Andrei Kanchelskis looks back on his unbeaten Old Firm season as Rangers bid to repeat the feat 21 years on

So, the Russian was quite accustomed to the cut and thrust of big derby games across Europe and was looking forward to adding the Old Firm match to his extensive curriculum vitae greatly.

Yet, the record £5.5m signing still received a difficult and eye-opening introduction to the world-famous fixture when he squared up to Celtic for the first time just two months after he joined. 

That Premier League encounter between Dick Advocaat’s expensively-assembled side and Dr Jo Venglos’s team at Ibrox ended 0-0 at the end of 90 minutes – and the winger failed to remain on the pitch until the final whistle.  

“In my first match against Celtic after moving to Rangers I broke my arm,” he said. “Thank you very much! Welcome to Scotland!”

Kanchelskis, though, would savour far more joy than he suffered heartache in the Old Firm match during his four years in Glasgow. Indeed, in his second season he helped Rangers go undefeated against Celtic. That is an accomplishment that no Ibrox side has managed since.

However, Steven Gerrard’s men can match the feat this weekend if they can draw or win the meeting with John Kennedy’s charges at home. Their former player is certainly keen to see them emulate the achievement. 

“I hope that Rangers win against Celtic this Sunday and go the whole season undefeated against their greatest rivals,” he said. “It is a long time since they have done it, 21 years. If they can do it again it will be excellent for their manager Steven Gerrard, their players and for the fans.

“It will be especially good for their fans because they have been hungry for wins over Celtic and for the title for so many years. I have been so pleased to see them recover from the difficulties they experienced.”

Kanchelskis encountered few problems during his first two seasons at Rangers. He helped them complete the treble at the end of his debut season and then do a double in his second term. He capped that campaign with a goal in an emphatic 4-0 triumph over Celtic at Ibrox in March.

His first-half strike at Ibrox made him the first man to score in the Manchester, Merseyside and Old Firm derbies. He is still the only individual to record that particular hat-trick over two decades later. So why did he always rise to the big occasion?

“I really enjoyed the big derby games,” he said. “My first experience of them came when I was at Dynamo Kyiv and we played Spartak Moscow. My manager Valeriy Lobanovskyi made sure all of the players knew how important victory was to everyone in the stadium and made sure that all of us worked hard in every area of the pitch.

“I went on to play in three more derbies – in Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow. The intensity of the Old Firm game was very high. The Rangers games against Celtic were difficult. They were very strong and powerful matches. Sometimes we lost, but we won a lot of them as well. 

“As I say, I broke my arm in the first one. But I enjoyed them after that. They were excellent. They were different to the Manchester and Liverpool derbies. The standard of football in those games was very high. The Glasgow derby wasn’t any faster, but it had far more tackles and it was also more physical. 

“Some people used to say that it didn’t matter what position Rangers were in in the table, as long as they beat Celtic the fans were happy. I think that was true. If you score a goal against Celtic the fans love you.

“We played against Celtic in the final Old Firm game of the 1999/00 season when Kenny Dalglish was the manager. He was a great player, a Scotland legend. But we beat them 4-0 at Ibrox to go undefeated.

“I scored our second goal that day just before half-time. I can remember how happy everybody was after the game. We had a party with our Scottish friends that night.”

Kanchelskis, who moved into management after retiring from playing in 2006 and has since spent spells in the dugout in his native Russia, Latvia and Uzbekistan, knows that Rangers benefitted from having superior players and far greater strength in depth than Celtic during that trophy-laden era. 

The Govan outfit had failed to complete 10-In-A-Row in the 1997/98 season and then owner Sir David Murray handed new manager Advocaat over £35m to strengthen his squad with players from around the globe.

“We lost in a couple of games against Celtic,” said the forward. “But we had too many great players for them. We had Stefan Klos, Sergio Porrini, Rino Gattuso, Lorenzo Amoruso, Colin Hendry, Barry Ferguson, Giovanni van Bronckhorst.

“Up front we had Rod Wallace, Michael Mols, Gordon Durie and Billy Dodds. We had a great team. They only really had Henrik Larsson so we usually had the upper hand when we played against Celtic.”

Kanchelskis, who won the Premier League twice, the Scottish Cup three times and the League Cup once before departing for Southampton in 2002, still takes an interest in how Rangers are faring. He has been pleased to see them enjoy success in Scotland and Europe under Gerrard in the past three years.

But the 52-year-old thinks they have some way to go to get to the level which the all-conquering team that he was a key member of attained at home and abroad – even if they can avoid a loss in their fifth and final game against their city rivals this weekend. 

“I have seen Rangers play in the Europa League in the past couple of season,” he said. “They have done very well in that competition and have enjoyed some great results, including against some Russian teams.

“But I think it was a different standard when I played at Ibrox because of the outstanding international players that we had. In my opinion, we had a better quality of player, we had bigger names. It was always so nice playing for Rangers against Celtic at that time. I always looked forward to those games.”