Preamble: It's Irn Bru O'Clock and with heart, faith and steel ... in the end there can be only one. Welcome to the Guardian's minute-by-minute report of this afternoon's Old Firm set-to between Celtic and Rangers at Celtic Park, a service we provide from time to time in order to give some of the chippier Scotsmen among our readership the opportunity to complain about the token nature of our live SPL coverage, rather than the complete absence of our live SPL football coverage.

With both sides yet to drop a point home or away in the SPL this season, this is the first of four likely title-deciders between these fierce rivals in their annual battle to win the title. Defending champions Rangers currently sit top of the table, but only courtesy of as superior goal difference that couldn be less slender.

Celtic manager Neil Lennon is unbeaten in 16 SPL matches since taking up the cudgels from Tony Mowbray late last season, and 1-0 up in managerial head-to-heads against his opposite number, Walter Smith. In the build-up to today's match, he's been ratcheting up the pressure on referee Willie Collum, who takes charge of his first Old Firm match this afternoon, with grumbles about the number of decisions that have gone against his Bhoys in recent derbies.

"I put it down to human error," he said, rolling a grenade marked 'Anti-Celtic Conspiracy Theory' into the room. "But you can't keep getting those decisions wrong on a consistent basis. I would like to think it is just honest mistakes being made." Perhaps Lennon's greatest concern this afternoon will be the comparative lack of Old Firm game experience in a team containing several recruits who pitched up at Celtic Park during the summer.

Having watched his side draw with Spanish side Valencia in a Champions League group game they were unlucky not to win in midweek, Walter Smith will eschew the defensive minded 5-4-1 formation he plays in Europe and switch to a 4-5-1, with Kenny Miller playing alone up front.

"At times we've gone to Celtic Park and we've set up in a slightly more defensive fashion but nothing like we do in the Champions League," said Smith. "I think the way both teams have started the season, we'll look to go there and do as well as we possibly can."

That's the spirit.

Celtic knack-news: Celtic skipper and Republican senator for Massachusetts Scott Brown misses out today with an ankle injury that's likely to keep him sidelined for the next two months, one fewer than midfielder Beram Kayal, who's convalescing in the wake of a hernia operation. James Forrest (ankle), Charlie Mulgrew (hamstring), James Forrest (ankle) and Thomas Rogne (calf) are all long-term absentees, while Daryl Murphy (ankle) is also carrying a leg.

Rangers knack-news: Croatia striker Nikica Jelavic remains unavailable due to an ankle injury, while target-man James Beattie (hip) and midfielder John Fleck (hamstring) are also jiggered. Defender Kirk Broadfoot and defender/midfielder/winger/striker (nobody likes a show-off) Lee McCulloch are available for selection after recovering from the respective foot and groin injuries that ruled them out of Rangers' Valencia at Ibrox during the week.

Team news: Neil Lennon sends out the same Celtic side that beat Dundee United 2-1 last Sunday, while Lee McCulloch and Kyle Lafferty start for Rangers, with Vladimir Weiss and Richard Foster making way from the side that lined up against Valencia on Wednesday.

Celtic: Forster, Wilson, Majstorovic, Loovens, Izaguirre,

Stokes, Ki, Ledley, Maloney, Samaras, Hooper.

Subs: Zaluska, Juarez, Cha, McGinn, McCourt, Towell, Filip Twardzik.

Rangers: McGregor, Whittaker, Weir, Bougherra, Papac,

McCulloch, Naismith, Davis, Edu, Lafferty, Miller.

Subs: Alexander, Broadfoot, Fleck, Foster, Beattie, Weiss, Hutton.

Referee: William Collum (Scotland)

Not long now: Say what you like about this game being the equivalent of two Pygmies fighting over who's the tallest in the village, but that doesn't mean they won't put on an entertaining blood-and-thunder bout. Uefa president Michel Platini is in a wedged Celtic Park this afternoon for his first Old Firm derby, where two unstoppable Scottish forces clash head on to see if anything will give. My prediction? I haven't a clue how this one will go, but will settle for goals galore, a mass brawl or two, several sendings-off and a couple of missed penalties. The presence of Kyle Lafferty on the field renders all of the above likely ... except perhaps goals galore.

