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It’s Tuesday and that means we get details of the match officials for the weekend’s games from the Scottish FA via their official website…
Celtic go to Ibrox as Champions
It’s a dead rubber at Ibrox on Sunday this time as newly confirmed Scottish Champions Celtic head across the city to face the team that they defeated in the Premier Sports League Cup Final back in December 2024.
That plus the recent confirmation that Celtic are the Scottish Champions for season 2024/25 sets up Brendan Rodgers and his squad for a chance to secure a world record ninth treble on 24 May in the Scottish Cup Final against Jimmy Thelin’s Aberdeen side.
No Guard of Honour from James Tavernier & Co
Celtic won’t be given the courtesy of a Guard of Honour but as the team’s emerge from the tunnel ‘Simply the Best’ will usually be the song of choice as the 50,000 crowd applaud. Such a sporting opponent, is theRangers.
Nick Walsh has whistle, Andrew Dallas is the VAR
Holding the match ball will be referee Nick Walsh who has been confirmed as the referee for theRangers versus Celtic match this Sunday. With the summer bragging rights at stake, it’s a decider too in the head-to-head battle with the two teams tied on two wins each. But the big prize has already been won as Celtic look to increase their lead over theRangers to twenty points.
Assisting Nick Walsh will be Frank Connor and Dougie Potter with these two experienced campaigners running the lines.
Celtic bookies favourites
Andrew Dallas will be on VAR duty on what is hopefully another Beautiful Sunday and he will be assisted by Andrew McWilliam. While we all like to moan about VAR on a fairly regular basis the one real benefit has been to eliminate the ‘honest mistake’ and gifted penalties to theRangers. They’ve only had one penalty this season yet in the ‘Penalty to Rangers‘ era in the few years ahead of VAR coming into the game they were practically getting one every week.
A bigger Celtic support at Ibrox
Around 2000 Celtic supporters will be there on Sunday and will make theRangers supporters well aware that they are watching the Champions play.
Brendan Rodgers certainly wants to win this Glasgow Derby. Talking about going to Ibrox this weekend the Celtic manager said: “It’s so important. (the)Rangers were very good in the first half when we played them at Celtic Park.
“We were too slow. The comfort in the game was not good. In the second half, we were much better. Celtic vs (the)Rangers, no matter what it is, (the)Rangers Celtic, it means everything. So we need to go and perform next week again. But we can get those messages through during the week.”
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