The harsh reality when Celtic come to Ibrox…

As we touched on earlier, regardless of any conflict our manager may have tomorrow, this is without doubt the least important Old Firm since Kris Boyd banged a cracking volley past Artur Boruc in May 2007 to finally break his Celtic duck.

Literally nothing rides on this match, beyond some pride. Correct us if we’re forgetting something, but we can barely remember a single Rangers Celtic match which had less gravity than this one, and even the build up in the media has been essentially non-existent.

Celtic obviously have the title wrapped up, Rangers secured second two matches ago, and other than the possibility of the certainly-departing Alfredo Morelos scoring his first Old Firm (which would by then be completely irrelevant anyway) there is not a thing we can hold this match to, other than, as said, a touch of hubris.

It’s kind of why Boyd’s goal too was a tad meaningless. He was unable to ever score against Celtic while there was anything riding on an Old Firm, and when he finally did, following the Parkhead title triumph weeks earlier, it was hollow.

Celtic in that match were described as ‘limp’, and they were certainly not great, and what Celtic shows up in Govan tomorrow we couldn’t possibly guess at, but it’s evident that beyond bragging rights (and barely even, sadly) this match couldn’t have less importance. Other than the obvious.

It’s certainly surreal. Hopefully the passion of the occasion makes it still have an edge, makes it still a fine spectacle. But when it really comes down to it, this is as close to a ‘friendly’ as an Old Firm match has ever been.

Odd.