John Collins predicts defeat for Rangers v Celtic
John Collins has predicted that Rangers will fall to defeat against Celtic in the first Old Firm of the Scottish Premiership season.
The Bears will travel to Parkhead on Saturday afternoon (03 September), looking to reclaim top spot after dropping points against Hibernian back in August.
Collins, while speaking to talkSPORT, shared that Celtic will have home advantage going into the fixture and that could give them the edge on the day.
“Celtic, Rangers is difficult one to call,” he said. “Celtic are in fine form scoring lots of goals. Great for Scottish football that both teams are in the Champions League. But, Celtic being at home, my money is on Celtic.”
“Both teams are going in with good form, Celtic are scoring for fun, week in week out really creative. And Rangers all credit to the manager.
“They sold probably the two better players in the summer. Bassey went to Ajax, Aribo went to Southampton.
“They brought in a few players in the summer, but again, people thought they wouldn’t qualify for the Champions League, but all credit to the manager. He’s guided them through and obviously had a great European run last year as well.”
Big day
Rangers’ season started as well as they could’ve hoped for where they qualified for the UEFA Champions League group stage after a decade-long exile.
In the league competition, they are still unbeaten but are just two points behind their Saturday opponent Celtic.
Therefore, manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst will be hoping that his players will be able to put their best foot forward and secure a win against their bitter rivals which will push them to the top of the league table.
Looking at the record of both teams in the Premiership history, it is clear that Rangers will have a tough task as they will be facing a team whom they’ve beaten 20 times in 63 matches but have also suffered 33 defeats in the process whereas 10 matches ended in a stalemate [Transfermarkt].
In the last five meetings between the teams in the league competitions, both teams won on two occasions each whereas one match ended as a draw.
In other Rangers news, training AWOL reports have been shut down on deadline day as player exit talk goes away