Now we talked earlier about a little trick Michael Beale has up his sleeve, and it’s actually a bit of a doozy. It’s something Giovanni van Bronckhorst didn’t have as Rangers manager, and it made a major difference to how the former coach ended up being viewed by fans:

He couldn’t come close to beating Celtic in the league. His league results v the green shower were abominable, managing just one draw in three attempts, with otherwise one goal scored and 9 conceded. Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s record against Celtic was as bad as his record in the Champions League with either Rangers or Feyenoord.

But Michael Beale? While he was ‘technically’ Steven Gerrard’s assistant, his ‘record’ v Celtic in the league was leaps and bounds better, or more tellingly, from 55 onwards he’d actually managed to convincingly beat them.

Indeed, it was December 8th 2019 for the last time a Beale system lost to Celtic, and since then it was 5 wins and one draw.

In short, Beale had sussed out Celtic completely, and knew how to beat them – he has experience of doing it at this level, and Celtic today are not much better than the stuff Gerrard/Beale were putting away through 55. In fact, we’d argue they’re inferior, given they used to have French Eddy and the likes of Dembele. But that’s conjecture.

The point is Gio couldn’t beat Celtic in the league, he was embarrassing against them. He was cowardly, and his tactics were to contain. Indeed, we could even see how far our players stood off theirs during that infamous Old Firm in February – it was diabolical.

Beale’s Rangers won’t do that – they will hunt, they will play, and they will go for the win.

They will also make mistakes and they will concede goals, but so do Celtic, so let’s not judge by that.

The point? Beale knows how to win at this level, our ex-manager did not. It’s superb experience that few Old Firm managers have had, Walter as assistant then manager, ditto Ally being two of them. Being assistant who wins, then taking over. Beale has a strong backing for this one.

So Beale knows how to do it, it’s just putting it in place with the squad he has. We shall see.