Old Firm Clash: Rangers vs Celtic for League Cup Semi-Final
The first Old Firm of the season is rarely low-key. This one feels even bigger. A League Cup semi-final spot is up for grabs. Ibrox will be full. Only one half of Glasgow will be heard.
Rangers host Celtic on Sunday in a quarter-final that drops right into the heart of a growing title race. They meet again in the league at Celtic Park just a week later. The tone for the season could be set in the space of seven days.
Celtic arrive perfect in the Premiership: six wins from six. Rangers come in with four straight league victories after a stuttering start, momentum slowly gathering in Govan. The margin for error? Non-existent.
And there will be no away fans to share it.
McInnes Steps Back Into the Fire
Derek McInnes knows pressure. He has worn it as a player at Ibrox and carried it as a manager across Scottish football. But this is different. This is his first Old Firm from the Rangers dugout.
The last time he stood opposite Martin O'Neill, his world caved in. That was with Hearts, in last season’s Premiership title decider, a brutal defeat that turned out to be his final act at Tynecastle. Now, at 55, he walks back into the same opponent, but with the weight of a different club on his shoulders.
He has faced Celtic 61 times as a manager and beaten them 10. Enough to know what they are, not enough to feel comfortable. His only Old Firm experience as a Rangers player ended in victory. He would take any kind of repeat on Sunday.
O'Neill, by contrast, is steeped in this rivalry. Twenty-eight Old Firms as Celtic boss, 16 wins. He understands the chaos, the noise, the strange stillness that sometimes grips players when the whistle goes and 50,000 people roar.
McInnes wants that roar on his side. He has been blunt about it.
“We've got to bring the crowd with us,” he said. “You're not going to play Celtic and dominate the game for 90 minutes. We'll have spells, they'll have spells, it's just the way it is.”
He wants Ibrox hostile, loud, relentless.
“If we can get ourselves in front, give the crowd something to get behind, then I think the strength of our club can be shown,” he added. “If the 50,000 can be utilised and we can have the strength of performance in the team that will help the team, it will be difficult to stop.”
The message is clear: Rangers need the stands as much as they need the starting XI.
Rangers’ Striker Puzzle
McInnes has a problem most Rangers managers dread going into this fixture: no Lawrence Shankland. No Youssef Chermiti either. His captain and his other senior striker are out, and the front line suddenly looks like a tactical riddle.
Ryan Naderi has made a strong case. He scored the winner against Motherwell after replacing the injured Shankland and was trusted to start in the midweek win over St Mirren. He lasted the full game. The only goal, though, came from the bench.
Bojan Miovski, the former Aberdeen forward, came on and decided it. One chance, one finish, one reminder of what he can bring. That might be enough to tilt McInnes’ thinking. Does he reward Naderi’s graft and recent starts, or does he lean into Miovski’s sharper edge in front of goal?
There is also Kevin Kelsy. A £9m deadline-day signing from Portland Timbers, he made his first start in midweek. The price tag screams potential, but he is still waiting for his first Rangers goal. Throwing him into an Old Firm with no bedding-in period would be a bold call. Or exactly the kind of gamble that turns a new signing into an instant hero.
McInnes must pick a focal point. In a tie like this, get it right and you’re lauded. Get it wrong and you’re chasing shadows.
Celtic’s Rotation, O'Neill’s Dilemmas
Celtic used midweek at St Johnstone to rest legs and shuffle the pack. Five changes, three points, job done. Sunday is the real target.
Camilo Duran, with six goals already this season, is expected to walk back into the starting XI. O'Neill admitted they missed him in Perth. When he came on, he was shunted to the right, with Kasper Hogh – just back from injury – leading the line through the middle.
That leaves a big call for Ibrox. Does O'Neill move Duran into his natural central role and sacrifice Hogh, or does he try to squeeze both into the same attack? Duran through the middle with Hogh drifting, or Duran wide again in the cauldron of Ibrox?
At the back, another decision looms. Cameron Carter-Vickers, the defensive anchor, was rested entirely in midweek after starting every game so far. Dane Murray stepped in and delivered a solid, composed display. Under normal circumstances, Carter-Vickers walks back in. In an Old Firm, experience usually wins the argument. But Murray has given his manager something to think about.
In goal, Wolves loanee Sam Johnstone nudged ahead of Viljami Sinisalo at McDiarmid Park and did not waste the opportunity. A key save at 0-0 helped preserve Celtic’s platform, and he left with a clean sheet. O'Neill now has to decide whether that performance earns Johnstone the gloves in one of the most unforgiving atmospheres in British football.
Locked-Out Hoops: Old Firm With One Voice
The fixture will be fierce. The stands will be lopsided.
Only Rangers fans will be inside Ibrox’s 50,000 seats for this League Cup quarter-final, after authorities stepped in on the back of an ongoing ticket allocation dispute between the clubs.
Both sides had previously agreed to a five per cent away allocation for all SPFL games. That was the plan. Then came the ugly scenes between supporters after their Scottish Cup tie in March and an independent review that forced a rethink.
The result is an Old Firm stripped of its usual split of colour in the stands. Celtic have been here before, though. They have won at Ibrox without any of their own fans present, a fact not lost on the Parkhead support. The silence from the away corner will feel strange, but not necessarily fatal.
O'Neill is braced for the difference.
“It'll be strange in many aspects not to have any away fans in our area,” he said. “I always felt as if it would give you a crumb of comfort in some description, but it is what it is.”
He spoke of police visiting the squad for a short meeting, a reminder about behaviour and the wider picture around the fixture.
“Gosh, it'd be nice to have something to celebrate,” he added. “The games themselves almost take care of themselves in that sense.”
He has seen Ibrox at its loudest.
“The league game that we played, 2-0 down early on in proceedings and Ibrox probably as loud as it's ever been,” he recalled, noting how both sets of fans drove that occasion. This time, only one side will have a voice inside the ground.
“But I just think it'll be a bit strange not having the fans in,” he said, “but as I say, the atmosphere takes care of itself.”
Silverware, Scar Tissue and a Season’s First Statement
Rangers have not lifted a trophy since 2024. Celtic want back the only domestic prize that slipped away from them last season. Strip away the noise and that is the cold, sharp edge of Sunday’s tie.
Win, and you are one step from Hampden glory. Lose, and you hand your greatest rival a surge of belief and a psychological marker before the league clash next week.
The first Old Firm of the season rarely decides anything. But it often reveals everything.
