The Old Firm derby between Celtic and Rangers is under way with a midday kickoff in the Scottish Premiership, and Celtic have gone into it with a much-changed side.
The most notable alteration comes in goal, where O’Neill has replaced Sam Johnstone with Viljami Sinisalo. Johnstone had played in the two sides’ meeting a week earlier, and O’Neill set out his reasoning: “I feel that with Sam coming newly into the football club, and not having played for some time, I thought that the two games that he played, it would give him experience of the Old Firm game for a start.”
Derek McInnes, the Rangers manager, told the BBC he was well aware of how many changes Celtic had made. He also looked back at last week’s encounter between the clubs, saying: “A lot was made of last week, us having won the battle through the middle of the park, they’ve filled the middle of the pitch today. We just need to make sure that we still try and compete in there, that middle ground is important for us to win.”
On the pitch, Rangers have again looked by far the better team. Their goal owed much to Rangers being quicker to the ball, while Celtic have been sluggish, and they might have been 2-0 ahead had Gassama’s shot been an inch lower than the bar. Gassama also ended up going over the advertising hoardings and into the Celtic fans, a moment captured by photographers at the ground.