The teams are out: The teams march out to a raucous welcome, with Celtics's players wearing their usual green and white hoops, white shorts and green and white hooped socks. Rangers are gussied up in their usual colours of blue shirts, white shorts and black socks with red trim.

1 min: Celtic kick off and immediately lump the ball forward, only for Gary Hooper to be penalised for a foul on David Weir.

2 min: With one minute and nine seconds on the clock, Anthony Stokes gets the first booking of the game for a woefully rash lunge on Sasa Papac, as the Rangers left-back tried to cross from the wing. Free-kick for Rangers, which might as well be a corner. Celtic clear. Stokes should have been sent off for that. It's the kind of tackle that would give Arsene Wenger an attack of the vapours.

3 min: Rangers go so close. Steven Whittaker hits the foot of the left upright with a low drive after being set up by a poor Daniel Majstorovic clearing header from a throw-in by Maurice Edu.

3 min: Lee McCulloch's name goes into the book for a horrible lunge on Emilio Izaguirre as Celtic broke on the counter-attack after that near miss by Whittaker. They're going at some lick here - what a start!

5 min: More good play by Rangers - Maurice Edu takes a pass from the right flank from Kenny Miller, rolls the ball across the edge of the penalty area to Steven Davis, who tries a shot from the edge of the D. In the Celtic goal, Fraser Forster saves comfortably.

7 min: Rangers have a penalty appeal turned down when Daniel Majstorovic tries to dispossess Sasa Papac in the penalty area. Referee Willie Collom waves away the appeal and replays show he was probably correct - there was non contact between the players, Papac just lost his balance. FYI: referee Willie Collom is a religious studies teacher. You couldn't make it up.

10 min: And breathe.

11 min: There's a pause in play as Celtic skipper and left winger Shaun Maloney gets treated after a clash of heads with Steven Naismith. It was accidental, but his left eye has swollen closed - he's going to have some shiner in the morning.

11 min: Play resumes, but without Maloney, who's gone up the tunnel to get stitches or some other form of treatment on his badly bruised eye. Perhaps the Celtic physio is going to cut it open, Rocky style?

13 min: Free-kick for Rangers, wide on the right, a long way out. Whittaker pumps the ball into the Celtic box, where Daniel Majstorovic heads clear. Kyle Lafferty picks up the pieces and tries a shot, but Anthony Stokes blocks.

14 min: Celtic substitution: Shaun Maloney off, Mexican midfielder Efrain Juarez on. Celtic's Swedish defender Daniel Majstorovic pulls on the captain's armband.

16 min: Only 16 minutes gone, although there's been so much action it feels like a lot longer. Some house-keeping: Rangers have lined up in a 4-1-4-1 formation, with Lee McCulloch playing in front of a bank of four defenders and Kenny Miller alone up front of a bank of four midfielders, with Lafferty on the left wing, Davis and Edu in the middle and Steven Naismith on the right. Celtic are playing a more adventurous 4-4-2, with Stokes on the right flank, Juarez on the right, Sung-Yeung Ki and Joe Ledley in the centre. Georgios Samaras and Gary Hooper are up front. At least that's how they lined up before Maloney went off - I'm not sure if they've rejigged things since he was replaced by Suarez.

18 min: Rangers win a free-kick about 50 yards from the Celtic goal. Sasa Papac wastes it - he tried to drop his delivery into the corridor of uncertainty between goalkeeper and defenders, but sent it high and wide. That's dreadful.

22 min: Some aimless huffing and puffing with no bookings, shots on goal or fighting. Down with this sort of thing.

23 min: Juaraz gets between Lee McCulloch and Papac and tries a shot from distance. His surface-to-air diagonal drive fizzes high and wide of the top left-hand corner.

24 min: Celtic goalkeeper Fraser Forster dithers over whether or not to come off his line for a Lafferty cross from the left, possibly because the sun is in his eyes. Naismith tries to get on the end of it, but it's too high and the ball skims off his head and out of harm's way.

25 min: Rangers win a free-kick about 55 yards from the Celtic goal, which Steven Davis sends into the mixer. Celtic clear, courtesy of a meaty defensive header by Loovens, followed by some industrious scuttling around on the deck by Anthony Stokes.

