Rangers midfielder Nicolas Raskin seems utterly obsessed with getting one over on Celtic this weekend.
The January signing has only been part of two derbies so far in his Ibrox career, but green and white victories in both seem to be getting him down.
Ange Postecoglou‘s men have gone about their business brilliantly in derbies this season, winning three and drawing the other, with an aggregate scoreline of 11-5.
You’d be hard pressed to find one example of a Celtic player talking in the press about our rivals this entire season, but the obsession with us across the city is obvious.
Raskin has been speaking to Sky Sports in the lead-up to Sunday’s Scottish Cup semi-final at Hampden.
Now count the mentions of “them” or “they” in his answer to a question about the game.
“It’s very important for two reasons,” he said. “Rangers need to win something for the season and it is our last chance, we also want to win against them.
“The last game we lost but we have another feeling, we are not that far from them.
“We had some chances, okay, they won, so now we focus even more on ourselves, and we go with a strong team and mentality, and go for it.”
Now imagine Callum McGregor being asked the same question. Do you think he would have mentioned the need to beat our rivals?
No, it would all have been about the trophy. Funny that.
Raskin actually hits on the reality of life in Glasgow these days. For the second successive season Rangers go in to a Scottish Cup semi-final trying to stop us winning a treble.
It’s a glorious place to be, from a Celtic point of view, with them scrapping just to avoid a trophy-less campaign.
They succeeded last season, but Celtic have come on leaps and bounds since then.
Let’s hope we can do our talking on the pitch again and reach set up the chance for that domestic clean sweep.
In other news, an official Celtic Twitter account has got involved in the Green Brigade’s campaign for Hampden
Receive a digest of our best Celtic content each week direct to your mailbox
