Celtic and Rangers both recorded wins in the Scottish Premiership to set themselves up for their upcoming big European ties as well as the League Cup final next Sunday.
Celtic beat Hibs 3-0 before they make their trip to Croatia for their next Champions League tie against Dinamo Zagreb.
Whilst Rangers defeated Ross County up at Dingwall before they entertain Ange Postecoglou’s Spurs in the Europa League.
After that, it’s the big one. The League Cup final at Hampden where Celtic and Rangers will both compete for the first piece of silverware of the season.
With Rangers seeing an upturn in their form and Celtic looking relentless domestically, the game looks set up to be a good contest between the Glasgow clubs and both will be confident of lifting the trophy.
Unless you are Rangers boss, Philippe Clement, it seems.
Philippe Clement makes ‘out of our league’ comment about Celtic and Spurs
When asked about how the win against Ross County sets Rangers up for their next two games against Tottenham Hotspur and Celtic, Clement made a strange comment to the Sky Sports interviewer.
Clement said, “Of course, it’s totally different kinds of games.
Maybe we need to say financially out of our league, the two games. But we are going to compete that way and it’s a really nice challenge for our squad to show themselves in these games and what we can do against those teams.”
That’s quite the admission and it’s unlikely to go down with the Rangers support ahead of the two of their biggest games of the season.
James McFadden tells Rangers boss ‘don’t make excuses’ after Celtic and Spurs comments
Unimpressed, Sky Sports pundit James McFadden sent the Rangers boss a stern ‘don’t make excuses’ message ahead of the big games against Tottenham and Celtic.
McFadden told Sky Sports, “The fact you’re giving them a chance of winning the cup because they’ve turned their form around, they’re finding the level of consistency.
“I mean, obviously you want to do well in every game you play, but they would give up losing on Thursday to win the cup, absolutely, no doubt.
So I think it’s going to be an interesting one because you play Spurs and you can say that they are out of their league financially well that’s the case with Ross County today.
“You get on with it, you just play the game and don’t make excuses before you’ve started.
The build-up to the 3:30pm Hamped kick-off has now officially begun even though there are huge European ties to negotiate before then.
Whilst what happens in UEFA’s competitions won’t matter when Sunday comes along a good result in Europe will set Celtic up nicely for the Rangers game.
Brendan Rodgers’ team go into the game as favourites to lift the trophy as the Celtic boss remains unbeaten against Rangers over his two Parkhead spells.
