Alas the final Old Firm of the season is upon us and strangely enough…we don’t really care half as much as usual about it. Clearly we have more important fixtures to concern ourselves with, than an away game against Pacific Shelf.

Of course, it’s regrettable that we find ourselves in this strange situation and to a large extent, we only have ourselves to blame, and had we finished the job at Ibrox a month ago (not to mention the points we’ve dropped to County and Motherwell), we’d be on the verge of a near certain title showdown. There is another way to look at it though, we must also give ourselves a tremendous amount of praise for our quite frankly heroic efforts on the continent this season. Having scraped past Alashkert 1-0 on aggregate in August, not even the most optimistic Bear would have predicted that we’d be a potential 90 minutes away from the final in Seville. So in other words – looking holistically at where we are in all competitions – lets all choose the “half full” option as we ride the crest of this wave into Thursday night and hopefully beyond.

Speaking of which, there’s also two ways you could look at the Leipzig defeat and once again – we prefer the positive stance. On one hand you could say – we MUST win at Ibrox to have any chance of progressing. Alternatively, using the power of positivity you can simply say – any victory on Thursday night, at Ibrox, in front of our own and we’re still in the competition. For perspective – our aggregate score in the knockout rounds at home is a hefty 7-3 to us (8-3 if we count extra time). It’s going to take a huge away performance to stop us from adding to that this Thursday.

Despite it seeming like the SPFL have (for a change) done us absolutely no favours whatsoever by plonking an Old Firm in between a European Semi, again – there’s positives to consider. Firstly, we get a practice go at playing against an attacking team ahead of the real thing on Thursday, not to mention a potential chance for the likes of Lowry and Diallo to make Gio aware of his options. Better still, the match finishes by 2pm BST, giving us a whole 102 hours before the first whistle at 8pm on 5th May. Our German counterparts however, travel over 500km from Leipzig to play Monchengladbach on MONDAY night for a 19:30 BST kick off, finishing at around 21:30 meaning only 70.5 hours of prep time…not factoring in the travel to Glasgow either. All in all, that extra day and a half could be a crucial advantage in deciding which team will make it all the way to Seville.

So you see, there’s always a positive way to look at things. For now though, lets get through today without any issues and literally win, lose or draw – forget about it and turn our thoughts to the main event because after all, albeit slightly facetiously; an Old Firm victory lasts until the next Old Firm, a title win lasts until the next season, but a European final…just like the memory of the last great, great man to deliver one of those for us, those memories last for a lifetime.