All the talk of the race to the Scottish Premiership so far is how all the momentum is with Rangers and how Celtic are struggling.
Yesterday’s 3-1 battling win over Motherwell proves that there is still life in this Celtic team yet and if the Ibrox club really want this title they had better be prepared to fight for it.
Admittedly, Rangers’ 5-0 over Hearts sent out a message that Celtic need to be on their mettle and a second-half performance from Rodgers‘ team was a perfect rebuttal to that.
However, there is an advantage in this race that one team has and it’s not Rangers. That’s according to BBC pundit, Stephen Craigan.
Stephen Craigan questions Rangers’ bottle to challenge Celtic
Now that we are down to the brass tacks of the title race, it will come down to who will hold their nerve the most now.
The BBC pundit has raised one important point about a huge advantage that Celtic have over Rangers and it will resonate with both sets of supporters.
Craigan said [Scottish Football Podcast], “When you look at the acid test for Rangers, a lot of players in their squad have never won a meaningful league game against Celtic.
“They won the Scottish semi-final and they won last season with Michael Beale but they haven’t won a meaningful one.
“One that really determines what direction the title is going to go. Celtic on the other hand, they have the mentality.
“They’ve won both Old F*rm games. So they have that psychological edge.
“So Rangers can win their games and close the gap but ultimately it’s going to boil down to whether can they go over the line and win a meaningful Old F*rm game.”
Brendan Rodgers has the beating of Rangers
Whilst I get, and agree, with the point Craigan has made what others are forgetting is that Rodgers also has a massive edge when it comes to beating Rangers.
The Celtic manager has faced the Ibrox club 15 times in his career and has won 12, drawn two and lost only one. [Transfermarkt]
Rodgers knows what it takes to beat the Ibrox club and is not afraid to take risks to do so. We all remember the game that Rodgers got Celtic allocations cut from Ibrox right?
His decision to bring on Odsonne Edouard when we were down to ten men in the 3-2 win in Govan in 2018 sparked a chain of events that would eventually see the Celtic fans’ allocation drastically reduced.
Indeed, Rodgers has already seen off Philippe Clement once in the 2-1 Celtic Park win as well so it would take a brave man to bet against him doing the same again in April.
In other news, Jim White angry with what Martin O’Neill has said about Brendan Rodgers at Celtic now
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