Rangers injury tracker for Celtic with Goldson and Lundstram timeline named as Philippe Clement 'avoids' one thing
The Ibrox boss won't take any chances on derby day as his side travel to Celtic Park.
Connor Goldson and John Lundstram are poised to be pitched into the Old Firm frenzy after coming through Rangers final training session ahead of their trip to Parkhead at lunchtime. And while Gers boss Philippe Clement refused to confirm they would both start - insisting he’d wait to see if there was an reaction to being put their paces - the availability of the experienced defender and midfielder would be a massive boost as his team faces the prospect of taking on the league leaders and 60,000 of their fans with no backing of their own. Clement said: “Connor trained, so we will assess tomorrow what to do with that. He did train. I will make my decisions tomorrow after watching back the training and after speaking with the doc and the medical staff. “Lunny trained, so we will see. I don’t want to say now that ‘yes, there’s a chance’ and then tomorrow he’s not in the selection – and people will say he was playing games. That I want to avoid. I don’t like to play games and to say that somebody is in and then this afternoon he feels a reaction from the training and we are not going to make a stupid risk and lose players for the rest of the season. It is better to make this assessment tomorrow and then it is clear.”
It is equally clear that Clement, unbeaten in 16 games as Rangers boss, believes his team can handle the heat that will be generated at Celtic Park. He added: “I don’t see a difference for my players because we have been to Seville and they were also not all behind us and there were also a lot of people. “Of course, we had some fans there but the players go to play games and win games because they are ambitious. You have seen in the last couple of weeks an ambitious team in all the different circumstances. “That is our only concern, not how many people are there or what they (Celtic fans) think about us. We know already what they think about us from before. So that is not important. What is important is what we do on the field.” Clement has been doing his homework on Celtic and while acknowledging their attacking threat, insists he is treating the match like any other fixture. He said: “I have seen all their games until now because they are our biggest rivals this season. So I always watch these games. It is interesting to see them, to know them really well. We have really good analysts also so I have good information. “The players also know them so well. It is about doing the right things against them to stop their qualities, and they have a lot of offensive qualities, and to look where the holes can be so that we can be dangerous in our way of football and find the right spaces. What we do every game, whether it is against Celtic or Aberdeen or Ross County, that way of working will stay the same.”