Chris Sutton has claimed that Rangers should welcome Celtic to Ibrox on Sunday with a guard of honour.
Rangers have decided against giving the Scottish Premiership champions the traditional welcome when they meet each other for the final time this season at the weekend.
It is something that has divided opinion, with some fans criticising the Gers while others are nonchalant about the whole affair.
Sutton agrees that the Rangers players should do a guard of honour on Sunday but it is clearly not something that he is going to lose sleep over ahead of the Old Firm showdown.
“They’re always hotly-contested affairs, both teams will be going toe-to-toe,” said Sutton on Scottish Football Extra on BT Sport 1 on Friday night [07:05pm].
“Rangers probably should given them a guard of honour but really there are more important things to worry about in the world.
“If it was flipped and Rangers won the title, we’d be asking ‘should Celtic do it’? It’s insignificant. Celtic players don’t care. Rangers players don’t care.”
OPINION
Sutton is spot on here. Rangers should really give them the guard of honour but Celtic are Scottish champions and it’s one of the last things that they care about. At the end of the day though, Celtic fans and their players might enjoy it more to know that it hurts Rangers so much that they’ve won the title that they’ll fail to show them the respect for it at the weekend. We can expect a royal rumble of a match on Sunday though with two bitter rivals playing against each other with little to lose. Rangers can go for it because it’s their last chance to beat Celtic this season but Neil Lennon might be concerned about keeping his players fit and free from injury before the Scottish Cup final against Hearts later this month. It might be a good chance to rotate his squad but at the same time, he will want to draw blood from the Gers on their home turf at Ibrox. It’s going to be a very interesting game considering the circumstances that surround it.