CELTIC come to Dingwall today to play our Ross County team as something of a wounded animal following their Europa League defeat by Molde the other night. But you only have to look at their results after their first match against the Norwegians last month to say it would be a huge mistake to think that makes it any less of a challenge for us. That defeat away from home would have stung Ronny Deila and his players but they responded in the best possible way by winning their next three domestic games. Ronny will feel that he doesn’t have his problems to seek in Europe this year but, whatever the reason for that, they have not allowed it to affect their league form. Just the one defeat in their first 13 games tells its own story. They are a team that can evidently recover quickly from poor results.

We will still fancy our chances, though. And we would have done so even if Celtic hadn’t been coming in to the game on the back of a poor result, with some key players likely to be missing, and possibly tired after their midweek efforts. Our optimism stems from the fact that we have been playing well for most of the season and this is a chance for our players to really show what they are capable of against the league leaders. It looks like Celtic could be missing a few key players like Scott Brown and Kris Commons, and from a Ross County perspective that can only be good news. On our day we feel we are more than capable of matching any team, especially at home. Our fans will head to the game with optimism this afternoon and you can’t fault them for that.

As a fellow coach, I share Ronny’s frustration at how things went the other night for Celtic. He’ll be pulling his hair out at the basic defensive mistakes and looking for a response today. He might well be thinking that his players let him down again in Europe but they’ve shown they are a different beast domestically. Ronny doesn’t think his team get challenged enough in the league so this is an opportunity for us to show that isn’t the case. But we have to be wary because they have this great bouncebackability when they can follow a disappointing result in Europe with a win in the league. And we have to be on our guard for that.

We have to show enough belief, though, if we are to get a result. When we played Celtic at Parkhead on the first game of the season we deserved more out of the game than a 2-0 defeat. We missed a few chances in that game and had a right go good at them in the second half. If we had scored one then you never know what might have happened after that. On paper that was a stronger Celtic team than the one we will likely face today so there is no reason why, on our own patch, we can’t give them another tough game. And this time hopefully get something for our efforts.

The last time, though, it took our players until half-time before they realised they could potentially hurt Celtic. I think now our boys have that belief that they are capable of doing that. They just need to have the confidence to make it happen.

Ronny will just want to get through this game unscathed after the difficulties on Thursday night and head into the international break on the back of a win. Our job is to make it as hard as possible for Celtic to do that.

I WAS interested to read the comments made by Lord Drummond Young after last week’s development in the Big Tax Case. He said that “if bonuses had not been paid (the players) might well have taken their services elsewhere.” Well, I can say that definitely wasn’t the case in my situation and a few others who were in the same boat. There was no mention of an EBT or any other payment like that when I signed for Rangers. I had already agreed my deal for a certain amount of money so it played no part in me moving to the club. I never got or was offered an EBT when I signed. I was due money at the club when I left and got it via an EBT then. So the idea that I would have taken my services elsewhere had I not got an EBT when I signed definitely didn’t apply in my case or in the case of several others.