Miller motivated by advancing years

The 35-year-old's personal history in this fixture, starting with a 5-1 Rangers win in November 2000, stretches 15 years and straddles the ancestral Glasgow divide, not to mention all this contemporary point scoring about newco and oldco. In a way, his participation in today's League Cup semi-final at Hampden Park is already an added bonus: one more than he thought he would be granted when he departed Ibrox for a second time in January 2011. That was shortly after a 2-0 defeat to Celtic. And everyone knows you are only as good as your last Old Firm game.

If it was the impending sense of finality which surrounded his involvement in Scotland's meeting with England in August 2013 which coaxed such a splendid performance from the veteran striker, Miller said last night that a goal today would probably even top his Wembley experience, the crowning moment of which arrived when he turned sweetly away from Gary Cahill and steered in an unerring left foot finish in front of the Tartan Army.

There is just one proviso in all this, however: that the strike helps his side win the match. Luckily for Miller, that usually tends to be the case. His 16 Old Firm matches to date have harvested eight goals, all of them in winning efforts - bar a consolation strike for Rangers in a 2-1 defeat at Celtic Park in May 2010, when the Ibrox side already had the title all but in the bag.

"A goal from me in this match won't be any good if we don't win the game," said Miller. "But if it is a winning goal or a goal which plays its part in us winning the game then I think it would come close to that Wembley goal, given the situation and the circumstances at both clubs. It would definitely be a huge achievement and move us one step closer to getting what we want, which is some silverware.

"Who knows whether it will be my last one?" he added. "Whether you are here next year or not, or whether we might get promoted so we have another shot at it, who knows what is going to happen in football, particularly at this place at the moment. This is a game everyone is looking forward to and one we should cherish. Particularly for me because I know I might never get that opportunity again.

"When I left three years ago I felt that was it, I would never see another Old Firm game. My last one was a 2-0 defeat at Ibrox, so you are not leaving on a great note. For all the good times you have had in the fixture it wasn't a good one to go out in. This is an opportunity to put that right."

Miller, of course, is in the rare situation of having produced Old Firm heroics on both halves of the divide, a setting where he seems to utterly revel in proving people wrong. Pressure was already mounting after a handful of scoreless outings following his Bosman move from Derby County to Celtic when he notched his first goal for the club in a 2-0 Old Firm victory, while his favourite memory of all in the Glasgow derby was the brace he grabbed to win over the doubters in a 4-2 Rangers win on his first return to Celtic Park of his second spell at Ibrox.

"I was very nervous before my first one," said Miller. "I was a young man - or, rather, a younger man! As much as guys try to give you an insight nothing prepares you for it."

Having made his Old Firm debut in a one-sided match - only a knock kept him out of a rather more chastening debut, in the 6-2 defeat at Easter Road, earlier that season - Miller knows that big scores do happen in this fixture. But he sees no reason why one should occur at Hampden today, regardless of the hat-trick which John Guidetti reportedly fancies himself to score.

"That just means between us we have to get four!" said Miller. "Over the years you have seen so many players, new players, young players, even older players to be honest with you, making silly statements about games and things. To think this is going to be a one-sided affair and make big statements about scoring hat-tricks or whatever is a bit foolish. Loads of things can happen, there can be red cards, strange decisions, penalty decisions that can go for or against you."

The atmosphere will still crackle, and the commitment to the cause will be the same, but even Miller admits the Old Firm fixture is diminished in terms of quality. "You'd be lying if you said there is the same standard now as the likes of [Arthur] Numan, [Jorg] Albertz and [Barry] Ferguson," he said. "But we are where we are, in the Championship and not the top league, so that goes hand in hand. The lads who go out there will be giving everything for the jersey the same as these guys did. As for Celtic, I couldn't comment in terms of the quality they've attracted but in terms of whether they've missed us and their performances then I would say yes, because I think the whole league has."

The bookmakers are another party which concurs with the one-sided theory, offering odds of 8-1 against a Rangers win. Miller feels that is value, were he allowed to gamble. "It's staggering when you think it's Rangers and Celtic and you can get a price like that on Rangers," he said, before breaking into a giggle. "I'll have to get my wife to have a bet on that!"