WES Foderingham insists Rangers are not heading into today’s Old Firm showdown fearing another derby pasting from Celtic.
The Ibrox side have yet to topple their bitter rivals since Brendan Rodgers took over the Parkhead manager’s job and twice ended up on the wrong side of a 5-1 humiliation last season.
The best the Light Blues have fared in their seven clashes with Rodgers’ rampant treble winners was a 1-1 draw in March when new boss Graeme Murty was temporarily in charge last season.
But Foderingham insists Gers will go to Celtic Park determined to go one better this time.
“You can’t dread an Old Firm game,” said the Light Blues goalkeeper. “You don’t come here and dread those kinds of fixtures. I look forward to them.
“This is the reason why we came to this club, to play in these types of games and ultimately to win in these types of fixtures as well, which is what we will be aiming to do.
“Coming off the back of two defeats, it was important that we got a win against Motherwell on Wednesday night and we managed to do that so we’ll take that into Saturday.
“Our form has been patchy, with two disappointing losses against St Johnstone and Kilmarnock but, obviously, we’ve had some good results against Aberdeen and Hibs as well.
“But coming off the back of a win, we will go into [today’s match] with confidence.”
If Rangers are to secure their first league victory against Celtic since March 2012 – albeit the club spent four years out of the top flight until 2016 – Foderingham knows their injury-hit squad will have to perform to their maximum, especially himself.
The Ibrox side have shipped 18 goals in derby clashes since Rodgers transformed Celtic into an all-conquering force.
But Foderingham does not believe there would be much point in adopting the same gameplan that Hearts used to stunning effect when they became the first Scottish side in 70 attempts to down the league leaders earlier this month. He said: “They are a good side and have a good attacking threat so I’m pretty sure that I will be busy and hopefully I can do my job.
“Anything can happen in an Old Firm game so what we need to do is go in there and give ourselves the best chance.
“We need to make sure that we are decent off the ball and decent on the ball as well and try to take the game to them too and not sit back and wait for things to happen.
“Hearts played well in that game recently and got a good result, but it’s not for Rangers to look at a Hearts performance against Celtic to think about what we need to do to win a game of football.
“We know what we need to do and our gameplan will be different.
“It’s important that we are motivated anyway, regardless of previous results. We’ve had some decent performances and probably not got what we have deserved.
“Every side is beatable. We go into any fixture looking to win and these Old Firm games are special so we need to make sure that we go and give a good account of ourselves.”
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