Alex McLeish knows what Michael Beale is going through as he tries to engineer a win over Celtic in his fourth crack at them on Sunday.
Played three, drawn one and lost two simply isn’t good enough in Glasgow even if the current Rangers boss believes in at least two of those fixtures his team played well enough to win. McLeish, who managed Gers to a treble in his first full season at Ibrox 20 years ago next month, knows that full well. Two decades have neither erased the ecstasy at winning these games nor dulled the dismay at losing them and the 64-year-old had plenty of experience of both.
McLeish went unbeaten in his first seven Old Firm clashes – then went through hell as Martin O’Neill led Celtic to seven straight victories – the longest winning run in the history of the fixture. He said: “Honestly, it’s torture. I went through a spell later in my Rangers career when we couldn’t beat them. You go through that barren spell when you don’t get a result against your big rivals and it is absolute torture.
