A VICTORY for Rangers over Celtic tomorrow will still leave the Parkhead club three points ahead of their Ibrox rivals in the Ladbrokes Premiership table with a game in hand to play against lowly Dundee.

However, would a triumph give Graeme Murty’s men a psychological edge over Brendan Rodgers’s charges during the final eight matches of the 2017/18 campaign? Could it dent the confidence of their age-old foes? Might it even derail their attempt to win an eighth consecutive Scottish title?

Read more: Matthew Lindsay: Win, lose or draw against Celtic tomorrow, Graeme Murty deserves to be kept on at Rangers

Craig Burley thinks that anything is possible. The former Scotland midfielder was only on the winning side once in the seven Glasgow derby matches that he took part in during the eventful two-and-a-half seasons he spent in the East End. It proved, though, to be a momentous result which had massive repercussions.

The 2-0 victory – secured thanks to a well-taken Burley strike in the second-half and a Paul Lambert piledriver late on – at Celtic Park on January 2, 1998, left Wim Jansen’s team a point adrift of Walter Smith’s side with 16 league games still to be negotiated.

Yet, Burley is in no doubt about the significance of that meeting and the huge role it played in Celtic winning the Scottish title that year and stopping Rangers from completing 10-In-A-Row.

Now living happily in Connecticut in the United States, where he provides his ex-pert analysis of the English, Italian and Spanish games for ESPN to 50 countries around the world six days a week, with his family he feels the outcome of the fixture this weekend will have exactly the same far-reaching consequences for both clubs.

“Nobody said as much in the dressing room before that game, but everybody, the senior players certainly, was thinking it,” said Burley. “We all knew if we went seven points behind here we were stuffed. The look in the eyes of Stubbsy, Lambo, Jackie, Henrik, whoever, that day told you that.

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“We had already had a bad start to the season. We had already chased our tails once. I don’t think we could have done it again had we lost that day, I really don’t. We knew that. And Rangers knew as well. They could easily have buried us that day. But it didn’t happen.

“I still remember the atmosphere. That and the relief of winning a game of that size and importance at the end. I honestly didn’t know how much that season meant when I joined.

“I left Ayrshire when I was a spotty-faced 16-year-old and went down to London. I was so engrossed with what I was trying to do at Chelsea, making the grade, getting into the first team, playing under Glenn Hoddle. So when I pitched up at Celtic I didn’t really know about Nine-In-A-Row. Sky Sports was in its infancy back then.

“But it hit me like a juggernaut. Fans started poking me in the chest, literally poking me in the chest, outside Parkhead and saying: ‘Listen, you lot better get your fingers out, this is one of the most important seasons in Celtic’s history’.

“Jock Brown (the then general manager) might have mentioned it to me when I signed. But when I started pitching up at Celtic Park before training, after we lost the first two games especially, people would come up to you and say: ‘You can’t let this lot do 10-In-A-Row’. "

Read more: Graeme Murty urges Rangers to put themselves in a position to "chase down" Celtic in title race with Old Firm win​

Asked if he thought the result had been the key factor in Celtic bringing an end to nine years of Rangers’ dominance in Scottish football, he said: “Absolutely. Concrete. Cast iron.”

Burley, however, feels the challenge this Celtic side faces beating Rangers to the Scottish title is quite different and nowhere near as difficult to the one the team that he was a member of 20 years ago needed to rise to.

He looks back on the league win with considerable pride due to the undoubted quality of their nearest challengers and feels Scott Brown and his team mates have been unable to derive the same sort of satisfaction during the past seven years.

“The most gratifying thing thinking back to that season is knowing how tough it was,” he said. “Rangers were strong. Rino Gattuso played that day. He would go on to become this maniac midfielder for AC Milan and Italy. Paul Gascoigne and Gordon Durie came off the bench. I would never want to win the league if the next best team was 15 or 20 points behind.

“I have heard people say: ‘Aye, but that Rangers team was about to go over the cliff’. But look at Spurs v Juventus in the Champions League this week. Experience got Juve through that game. You can’t underestimate the importance of that.”

Read more: Matthew Lindsay: Win, lose or draw against Celtic tomorrow, Graeme Murty deserves to be kept on at Rangers

Burley added: “From where I am looking at it, this is not a vintage Rangers team. Celtic might have done well in the last few years and have certainly earned their success, but you can’t deny Rangers have been a poor outfit.

“The new manager has steadied the ship. But this is a team that, one, can’t get the management right, two, have signed a lot of poor players and, three, have been pretty inconsistent over the piece, albeit they have got better lately, That adds to the pressure on Celtic.

“If Celtic were to buckle, and I would be very surprised if that happened, their supporters will look at it and say: ‘How did we lose the league to this Rangers team?’ When the chasing horse isn’t exactly a thoroughbred then you are under pressure.”

Now 46, age has clearly not mellowed Burley, who made Chris Sutton look like Kofi Annan during the spell that he spent as a television pundit in Scotland before moving to the United States, greatly.

His goal in that epic and iconic Old Firm win back in 1998 and his contribution to their landmark league win are still remembered with great fondness by Celtic sup-porters to this day, but his often savage appraisals of their beloved team and club since have not been either forgotten or forgiven.

“The attitude many Celtic fans have towards me now is ‘thanks very much, you were a great player for us back in the day, I’ll never forget your goal in that Old Firm game, the atmosphere was amazing . . . but you’re a total douchebag now! Or words to that effect’.”