Celtic host Rangers at 12:00 UK on Sunday 20 September, the first Old Firm league meeting of the season and the earliest kick-off the fixture gets. Celtic lead the Scottish Premiership with a maximum eighteen points from six games. Rangers are second on thirteen. A Rangers win closes the gap to two; a Celtic win opens it to eight before the end of September.
It arrives with Celtic freshly beaten. Ferencvaros won 3-1 at Celtic Park on Wednesday night in the Europa League, the first time all season anyone has scored three against them, and the first home defeat of the campaign. Rangers have had the week off.
Celtic own almost every attacking column in the division. They lead the Premiership for goals scored (2.33 a game), goals conceded (0.5), shots on target (9.5) and corners (9.67), and they have kept a clean sheet in half their league games. Domestically they have won all six, though three of those were by a single goal - 1-0 at St Johnstone, 2-1 at St Mirren, 2-1 at home to Falkirk.
Rangers are a narrower proposition. They sit sixth for goals scored at 1.17 a game but second for goals conceded at 0.67, and they have matched Celtic's 50 per cent clean-sheet rate. Their last four league matches finished 1-0, 1-0, 2-1 and 1-0. They have scored exactly one goal in five of their last six matches in all competitions. Only 33 per cent of their games have gone past two and a half goals, tenth of twelve in the division.
Predicted teams have Viljami Sinisalo behind a back line of Cameron Carter-Vickers, Liam Scales and Auston Trusty for Celtic, with Callum McGregor anchoring midfield. Rangers are expected to name Ivor Pandur in goal with Nicolas Raskin and Dan Neil in the middle and Djeidi Gassama wide. Neither team sheet is confirmed.
The model makes over 2.5 goals 64 per cent at 8/15 and both teams to score 65 per cent at 4/9. Celtic to win is rated at 49 per cent against a price of 23/20. None of those is a large disagreement with the market, which is what usually happens to a fixture this heavily traded.
What supports the goals side of it is where this game is being played. The last three Old Firm league matches at Celtic Park finished 3-1, 1-3 and 2-3. All three produced at least four goals, both teams scored in all three, and Rangers won two of them. Widen it to the last six meetings anywhere and both teams have scored in five.
The argument against is simply Rangers' current form. A side scoring once a game is not an obvious partner for an over, and their 33 per cent rate this season is the lowest of any team in the top half. The fixture's history and the teams' present shape are pulling in opposite directions here, and that is worth saying plainly rather than picking whichever one suits a bet.
See the live Statz numbers for this fixture.
The referee is John Beaton, who has averaged 2 yellow cards and 15.5 fouls across his two Premiership games this season. That is a light touch by Scottish standards, and it meets two teams at opposite ends of the discipline table: Celtic commit the fewest fouls in the division (9.67 a game) and collect the fewest cards (1.0), while Rangers are third for fouls at 12.5 a game.
On the player markets, Djeidi Gassama has had two or more shots in six straight games for Rangers, the longest live streak in the fixture. Hyun-jun Yang has managed the same in five straight for Celtic and has also committed at least one foul in each of those five. At the back, Cameron Carter-Vickers has fouled in four consecutive matches and James Penrice in four of his own.
Celtic are the better team and the numbers are not close: they score twice as often as Rangers and concede less. But they have just been beaten at home in midweek by a side that pressed them, and Rangers have spent six weeks winning ugly, low-scoring games without ever looking convincing.
The reading here is Celtic to edge it in a match with goals in it, which is more or less what the last three at this ground have delivered. The one number that should give anyone pause before backing a quiet afternoon is that Rangers have won two of their last three visits to Celtic Park, and neither of those was a 1-0.
18+. Please gamble responsibly - begambleaware.org. Odds correct at time of writing and subject to change. Statz publishes model projections, not advice.