DANNY Wilson has a simple answer to the complicated question of how his Rangers team are going to come away from Celtic Park with something more than a defeat.
The defender could have spoken about being brave on the ball, how his team-mates should play to their potential or that they must rise to the occasion.Wilson, however, is smarter than most.
Rangers can’t match Celtic in terms of quality, sadly for the Ibrox club that’s an undeniable fact, but there is a way for his team to return from the east end of Glasgow with the positive result few would give them much of a chance of doing.
Read more: Graeme Murty hopeful of having new Rangers assistant for showdown with Celtic
“I think togetherness is going to be massive,” said Wilson who himself will be key. “You look at the game last season when we went there and got a point, we had to keep ourselves in the game as long as we could and eventually got the late goal.
I think it is going to be important for us to stick together and play as a team. If we go there and we are not at it, then it’s going to be a long day for us.
“Outwith ourselves, I don’t think a lot of people will be expecting us to go there and get the win. We know what we are about and we know what we have to try and do.
“We won’t go there just to make up the numbers, we are going there to impose what we can do on the game.”
Rangers’ record against their old friends since returning to the Premiership makes grim reading for players and supporters alike.
Celtic boast a run of six wins out of seven, two of them 5-1s, with that one draw in the league last season at Parkhead the only crumb of comfort for Rangers.
And, of course, on that day it was a certain Graeme Murty in charge as a Rangers team which was on their knees, and with Pedro Caixinha watching from the stands, did enough in the match to earn a point thanks to a late Clint Hill goals.
Read more: Rangers manager Graeme Murty embracing the madness of the Old Firm match despite absences of key men
“Nothing spectacular,” was Wilson’s reply to what Murty did in the run-up to that game. “He put his trust in us like he does now.
“He set us up in the way we wanted to play where we felt we could affect them and we kept ourselves in the game for a long period that day.
“I am sure he will have a game plan and we will have to try and implement it because we are the players who will have to go out there and do it.
“He’s the manager who sets us up but if we don’t apply ourselves it won’t be enough, so we have to go into this game fully prepared and ready for it.”
“The boys are working hard but we have fallen short on occasions and there’s no doubt we face a really tough game on Saturday.”
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