Celtic lead the Scottish Premiership by fourteen points and have a game in hand over their nearest rivals.

On hogmanay they take on those nearest rivals, who also happen to be the east-end club’s fiercest rivals Rangers.

Hoops boss Brendan Rodgers will be desperate to secure another win over Mark Warburton’s side and he’ll also be hoping that his stars don’t become complacent as they charge towards a domestic treble.

Celtic haven’t lost a league game all season and they certainly won’t want Rangers to be the side that causes their first domestic bloody nose.

The Scottish champions have been in sensational scoring form too, scoring forty-seven times in just seventeen league fixtures.

But with that being said, Rodgers has a bit of a dilemma.

Who should lead the line at Ibrox on December the thirty-first? 

Both of their main strikers; Leigh Griffiths and Moussa Dembele have seven league strikes each during this campaign. Both men are lethal in front of goal, have pace that will trouble the Gers defence and seem to be men for the big occasion.

Scotland international Griffiths scored forty goals in fifty-one Hoops appearances last term.

Earlier in the campaign, new boy Moussa Dembele replaced Griffiths in the starting eleven and the French internationalist hit the ground running.

In the first Old Firm fixture of the season, Dembele struck a tremendous hat-trick. He also struck a brace against Man City in the Champions League before grabbing the winner when Celtic collided with Rangers again in the League Cup semi-final at Hampden in October.

But Moussa has only scored one league goal in the nine Premiership fixtures since that Old Firm cup winner. That goal was against Ross County back on October the twenty-sixth.

In contrast, Griffiths has banged in four goals in those nine games. In fact he’s scored three in Celtic’s last four league ties.

In Celtic’s last game against Partick Thistle, Dembele started ahead of Griffiths, it was seen as his big chance to get back on the scoresheet. But the French under-21 man failed and now has just one more game to do so before the big match on the last day of the year.

Rodgers could start with both men in his starting line-up as he did earlier this month against Hamilton Accies. In that game they linked up for the winner, with Dembele unselfishly teeing up his strike partner to score instead of taking on the shot himself.

In the Hampden win over Rangers back in October, it was sub Leigh Griffiths who would set-up Dembele’s winner.

But interestingly Rodgers hasn’t started them as a pair in an way game since the Premiership’s opening weekend fixture against Hearts.

So I doubt he’d go with both of them for the visit to Ibrox.

With that in mind we again have to ask will it be Griffiths or Dembele? Current form vs Old Firm form?

Well it’s not the worst position to be in. Personally I’d go with the Scotsman who has done his job this month. Why drop him for this big game when Dembele is currently struggling for goals? By not playing Griffiths surely you’d risk upsetting him and having him think that no matter what he does he won’t figure in the bigger games.

Brendan also has the bonus of having a fit again Scott Sinclair in his squad. The English wideman is always buzzing around the central striker and he leads the leagues scoring charts with his ten goals.

The Rangers team have been significantly better since that 5-1 defeat at Celtic Park but as we all know you can only truly be judged at Ibrox by your performances against the Hoops.

Whomever starts up-front for Celtic, I think the Rangers defence will be in for another tough game, one lapse in concentration and either Dembele or Griffiths will punish you!

Let me know below in the comments section, who you’d start against Rangers. 

Posted on December 22nd, 2016 by scott
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