The reason Celtic defender is refusing to give moment's thought to Rangers derby first

Just about every base appears to have been covered by Anthony Ralston as the Celtic full-back has come of age this season.

Celtic defender Anthony Ralston shows Rangers winger Ryan Kent at Hampden - with the full-back maintaining the loss at Hampden a fortnight ago won't enter the home side's thinking as they host the Ibrox side in a derby that could all but deliver them the title. (Photo by Alan Harvey / SNS Group)

The 23-year-old can expect to collect a league winners’ medal in the coming weeks having played an integral role in Ange Postecoglou’s men establishing a six-point cinch Premiership lead over a Rangers side they host on Sunday. Add to that the fact he has racked up 42 appearances – three times as many as his previous five seasons in-and-around Celtic’s senior set-up – proved a goalscoring matchwinner and become a full Scotland international in the past nine months.

The final derby of the season, though, provides the boyhood Celtic fan with the opportunity to carve out another milestone. Across his career, he has made four appearances against the club’s bitterest rivals. However, none of these outings have come in the east end of Glasgow. Yet Ralston refuses to see this weekend’s encounter in such terms; refuses to place any special store in the possibilities his first taste of the fixture in front of his own supporters could offer up. Even when, if he were finally to start in a win against Rangers – the August loss at Ibrox his only previous experience from the first whistle of a tussle between the Glasgow titans’ – the success would effectively clinch the championship. Yet Ralston won’t proffer any opinion on this weekend’s occasion that in any way could be perceived as ramping it up, either in a professional or personnel sense.

“If I wasn’t a Celtic player maybe these are some things you would think about, but when you are playing it really is just another game,” he said. “Now, I know that sounds cliched, but it really is. You treat each game the same and I don’t really have any sort of mindset other than helping the team get the three points. It is no different because it is a derby. It’s natural for these elements to be there because it is a derby. That makes it different from the outside and you are fully aware of that. And as a Celtic fan you are maybe more aware than others. But when it comes down to the actually football side of it, it is just another game to be played as a footballer. And that is the attitude the team and myself will be taking into the weekend.”

With an aggressive approach, Rangers succeeded in knocking Celtic out of their stride in the clubs’ Scottish Cup semi-final a fortnight ago to end up edging the contest 2-1 in extra-time. Ralston, though, is “not really” of a mind to consider what didn’t quite work for Postecoglou’s team at Hampden, or what learnings they might want to take into the ancient adversaries’ third meeting in a month. “We are talking games of football,” he said. “These things can happen, and unfortunately it did. We have dusted ourselves down, we have had a game since then where we have gone out and addressed what we had to address [with last week’s win away to Ross County] and we have moved on. We are focusing on the game at the weekend with nothing in the back of our heads regarding that [semi-final], so we are ready to go.”

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