Walker’s Premiership preview

It’s been a long wait but finally Scottish football has the extra spice of seeing Celtic and Rangers going head to head four times over the course of what promises to be a fascinating and intriguing league season.

Both Glasgow giants open up Sky Sports’ live coverage of the Scottish Premiership this weekend with Rangers hosting Hamilton Accies at midday on Saturday while the champions Celtic under new boss Brendan Rodgers make the short trip to the capital to face Hearts on Sunday.

Beating Celtic in the Scottish Cup semi-final a few months ago has given the Rangers fans genuine belief that their team can challenge Celtic for the title but the big question is, how realistic is that?

Even before that win against Celtic, Rangers started strengthening their squad in January with the capture of Matt Crooks and Josh Windass. However, to seriously think about a title challenge, manager Mark Warburton clearly realised he needed a lot more, hence the signings of Niko Kranjcar, Joey Barton, Clint Hill, Lee Hodson, Jordan Rossiter and Joe Dodoo.

I can see Rangers having more strength and intensity than last season and the signings of Barton and Kranjcar should give them a little swagger and arrogance that all top teams need.

With Martyn Waghorn and Barrie Mackay sure to be prominent players for Rangers, I have no doubt the Ibrox men will score goals regularly but defensively they have to improve enormously.

James Tavernier catches plenty of headlines for his extraordinary goalscoring from right back but as he showed in the Scottish Cup final against Hibs, he can be very weak at defending. All three goals scored by Hibs were so soft from a Rangers point of view and it`s their biggest weakness.

The experienced Clint Hill should prove to be a better foil for either Rob Kiernan or Danny Wilson as that partnership …

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