LMSL

Photo courtesy Tom Brogan's Flickr account (although the big Old Firm matches do cost more than five quid to get into. That's where the Norman Rockwellian sentiment of this photo ends, I'm afraid.)

Celtic could go seven points clear at the top of the Clydesdale Bank Premier League table on Sunday with a win away to Old Firm rival Rangers, and former Hoops defender Tony Mowbray is looking forward to his first Glasgow derby match as a manager.

“It was intense when I was here 18 years ago, and it is still pretty intense,” Mowbray, who made 78 appearances for Celtic between 1991 and 1995, told BBC Sport.

“It is a massive game; two huge clubs playing in the one city and both want to win the league, so it is pretty competitive and rightly so.”

It would appear that Mowbray’s men are coming to Ibrox at the right time, considering that Rangers didn’t score a single goal in the league for the whole of September and is still smarting from a 4-1 pasting at home in the UEFA Champions League from Sevilla on Tuesday.  Celtic has had form issues of its own, though, having been held at home on Thursday in UEFA Europa League action against Rapid Wien, a team that currently sits fourth in the Austrian Bundesliga – A league which, let’s be honest, isn’t exactly a household name in the world of football.

The case could be easily made – as it has been several times already – that the formbooks go out the window during Old Firm clashes, but while that may be true to a certain degree, Rangers’s and Celtic’s most recent outings haven’t instilled much confidence in either side’s supporters.

Rangers boss Walter Smith is aware that a worst-case scenario on Sunday is still surmountable for his side, though, but while he knows that a seven-point lead atop the SPL table so early into the season isn’t a reason to call the trophy engraver, Smith doesn’t want to have to face such a situation.

“Both teams have found themselves seven points behind and have come back to win a title,” he said.  “But we don’t want to go seven behind, we want to peg Celtic back a bit.”

Sunday’s Old Firm battle will undoubtedly be the most high-profile match of the weekend, but for previews of the rest of the weekend’s action in the SPL, follow along after the jump.

Hamilton Academical and St. Johnstone won’t be too bothered with Sunday’s six-pointer, especially considering that they’ll take part in one of their own when the Perth pack comes to New Douglas Park on Saturday.  On the surface, this looks like a match that has ‘draw’ written all over it: The cellar-dwelling Saints will be as keen as ever this week to get its first league victory of the season, and a match against a fellow heretofore sub-standard team seems like just the ticket for manager Derek McInnes’s men.  Everyone involved with Hamilton Accies knows that the club’s best chance of SPL survival is to pick up points at home, though, so both sides will be desperate to get something from a match where there really isn’t all that much to separate between the combatants.

A much more exciting match should take place at Easter Road, though, with third-place Hibernian welcoming fourth-place Dundee United.  The more obvious choice for an advert for the SPL will be taking place at Ibrox on the following day, but Saturday’s meeting between Hibs and United should be a relatively high-scoring affair, considering neither team has been shy about finding the back of the net or, indeed, about conceding more goals than perhaps they should.  United manager Craig Levein can’t afford to allow his side to park the bus in front of their net, though, so while it’s too close to call a winner here, I should suspect that this will be a wide-open match with lots of action up and down the pitch.

Meanwhile, Aberdeen fans will still be buzzing about their solid 0-0 result away to Rangers last weekend, but they now face a trip to Rugby Park to face a Kilmarnock side that has been hard to figure out so far this season.  Killie is usually reasonably well-organized under manager Jim Jeffereies, but the team has been very up-and-down so far this season, and it could be a tough ask for it to find a way past an Aberdeen defense that has given up very few goals away from home so far.  Mark McGhee’s Dons have had a fair bit of trouble locating their shooting boots, though, so they’d probably be content with another 0-0 draw on the road.

Falkirk has recorded three consecutive scoreless draws to get themselves off the bottom of the SPL table, but the Bairns probably shouldn’t expect to post a fourth straight clean sheet as it visits Motherwell at Fir Park on Saturday.  Manager Jim Gannon’s Motherwell side was humbled 3-1 by Hibernian at home last Saturday, but they now welcome a Falkirk side that also can be stubborn at the back, but the Steelmen should have enough options going forward to get back to winning ways this weekend.

Lastly, St. Mirren is still searching for its first home win since leaving its old Love Street home, and the Buddies will hope that they can finally get it on Saturday against a Hearts side that has failed to impress so far this season.  The Edinburgh club was made to work for its last two wins (2-1 victories over Hamitlon and Dunfermline before that in the Co-operative Insurance Cup) but they can’t expect home cooking at St. Mirren Park, with manager Gus MacPherson’s Buddies bursting at the seams to finally get a win at home.  Saturday’s match isn’t a nailed-on win for the hosts, but it should be easier for St. Mirren than its last outing, in which it gave Celtic fits in the second half before eventually losing 2-0 to the league leaders.

Matthew Semisch