Ally McCoist, the Rangers manager, last night moved to clarify his position on the prospect of his team drawing Celtic in the Scottish League Cup semi-finals today and insisted he is certainly not "running scared' of the club's old Glasgow foes.

Following Rangers' 1-0 victory over St Johnstone in the quarter-finals of the competition in midweek, which left the Ibrox side as the only team from outside the top flight in the last four, McCoist suggested that he would prefer a contest with either Aberdeen or Dundee United as opposed to tournament favourites Celtic.

Those words were seized upon by a salivating media as the possibility of a first Old Firm contest in almost three years inched nearer but McCoist yesterday acted swiftly to put his comments into context.

He said: "I need to explain myself because there have been one or two things written and said. I am certainly not running scared or hiding behind the couch. I thought it was common sense what I was trying to say and I stand by that.

"Commonsense, as everyone can see from the bookies, is because Celtic are 4/5 favourites, and everybody else is 9/2.

"Because the bookies are very rarely wrong I thought it was common sense that you'd like a shot at one of the teams at 9/2 in terms of enhancing your chances of making the final. But there is no 'I want to avoid Celtic at all costs'. That couldn't be further from the truth."

John Guidetti, the Celtic striker who thumped in a hat trick as the Scottish champions demolished 10-man Partick Thistle 6-0 en route to the semi-finals, has already stoked the fires by stating that Rangers would 'be going down' if the two Glasgow clubs were paired together in tonight's draw.

"With the greatest of respect to John, I remember getting excited about my first hat trick . . . but against 11 men," added McCoist with a cheeky smile. "He's entitled to his opinion and that's the way it is. But maybe, just maybe, he's got caught up in the excitement of scoring his first hat trick for Celtic which, of course, we congratulate him on."

The prospect of the two Glasgow giants going head to head is now tantalisingly close and McCoist believes a first meeting between the sides since April 2012 - before Rangers went into financial meltdown and were reborn in the bottom tier of the domestic game - would give Scottish football a shot in the arm.

There were around 75,000 empty seats in total at both Ibrox and Celtic Park for the two midweek cup matches and McCoist said: "You had 15,000 at the Celtic game on Wednesday and you had 13,000 at our game on Tuesday night. But if Rangers play Celtic in the semi-final or the final you could play the game at the Maracana. In terms of the greater good of Scottish football it would be a good thing. Everybody would look forward to the game.

"I've missed them and I think Scottish football has missed them. Contrary to what one or two people might have said at the time, it still was one of the biggest club matches in the world. You can talk about differences of quality, absolutely. But in terms of atmosphere it is certainly up there with anything.

"I didn't miss them two years ago because I didn't really fancy playing Celtic or indeed any real top-flight club.

"Last year we were better and competed reasonably well against Dundee United. This year, we feel we are slightly better again to handle the threat of a Celtic, an Aberdeen or a Dundee United."