While delighted with his side’s three goals without reply against Dundee United this week, Ryan Christie said the only criticism he may have had was that Celtic didn’t score more on the day. The haul of chances the Hoops carved against Micky Melon’s men was reflective of their recent performances – and the 25-year-old midfielder wants to carry those standards into the New Year.

Rangers at Ibrox in the Scottish Premiership marks the Quadruple champions’ first contest of 2021, and with both sides entering the match in fine form it promises to be well-contested encounter.

“We’re in a good run of form, as are the opposition,” said Christie. “It’s a bit of a one-off game as well, everything else goes aside and it’s about coming out on the better side on the day, and obviously we’re desperate to come out of the other side with three points and to take that into the New Year and have a right go at it.

“Rangers have been good this season, we don’t expect anything else. When we’ve been right at the top and have been so successful over the last few seasons, everyone is going to keep pushing us and they’re going to try and get closer to our level. We’re frustrated with the dip in form we had before but after that we’ve come through it and now we look back to our best now.”

Christie has been delighted with Celtic’s goals in recent weeks, as well as the fact they enter tomorrow’s match following four successive clean sheets in league competition.

The midfielder missed out on the previous Glasgow derby at Paradise last October, and he’s more fired up than ever to make an impact this time around.

“We’re desperate to come out of the other side with three points, to take that into the New Year and have a right go at it.”

He added: “We’ve been scoring goals and keeping them out at the other end, so that’s been good. We’ve just been trying to continue that in the last few games, and again against Dundee United we did the same.

“We were delighted with the clean sheet and it could have been five or six. If I had one criticism it’d be that we weren’t able to run up the score a bit more.

“There are still plenty of games to go, we still have half a season to go. We want to win the derby game first and foremost and get a little bit of revenge for the first derby game of the season. There are a number of different factors going into this one, but we’re desperate to win it.

“Still, at the other side, there are still plenty of games to be played to find out who’s going to win the league.

“It was frustrating watching the last one from home, the way it panned out last time. There were a few of us who missed out on that last one, so we’re desperate to be involved in it this time.

“We’ll wait and see how the gaffer lines us up, but this group of boys have done well over the last few games – scoring goals and keeping clean sheets. We’re on a good run going into this game.”

Ryan Christie: We want to extend fine form into the New Year