Derek McInnes Drops Major Update Right Before Celtic Face Rangers

It might take a Herculean effort from Celtic to turn things around against the Rangers this weekend. While their winning a Glasgow Derby in their own backyard is not going to be a rare feat in itself, and has happened plenty of times, the context is key in this situation.

This is a Celtic team that has never seemed to recover from that 5-1 defeat at the hands of LASK to be knocked out of Champions League qualifiers again.

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The past week has been even more worrying in some ways. While one could have written off the loss to LASK as a bad day at the office, Celtic have lost twice over the past week.

The first came at Ibrox against the Rangers. The second came at home, against Ferencvaros, in the Europa League opener.

So, if Celtic bounce back from this situation and manage to get a result against the Rangers this weekend, even at home, that would be a feat worthy of praise.

Derek McInnes drops injury update for Rangers

Derek McInnes has confirmed that the Rangers could be without one of their players at Parkhead right before the game against Celtic.

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That player is none other than Ryan Naderi. McInnes said regarding the Rangers player's situation (via The Scottish Sun):

"With regards Ryan, we don't really have another like for like, but we'll give him every chance.

"We've had to cope without key players before.

"Hopefully he can make it but if he doesn't that will be somebody else's opportunity."

It remains to be seen if Naderi ends up regaining fitness in time to feature against Celtic or not.

'Definitely not' - Celtic Player Openly Disagrees with Martin O'NeillThe Celtic player has disagreed with Martin O'Neill regarding where the team stand right now.

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Will Naderi actually miss the Glasgow Derby against Celtic or are these mind games?

To be very honest, it is impossible to predict whether Naderi is actually going to miss the derby or if this is a bit of mind games on the part of the Rangers.

We have seen both Celtic and Rangers managers do similar things in the past, when players were expected to miss games but then ended up playing. Could this be another such instance? Time shall tell.

What is certain is that Celtic cannot waste any time thinking about who might or might not be injured at Ibrox right now.

They need to find a way to deliver their very best performance possible at the weekend, and that might prove enough to get a result against the Rangers.

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To be frank, it is remarkable that this is the situation we find ourselves already in September, after how poorly the Rangers had started their campaign under McInnes.

That goes to show how quickly things can change in football though. And for Celtic, that is promising, because they do need things to change.

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