RANGERS legend Ian Durrant believes it will be difficult for his old club or anyone else to stop Celtic winning a record ten Scottish league titles in a row.
The former midfield player, who retains iconic status among the Ibrox support, believes the financial gap which exists at the moment, which will be lengthened by Celtic’s involvement in the Champions League, means the squad which have won five championships in succession will begin to think they can beat the mark set jointly by both Glasgow clubs.
Durrant, a coach at Rangers until leaving the club in June, knows Celtic are favourites not only for Saturday’s match, but for this league campaign and most likely the next few to come.
Asked whether Celtic could make it ten in a row, Durrant said: “Of course they can do it. I hope they don't. Rangers will want to make sure they don't. Celtic will fancy their chances of doing it. They're in a winning mentality, a winning roll, and it's very hard to de-rail that.
“If you get a taste for it, as Celtic have now, in terms of going for six then seven, you do start looking at it. At three and four you are cagey, you’re in a comfort zone, but see when you get to five and six you do start looking at the record.
“Celtic had that record for years and if you’re a Rangers fan you want to go and break that record. Nobody gave us a mention until we got nine in a row. Unfortunately we ran out of steam before ten.
“If we had lost nine then we wouldn’t have got mentioned because we hadn’t equalled Celtic’s record, and now I think Celtic are smelling the blood. They are looking at six, could it be seven, could it be eight?”
A win for Celtic at Parkhead would take them four points clear of Rangers with a game in hand, which is at home to Partick Thistle, and if the gap was to become seven then a comeback for Mark Warburton’s side, even at such an early stage, would be something of a task.
"There are hard games coming up for Rangers,” said Durrant. “Everyone's talking about Celtic Park but I've said all along that it'll be a new experience going to Pittodrie and Tynecastle, great arenas for football, proper atmospheres in terms of what they're going to handle.
"They've a lot of tough games. They knew that and that's why the manager has assembled a squad he thinks is going to be capable of mounting a challenge to Celtic.”
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