The build-up to a Celtic v Rangers game is superb.
A whole load of stories are written as the pressure of the big game mounts and more often than not, it’s the Rangers side that crack.
Already this week we have seen Borna Barisic fighting with fans, Clement acting like a child after dropping points and rumours circulating that Alex Rae punched Fabio Silva after the Kilmarnock win.
It truly is a return to The Banter Years. And the next one can be added to the Banter stories as Andy Halliday admits that when he was at Rangers, one of his teammates feigned injury as he bottled out of playing against Celtic.
Rangers player ‘pulled a hammy’ to avoid Celtic games
The former Rangers midfielder was being extremely open and honest about his time featuring in Glasgow Derby‘s when he was asked if he knew of any players who pulled out of these games because of the pressure.
Halliday agreed when he said (Open Goal), “Well they’re injured, mate. They’re injured before a ball is even kicked. [Sarcastically] Pulled a hammy.
“I’m not going to name him because I don’t want to disrespect people, but I played with a boy where we had six Old F*rm’s that season and he never played one of them.
“He probably had 30 appearances that season and never played one. By the way, he never played one but trained on the Monday and Tuesday after it.”
If You Know Your History: Test your knowledge on the Lisbon Lions with our quickfire quiz
So who is this mystery player then? Using the clues that Halliday provided, the season we had six of these fixtures whilst he was at the club was 2016/17.
Celtic won five and drew one as we broke the record of highest away win at Ibrox with a 5-1 demolition of the Ibrox club.
Checking Transfermarkt, there was only one player that didn’t make an appearance for Rangers against Celtic but he was always injured.
This player, however, only made six appearances that season (click on the link above to find out who it is) so unless Halliday has got his timeline wrong then it couldn’t be him.
It is a bit of a bizarre claim for Halliday to make when the evidence shows that what he’s saying isn’t entirely accurate.
Anyway, it’s good to see that either way, Celtic strike the fear into the Rangers players and hopefully, come Saturday, we will see a repeat of that famous Ibrox scoreline to seal the title this weekend.
