Celtic and Rangers meet at Celtic Park on Sunday for the second weekend running, and the first meeting did not go the champions' way. Rangers won the League Cup quarter-final 3-0 at Ibrox. Four days later Celtic lost 3-1 at home to Ferencvaros in their opening Europa League match.
Scott Brown, who captained Celtic through a decade of these afternoons, thinks the league table still gives his old club the leverage. Celtic go in five points clear of Rangers.
"If Celtic win and they're eight points clear, it changes the game"
That was Brown's line on BBC Scotland's YouTube channel, and it is the simple maths of Sunday. An eight-point gap in September is not decisive, but it would let Martin O'Neill's side ride out a rough few weeks.
"Can Rangers go to Celtic Park and do the exact same thing as last week?" Brown asked. "Celtic now have had a week to understand how that game went. They are going to have to make sure that they match that energy but also match that willingness to go and win the match."
As at Ibrox, there will be no away supporters inside the ground.
McInnes won the tactical battle last time
Brown was generous about Derek McInnes, who switched Rangers to a 3-5-2 and went man for man with Celtic's front three. "They went after Celtic from the get go. They looked like they wanted the win more. For him to change his tactics, nobody expected him to do that. That is a very, very good manager to pick that out."
O'Neill used a 3-5-2 himself in his first spell at Celtic between 2000 and 2005, and Brown remembers it fondly. His point is that the current squad is not built for it. "He had two big guys up front. That was an unbelievable team. He's not got those players that probably can be suited to a 3-5-2."
Too much leaning on Callum McGregor
The clearest problem last Sunday was how easily Rangers shut Celtic down through one player. "Rangers got in their face, they blocked Callum McGregor off," Brown said. "As soon as you block Callum McGregor off and you man-mark Cal, it's hard for anyone else to go and dictate."
His answer is that others have to show for the ball. "That's when you need a Nygren to drop under, a Mika Baur to go and drop under and them do their job as well. You can't always keep looking at Cal to do everything."
Celtic's left side is also unsettled. Yang Hyun-jun is away with South Korea at the Asian Games, so Sebastian Tounekti and James Forrest have shared the flank.
The first 15 minutes
Brown kept coming back to the opening. Celtic started slowly at Ibrox and never recovered from it.
"Rangers were up for the fight. The first 15 minutes, it should be a battle. If you can go and win that battle, you can get the ball down," he said. "They need to go back to basics, make sure they've got the fight, make sure they've got the hunger because they've got the talent. You cannot have just one of those days against your biggest rivals, ever."
Fixture: Celtic v Rangers, Scottish Premiership, Celtic Park, Sunday 20 September 2026. Radio coverage from 11:00 BST on Sportsound, highlights on Sportscene from 19:15. No away supporters. Celtic lead Rangers by five points. Rangers won last Sunday's League Cup quarter-final 3-0 at Ibrox. Prediction: Celtic to win a tight one, with the opening quarter deciding it.
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