ON Merseyside, there is normally only one derby match that gets the juices flowing, but the focus this weekend is firmly on the clash between Glasgow’s rivals in the East End this afternoon.

The first meeting between former Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic and Anfield icon Steven Gerrard’s Rangers has captured the imagination in Liverpool. Normally, the Red’s European Cup-winning hero Alan Kennedy is cornered on all-things Anfield as fans look to chew the fat with him over football, but he admits that the trip Jurgen Klopp and his men made to Leicester yesterday has been relegated to second billing in the last week.

“Even yesterday morning, people were talking about it rather than the Liverpool game that was coming up live on TV,” Kennedy said. “Everything is about what is happening north of the border, and it’s great to have that interest in the Scottish game again.

“Brendan Rodgers is a manager who did so well at Liverpool and came so close to delivering the championship. It was great times, it really was.

“Then you have the young pretender, who looks to be enjoying what he is doing as he makes his way in management. He has started off in the right way and it looks as though it will be a cracking game.”

Together, as Kennedy says, Rodgers and Gerrard did come so close to

delivering a historic league title to Liverpool. Apart, one of them will almost certainly land a championship trophy this season.

The Old Firm match has always thrown up fascinating sub-plots, and there is no more intriguing one than the former pupil in Gerrard pitting his wits against the old master Rodgers from the dugout. And what makes the meeting of minds all the more captivating is the complicated nature of their relationship.

The respect between the pair is unquestioned. Jamie Carragher, a close friend of Gerrard and team-mate for over a decade at Anfield, speaks of how the pair were immediately impressed as the senior professionals in the Liverpool dressing room by the coaching ability and methods of Rodgers upon his arrival on Merseyside from Swansea City.

“I think respect would be the key word to use when describing their

relationship,” Kennedy said. “They respect each other. Steven praised Brendan in his book, and said that he was great to work for, and certainly the perception in Liverpool is that they had a great professional relationship.

“They probably don’t speak to each other every day, mind you. They dovetailed very well in English football, but I think it would be fair to say they aren’t best of pals. That’s normal in football though, and it never seemed to affect them at Liverpool.”

Kennedy admits that he was a little taken aback when Rangers managed to attract Gerrard to the club in the summer, but he isn’t surprised by how well the former England captain has done since taking the Ibrox reins.

“I think even Rangers might have been surprised that Steven agreed to come up,” he said. “They are a huge club of course, but it is difficult to know where to take your first step in management.

“He could have gone to a smaller club in England, or he could even have held on at Liverpool until that job became available. Long term, that is probably where he will see himself, but it might have been a big ask for him to cope with that as his first job.

“As it is, it looks as though he has found a happy medium. He is at a big club with a demanding support, and he looks to be taking to it really well.

“He is going to make mistakes. It won’t all be plain sailing and he will come under a lot of scrutiny at times. But that should stand him in good stead if he is to eventually be the Liverpool manager.”

Kennedy feels it might not only be Gerrard who ends up swapping Glasgow for a major job down south in the future, believing that Rodgers is still held in high esteem in the English Premier League for the job he did at Liverpool.

“I really do think that Brendan will get another opportunity down here,” he said. “He deserves it not only for what he did at Liverpool, but obviously for the job he is doing at Celtic.

“His Liverpool team were great to watch, and they came so close to glory. They may not have been the best defensively, they were the sort of team that the opposition could score three against and they would try to score four. But there is no doubt that certainly within football, Brendan is still hugely respected.

“He was really unfortunate that his team just fell a little short. He then lost really good players, like Luis Suarez and of course, Gerrard himself, in the same summer.

“I don’t think that losing Moussa Dembele will have the same sort of impact for him at Celtic. He wasn’t so integral to what Brendan is doing there.

“I really think there is always a way back for good managers. It might be a top team, or it might not, but there will be clubs down here looking very closely at what Steven and Brendan are doing up in Scotland.

“Brendan has a very good track record and I think in the long term, he might just believe he has taken Celtic as far as he can. He can win leagues there, but he can’t win Champions Leagues, and that may see him eventually want to come back down to England.

“The good thing at the moment is that the competition has reignited in Scotland, and that may help to hold his interest. It’s not only Rangers, you have Hibs and Hearts and Aberdeen doing well too.

“And the Old Firm game looks like a really close contest again, so I’m looking forward to seeing who comes out on top.”