Rangers may have edge

"IF WALTER Smith and I chose to speak about this match in a certain way, we could turn it into a minor war," said the Celtic manager Tommy Burns on the eve of the first Old Firm confrontation of the season.

"Instead, we treat it simply as a game both of us want to win, because it can be significant. We don't talk to the players, either, about the factors which surround the match, because they live through that all the time at our clubs."

In fact, the tribesmen who will fill the great stands at Ibrox this afternoon need no encouragement from the managers of the respective clubs when it comes to belligerence. History, tradition and indoctrinated contempt will take care of that.

Burns is right, however, to highlight the importance of the fixture in the context of the 36 match Premier Division. Last season the results in these games swung the championship Rangers' way. With the Glasgow giants having already opened a considerable gap between themselves and the pack - only six games have been played - it would appear that the current campaign will head in the same direction.

"Last year we were just going along trying to get things better when we suddenly found ourselves in contention," said Burns. "So in the early games against Rangers we had no awareness that they would determine the outcome of the league itself. But they did.

"Now it's changed and that possibility is obvious. It doesn't mean that whoever wins tomorrow will take the title, because we play each other four times and there are opportunities to retrieve things for the team which sustains damage. But the winners would clearly take a big psychological advantage."

Burns's problems, apart from finding a way of beating a Rangers team who went through the series undefeated last season, include the injury to Jorge Cadete that will keep the Portuguese striker out of the fray. There are also differences between the manager and Pierre van Hooijdonk, that may put the Dutch forward on the bench.

Van Hooijdonk, the club's leading scorer, was only a substitute against Hamburg last Tuesday and there is gathering talk of his departure in the coming weeks. Burns will also still be without the international midfielders Paul McStay and Phil O'Donnell, as well as the international left back Tosh McKinlay. He may bring Simon Donnelly back into a starting role.

Walter Smith, agreeing with Burns that these meetings of the Premier Division's leaders could be decisive over the course of the championship, also has serious striking problems, with Ally McCoist certainly out and Gordon Durie and Erik Bo Andersen barely fit. If either plays, it will be a gamble.

Maybe, I suggested, they could experiment by making the goals bigger. "We may need something like that, the way things look," said Smith, who is also without the international midfielder Stuart McCall because of injury.

If the teams are equally stricken by injuries, there remains the impression that Rangers' replacements are better equipped to compensate and this could once again give them the edge on their old rivals.