Chris Sutton has admitted that Sunday’s Glasgow Derby doesn’t carry its usual significance, with the Premiership title already decided in Celtic’s favour, but insists that doesn’t mean it’s a meaningless occasion.
With Celtic sitting 16 points clear, the outcome of the match won’t change the title race, and even a Rangers win would do little more than cut the gap to 13 points. However, Sutton insists that a derby is never truly meaningless, even when the stakes are lower.
Sutton does acknowledge that, while it’s not quite the dead rubber of 2022, when Celtic had mathematically secured the league, there isn’t much riding on the game beyond bragging rights and pride.
He wrote in the Daily Record:
“The outcome of Sunday’s Glasgow derby is not going to change the destination of the Premiership title.
“Does that suggest this is a meaningless encounter? Absolutely not. There is no such thing as a meaningless game when Celtic face Rangers.
“Look, the stakes are lower for Celtic. A defeat would cut the gap to 13 points but there’s no way Rangers are going to find the miracle needed to claw that back in the remaining seven games, even if they were to win the next derby at Ibrox.
“It’s not like the dead rubber derby from a couple of years ago when the title was mathematically gone.
“It makes me SAD there is nothing tangible resting on this match. I’d much rather seeing these two going at it hammer and tongs going down the stretch.
“But Celtic’s incredible consistency combine with Rangers’ woeful inconsistency has left us looking for other angles of meaning.”
Even without a league race, it’s still Celtic vs Rangers at Celtic Park—and that always matters. Another added factor is the return of the away fans, maybe not the traditional allocation, but there will be roughly 2,500 in the away section on Sunday.
Rangers are fresh off a gruelling 120 minutes on Thursday night, but past derbies have shown that such things don’t have much of a say. Just take a look at the match in Ange Postecoglou’s tenure. Rangers played Celtic off the park at Hampden despite their tiring outing just a few days prior.
