Rangers legend Richard Gough fears his old club is set to suffer another excruciating derby day beating at the home of their bitter rivals this weekend.
And the man who led the Ibrox club to nine successive league titles has conceded they will face up to a Celtic side jampacked with better players. Gough insists the vast majority of supporters have become conditioned into expecting the worst after a woeful run of results at Parkhead stretching back to the turn of the century.
His old side has managed just six wins in 40 trips to Glasgow’s East End but new boss Michael Beale will have to defy the odds on Saturday to have any chance of halting Celtic’s match towards an 11th league title in 12 years. The former Rangers skipper, speaking exclusively to Record Sport from his home in California, said: “Look at what’s happened the last few times we’ve played there. There has been a 3-0 and a 4-0 in there. It’s got heavy!
“I still get up and watch it at something like half past four in the morning here but I’m sitting behind the couch! It’s a hard watch for me, especially when my record at Parkhead was a good one.
“I didn’t suffer too many defeats there during my 11 years, never mind these past one or two seasons. And it’s the defeats that hurt, I remember them more than I do all the wins.”
And Gough believes Rangers are now suffering from the same inferiority complex which had such a crippling affect on Celtic during his own playing days at Ibrox. He went on: “Very much so.
"One of my good friends in the international team was Paul McStay and he was the best Celtic player that I played against during my time. But he didn’t have the team around him that I had.
“When we were together with Scotland we kind of knew it. Celtic were going through a difficult period at the time and we were buying all the best players, so it just made sense that we were going to win most of the games.
“And that’s what I see now. I don’t like to say it but Celtic have a better team than us at the moment, I think the majority of the Rangers supporters would agree with that.
“They have better players, they run around more. Stuff like that, if Rangers are going to beat them first they’ll need to match that energy. But in Old Firm games you are always hoping for the best.
“Michael has done very well since he’s been there and he’s got a chance to win the Scottish Cup. So if Rangers can go there and get a result on Saturday then it might put a marker down for the semi-final as well.
“Look, Rangers have a decent group of players. We just haven’t won there enough over the last 10-15 years. The last four or five years have been much closer because the quality of players at Rangers has been better.
"But I still think at the moment Celtic are stronger and the league position proves it. The Japanese boys who have come in have all been very disciplined. They’re good signings and they’ve worked very well.
“Then, obviously, they brought in a manager who no-one knew very much about. But I spoke to Craig Moore about him at the time and he said, ‘He’ll get them going Goughie - he’s a good one!’ And, unfortunately, he was right!”
