Philip Clement insists Rangers’ season is not over ahead of Thursday’s Old Firm clash, while Brendan Rodgers has vowed Celtic will not “soften up” despite going 14 points clear in the Scottish Championship.
Latest release of this device – Live on Sky Sports – comes weeks after they met in a controversial League Cup final which Celtic won on penalties.
Clement insisted the defeat at Hampden Park showed Rangers could beat the champions, with the Scottish FA’s head of refereeing admitting afterwards: they should have been awarded a penalty in extra time when the score was tied at 3-3.
However, if the Belgian is to orchestrate a much-needed win in this game, he will have to do without senior James Tavernier, who has joined a growing injury list.
Clement: We have to prove they can beat Celtic.
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Philippe Clement believes his side have proved they can take on Celtic and insists their season is not over despite trailing their rivals by 14 points ahead of Thursday’s game.
“We deserved to win (in the last game against Celtic), we had the best chances and a few other circumstances,” Clement said. Sky Sports News.
“The team showed it, it’s about showing it again and taking the three points.”
Asked if some fans were right to think the season was already over because of Celtic’s lead in the league, he added:
“We will fight for every game and every result, it’s everyone’s responsibility and also what everyone wants.
“It’s a new team, with a new long-term plan, with young players getting better. It’s about being hungry and wanting to win every game. That’s what this club is about, and that’s never going to change.”
Rangers go into the game having lost at St Mirren and then drawn against Motherwell, and Clement added: we had
“We have to be more clinical and more efficient and luck has to fall more than we had in those games.”
Rogers: “Celtic” will not soften
Brendan Rodgers has won 16 of his 20 Old Firm matches, losing just one
Meanwhile, the champions are unbeaten in their last 27 league games but Rodgers insists they are taking nothing for granted against a Gers side under fire from their own supporters.
“Listen, we will always take the pressure,” said the Northern Irishman. “We put pressure on ourselves every game to win and win well, so nothing changes in that respect.
“We always stay humble to prepare for the games. People look at the gap, but it doesn’t even come. We can’t soften, we won’t soften.
“We play in the next game because we know how much this game means to people.
“I went there last season, the first game, under pressure and everything. Now I go there with 14 points … but there is no change for us, the mentality is to go and perform and look to play our game.
“There’s always going to be that pressure, and especially a game without supporters at Ibrox.”
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Celtic’s Paulo Bernardo looks ahead to the game against Rangers on January 2, live on Sky Sports, and says the team are aiming for a better 2025 despite losing just two games this year.
Having grown up in a Celtic-supporting family in Country Antrim, Rodgers knows how much the game means to the fans, regardless of the context of the league table.
“I understand the game, I understood it as a supporter and I understood it from the first game as a manager in September 2016. I liked every one of them. The build-up is always great.
“There’s always some pressure. I hear talk of a ‘dead rubber’. There’s never a Rangers-Celtic game that’s a dead rubber, not in my book.”
“You want to win every game and you want to perform at the best level. For me, I love the occasion, I love the game. it’s an iconic game that I always want to win.”
Rodgers has won 16 of them in total and lost just once in 20 derbies.A win on Thursday would take him to 17 against both Aberdeen and the Light Blues, more than any other club. against
Watch the Old Firm clash live on Sky Sports Football and Main Event from 2pm on Thursday January 2, kick-off at 3pm.
