Gordon Strachan has questioned whether Rangers can cope with Celtic's fitness levels at Hampden this Sunday.
The Glasgow giants will meet in the semi-finals of the Scottish Cup at the weekend.
It will be the fifth meeting between the teams this season, with Celtic prevailing as winners in three of the four encounters. Rangers have yet to get one over Ange Postecoglou's men.
The winners of the tie will meet either Inverness or Falkirk at the showpiece final event at the beginning of June.
While Strachan - who won the cup four times as a player and manager in his career - admits there's plenty of talent in Michael Beale's ranks, the pundit remains unconvinced of their fitness levels compared to Celtic.
The former Scotland boss told Casinosite.nl: "There’s plenty of talented players (at Rangers) but do they have the fitness level and the attitude that the team comes first if they don’t play for 90 minutes? That’s the criteria to play for Celtic, so that might be a problem for some (Rangers) players.
"I watched the League Cup Final myself and it was very close like most people thought. But what happened after about 38 minutes was Rangers’ fitness levels went, which allowed Celtic to dominate the last 10 minutes of the half. That shows how important fitness is.
"That’s the test for anyone that plays against Celtic. If you’re not super fit you’ll run out of energy and if you do close them down and win the ball comes back, do you have the energy to play again?
"That’s what the Celtic players can do. That’s what the top teams like Manchester City do.”
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