Martin O'Neill: Rangers' away form a possible weakness in race with Celtic
- Published
'Ibrox will be furnace of a place if Celtic win the 10'
Martin O'Neill believes Rangers' away record may be their undoing as they seek to stop his former club, Celtic, winning 10 league title in a row.
Rangers dropped points in eight league games in last season's curtailed Scottish Premiership campaign, five of them on the road.
However, Steven Gerrard's side inflicted eventual champions Celtic's only home defeat.
"It's really going to be an exciting season," said O'Neill.
"You don't feel with Rangers that there's absolutely any guarantee that they can go away from home and pick up three points as they need to do over the course of the season against opposition other than Celtic.
"You have to win some of the Old Firm games and you have to win the league. Celtic are psychologically in a good position at the moment. Rangers have to be up for the challenge. They know that themselves more so than ever before."
The 2020-21 campaign will begin behind closed doors as Scotland continues its journey out of the coronavirus pandemic.
And O'Neill said on BBC Radio Scotland's Sportsound: "Any team visiting Ibrox or Celtic Park will feel better now that there's actually no fans there. A more level playing field in that sense.
"Have Rangers improved their team enough to take on Celtic over the whole season? That's the interesting point. Rangers have actually played quite well against Celtic in recent times.
"Rangers are desperate now to stop Celtic, Celtic maybe for another 300 or 400 years won't get a better chance or a great to go 10 in a row, which would be anathema for any fan close to Ibrox."
'Not as intimidating without fans' - analysis
Livingston head coach Gary Holt on Sportsound
From my time playing going to those places, it was intimidating. But also, when you were doing well for 25 minutes and it was 0-0, they can turn on their own players. Rangers and Celtic are not going to have that, they're going to have a freedom to maybe play a whole 90 minutes without any anger towards them from their own fans if it's not going their own way.
Us as visiting teams can go there knowing that it's not as intimidating. There's not the fear as such. It's going to be interesting the first month and after that first month to see where the land lies.