Rangers v Celtic: Rangers manager Alex McLeish has hit out at the Scottish Premier League for scheduling today's first Old Firm match of the season only three days after his Glasgow side's Champions League match with Panathinaikos in Greece.

In echoing remarks made by his Celtic counterpart, Martin O'Neill, McLeish - whose side drew 1-1 in Athens on Wednesday to go top of their Group E table - expressed unhappiness at the SPL and accused them of failing to help Scottish teams competing in Europe.

Celtic manager O'Neill also lamented the SPL's decision to force his side to face Rangers less than three days after returning from a UEFA Cup semi-final with Portuguese outfit Boavista in April.

Celtic managed to beat Rangers 2-1 on that occasion and McLeish feels that his Scottish champions will have to show similar mettle to overcome their fierce rivals this time.

"I'm not upset, but why do we not learn lessons from last season?" McLeish said. "That's the point I'm getting across and to say that I'm only angry this week is nonsense, because as soon as the Champions League draw was made, I questioned it then. We asked for the game to be moved and we were told 'no'.

"There was a commitment made and I think television dictated otherwise. We accepted it, but that doesn't mean we were happy with it."

O'Neill said yesterday he understood where McLeish was coming from. "I do have sympathy for them. From last year circumstances have changed.

"These fixtures were arranged before we even knew that we would be in the Champions League, but I have absolute sympathy for them," the Celtic boss added.

McLeish also took a swipe at the SPL's decision to allow league rivals Dunfermline Athletic to install an experimental plastic pitch and claimed Scotland were now the "guinea pigs of Europe".

"These kind of things shouldn't happen in an elite league and they wouldn't happen in England," McLeish said.

The Rangers manager's main thoughts are focused on extending their lead over Celtic to five points after beating them to the league, League Cup and Scottish Cup in winning a seventh domestic treble last term.

Rangers have a 100 per cent record with 21 points from seven games, with second-placed Celtic two points behind.

O'Neill, who addressed his club's annual general meeting yesterday morning, says Celtic will go into the match in a positive mood after Tuesday's 2-0 win over French champions Olympique Lyon in the Champions League.

"On the back of Tuesday night, we'll go with a lot of confidence, but Rangers are also playing very well at the minute," said O'Neill, whose side have won three out of their last five matches at Ibrox.

"We won the last time there so we'll go with confidence and give it our best shot."

O'Neill will be without Bobo Balde for this afternoon's showdown at Ibrox - the giant defender was sent off for lashing out at an Hibernian player last week and automatically misses the top-of-the-table clash.

But O'Neill will be able to call on defensive duo Joos Valgaeren and Johan Mjallby after lengthy injury lay-offs while Didier Agathe is expected to recover from a thigh problem.

Rangers are likely to be without Italian defender Paolo Vanoli with a calf strain while injured Dutch players Ronald de Boer and Fernando Ricksen won't resume training until next week.