaningless – even if the points at stake didn’t change much. These games are never dull regardless and it will be interesting to see how both sides approach it.
Sutton stamped his name all over the Derby fixture despite being up against incentivised opponents lured to Ibrox by Dave Murray’s disguised remuneration scams.
For two and a half months Rodgers has had the Ibrox defeat hanging over him, Clement failed to last the distance but the opposition shirt is the same with Barry Ferguson’s side set to face the backlash for that bizarre day in January.
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