The buildup to an Old Firm game usually starts weeks before with the fixtures in between a mere inconvenience.
Players both past and present have talked about the pressure involved be it at Ibrox at Parkhead and how some sink, whilst others swim.
Speaking on the Open Goal podcast, Andy Halliday – who thrived in the Old Firm derby atmosphere – has revealed that not all of his Rangers teammates were so keen to get stuck into Celtic.
Andy Halliday reveals Rangers Old Firm sicknote
For most of the time when Halliday was at his boyhood club, he was surrounded by inferior players to those standing on the other side of the tunnel.
In his last two seasons though, he would have enjoyed the mentality that Steven Gerrard brought to the dressing room.
Sharing derby memories with Charlie Mulgrew, who had two spells at Celtic, Halliday was far from impressed with one player whom he shared a dressing room with when things were rough:
“I’m not going to name him because I don’t want to disrespect people, but I played with a boy who, there were six Old Firm’s that year, and he didn’t play one of them.
“He probably had about 30 appearances that season.
“Never played one.
“By the way, never played one, but would train on the Monday or Tuesday after it.”
Is Jon Toral the player Halliday is talking about?
As we’ve seen with the fallout from the hit Netflix smash ‘Baby Reindeer’, internet sleuths don’t take long to work puzzles out.
It looks like Halliday is talking about the 2016/17 season where Rangers faced Celtic six times and lost five, drawing only once thanks to Clint Hill’s late equaliser at Parkhead.
The rest of the games were one-sided affairs with two, embarrassing 5-1 defeats hard to take.
Analysing the squad, all of the players who played over or around 30 games were ever presents and certainly didn’t fit the criteria that Halliday describes.
One player who does, is Jon Toral.
Signed on loan from Arsenal halfway through the season, Toral made 21 appearances and most of these were from the start.
Coincidentally, he never played in any of the three Old Firm derbies that he was at the club for.
Two he missed through injury, one of which he started the very next fixture, whilst the Scottish Cup tie saw him on the bench having started the game before and the game after.
Where is he now?
Playing in Cyprus.
Philippe Clement needs every member of his Rangers squad to believe that they can go to Parkhead and win.
If they don’t, they can find a new club in the summer.
