28.11.2017 11:02 h

Rangers and Aberdeen seek lost prestige

Rangers and Aberdeen, once accustomed to fighting it out for Scottish titles, clash at Ibrox on Wednesday with both clubs desperate for a win to hang on to the coattails of leaders Celtic.

Just over a third of the Scottish Premiership season has gone and already it is hard to see past Brendan Rodgers' Celtic side going on to claim a seventh successive league title.

The Parkhead club have been invincible and Sunday's victory against Motherwell in the League Cup final at Hampden -- their fourth successive trophy success -- was their 65th match without defeat domestically.

And despite already dropping almost as many points as they did in the entirety of last season, Celtic, who visit Motherwell on Wednesday, hold a three-point lead over Aberdeen in the league having played a game less while Old Firm rivals Rangers are a further six points behind in fourth place.

Although the Dons finished runners-up to Celtic in all three competitions last season, they look no closer to scaling the heights they did in the 1980s when a side managed by Alex Ferguson broke the Glasgow clubs' domination of the Scottish game.

Meanwhile Rangers -- UEFA Cup finalists as recently as 2008 -- have yet to recover from the club's liquidation in 2012 which led to the club's enforced absence from the top flight for four years.

Rangers, without a manager since Pedro Caixinha was sacked last month, are rudderless and show no signs of mounting a serious challenge any time soon as they lurch from one crisis to another.

Development coach Graeme Murty's reign as interim manager began well with two successive victories.

However the Gers followed that up with a humiliating home defeat by Hamilton -- their first win at Ibrox since 1926 -- and a loss to Dundee, who began the match at Dens Park bottom of the table.

The Ibrox club could not be in much worse shape for the visit of Aberdeen but Murty has challenged his players to stop the rot in a match that, outside of the Old Firm clash, is one of the most fiercely contested in the Scottish Premiership.

"No disrespect to our opponents, but if we are serious about getting back to the top of Scottish football we need to be winning these games," former Scotland international Murty said of the defeat to Dundee.

"We need to be better than we are doing currently.

"They... need to lift the fans that turn up at Ibrox on Wednesday for a massive game against Aberdeen. They need to be ready to put on a show, put on a performance. That is their challenge now."

Adding to the tension that normally surrounds this fixture is the speculation that the Gers board want former player and current Aberdeen boss Derek McInnes to fill the vacant Ibrox hotseat.

However, McInnes went on record last week to say he is happy at Pittodrie and hopes he can now inspire the Dons to back-to-back victories at Ibrox after their win in May helped clinch second place last season.

"We went there at the back end of last season and showed enough confidence in the performance to get the result," he said.

"Hopefully we can start another winning run from Sunday and go there and get three points."

Fixtures (1945 unless otherwise stated)