STEPPING off the team bus on Edmiston Drive, there are few Celtic managers who would feel comfort-able with their surroundings. Brendan Rodgers is perhaps an exception.

When his Celtic side make the short trip to Ibrox this morning, he will be preparing for his ninth Old Firm game, his fifth in Govan, and still undefeated. Four wins have been garnered from previous visits but he is now approaching what has been dubbed the most testing visit of them all.

The significance of this fixture is not lost on a man who has been part of Welsh derbies, Merseyside clashes and meetings between Liverpool and Manchester United, both to those in the stands, and the men in his away dressing room, aiming to open up a nine-point lead at the top of the table.

“There’s passion for both teams, expectancy for both teams. I’ve loved every game I’ve been involved in, either winning or drawing. They’re great spectacles with the intensity – you feel all of that,” he said.

“They’re pressure games, where the job is to control and regulate that. Nothing has surprised me, but there has been pleasure in them. Being stood in both grounds and at Hampden, seeing your team work.

“For me there is no doubt [this is the biggest derby I’ve experienced]. When I think back to Swansea v Cardiff, that’s a real rivalry. If I think of Liverpool v Man United, Liverpool v Everton, they are big games. But there’s no doubt there’s a difference with this game. It’s historical, political, football, you name it, it’s all in there. And there’s that extra sense of knowing what it means.

“They’re wonderful occasions, not always the best games but thankfully for us in the majority of them we have played well and got the result.”

Gordon Strachan spoke last week about the eye-opening nature of life in the visiting technical area at Ibrox when you are from the other side of the city. But Rodgers says he is yet to have a turbulent experience.

“It has been passionate, as you would expect,” he says with a smile. “It has been intense, as you would expect. Of course you get the odd comment but in the main, no. Since I have been up here I haven’t had any issue with Rangers supporters and I have met enough of them. They are intense, passionate people. They want their team to do well, they expect the team to do well and I am just the opposition manager of the rival. You get a bit of stick but that is OK.”

There is a mutual respect between Rodgers and the man who will be standing about 10 yards away this afternoon. Parachuted in as Pedro Caixinha’s replacement in October, Graeme Murty has since been appointed Rangers manager until the end of the season. Today his team could cut the gap with their visitors to three points and, perhaps just as importantly to the majority in the stands, bring about the first win over their rivals at Ibrox since March 2012.

Rodgers has been impressed by the 43-year-old, who he believes should remain in place beyond his current remit.

“Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely,” he said. “I think he has done very, very well. It is never easy your first management job. A job of this scale and inheriting what was a difficult situation. He has been able to look to do it the way he wants to do it.

“He has brought back a British core to the team, brought in some players who understand what it means to play for Rangers. He has brought in one or two others. So I think he and his staff have done a very good job.”

The Celtic manager believes Murty would find it difficult to go back to his previous day job of being in charge of the U20s.

“I remember having the experience when I was at Chelsea. At the time I didn’t even know if I wanted to be a manager but when Jose Mourinho got the sack I was brought in for the first team for a period of three or four months or so. I enjoyed the intensity, I enjoyed the pressure, I enjoyed the preparation, I enjoyed the highs, I enjoyed the lows – that is what comes.

“I was then offered the chance to stay with the first team. They brought in a guy called Henk ten Cate, who came out of managing with Ajax to be the No 2 at Chelsea. So that left Henk, Stevie Clarke and then me and I thought I am not going to be doing a great deal here.

“Henk has been sent to coach and Stevie was already there. I was the young up-and-coming coach. I have always been a lead coach so I then went back to the reserve team through choice and it was great, brilliant developing players and coaching. But it had changed then.

“You actually enjoyed the pressure so then you want the pressure. Then it was no coincidence that not long after that I became a manager. So I think now for him [it would be

difficult to co back}; if he was out of work then of course sometimes you have to work to earn money then you will do that. But I think he has shown he has probably got a really good chance of getting the job.”