26 min: After more good work by Stokes, Gary Hooper goes down under a Steven Whittaker challenge in the Rangers penalty area and appeals for a spot-kick. He was chancing his arm, there was no contact and the referee waves play on.

28 min: Another good decision from referee Willie Collom, who awards Rangers a free-kick on the edge of their own penalty area after a foul by Joe Ledley on Steven Whittaker. A split-second after the illegal challenge, Ledley was tripped, so when Collom blew his whistle, Celtic's fans thought they were being awarded a penalty.

30 min: Celtic probe, with Samaras, Ki and Suaraz passing the ball over and back around the edge of the final third. For want of something better to do, they tee up the Honduran midfielder Emilio Izaguirre, who shoots high and wide from 30 yards, but not too far high and wide. Good effort - that looked to be arrowing towards the top left-hand corner.

33 min: From distance, Rangers centre-half Madjid Bougherra tries to curl a shot inside the left upright. Wide.

33 min: Sloppy play from Bougherra, who gives the ball away, enables Celtic to counter-attack at lightning speed courtesy of Georgios Samaras, who is cynically brought down by Lee McCulloch. The Rangers enforcer is very, very lucky to avoid a second yellow card. He could easily have got his marching orders there and looks mightily relieved that he didn't.

36 min: "If Giorgios Samaras looks pointless and pedestrian in the SPL, how bad does that make him in reality?" asks Adam Murphy, posing an interesting philosophical conundrun. He certainly should have done better a couple of moments ago - if he'd released the ball to Gary Hooper prior to the foul on him by McCulloch, Celtic might well have scored.

37 min: With Celtic right-back Mark Wilson in acres of space on the right flank, Kyle Lafferty rushes out to close him down. Wilson shapes to cross but doesn't and Lafferty buys the dummy. He leaps to block the non-existent cross, turning his back to it like a big chicken. With the ball still at his foot and Lafferty out of the game, Wilson advances further and pings an inch-perfect cross on to the head of Gary Hooper, who heads wide.

40 min: After dominating in the opening half-hour, Rangers are starting to cede their early advantage to Celtic, inviting them on to have a go.

41 min: Good work by Steven Whittaker, who shimmies from the inside-right area across the edge of the Celtic penalty area. Unable to make room for a shot of his own, he tees up Lee McCulloch, who blasts the ball out of the stadium.

43 min: Stokes saunters down the right wing, gets shown inside by Lafferty and pings in a cross, winning a corner for Celtic. Ki sends it in, Lafferty puts it out for another corner.

44 min: Ki sends in the second corner, but his delivery is so awful that Papac hasd to duck to head clear at the near post.

44 min: Celtic win another corner, which Stokes takes short from the right. Mark Wilson tries to cross, but his effort is deflected out by Lafferty for a fourth Celtic corner in quick succession.

GOAL! Celtic 1-0 Rangers (Hooper 44) Celtic score from the corner. Ki sent the ball into the mixer from the left, Anthony Stokes got a flick-on at the near post and the ball went sailing towards Hooper, standing unmarked at the far post. The Celtic striker did marvellously well to chest the ball down and rifle it home with his right foot, as he didn't have too much goal to aim at. His job was made easier by Steven Davis, who wasn't so much guardiing the right upright as leaning against it having a little snooze.

Half-time Even without the last-minute goal, that would have been a marvellously entertaining opening half. Hooper's sixth goal in six games this season have left things nicely poised for the second half. Five years ago he was playing non-League football in England with Grays Athletic, but his career doesn't seem to have suffered from the step down to the SPL.

Second half: Rangers get the second half underway and I think they're a Sasa Papac down. The left-back's been struggling since being hacked down by Anthony Stokes in the opening minute and I believe he's been replaced. I'll try to confirm that as soon as possible.

46 min: Celtic attack down the left-flank in a good move that ends when left-back Emilio Izaguirre sends an attempted cross into the side-netting.

GOAL! Celtic 1- Rangers (Loovens og 47) I gave that to Lafferty originally, but it was a Glenn Loovens own goal. Rangers had a free kick in the left channel, a good distance out from the Celtic goal. The ball was curled into the mixer, where it dropped kindly for Lafferty. It hit his upper thigh and bounced goalwards from seven or eight yards and Looven's clumsy attempt at what looked like a fairly routine clearance succeeded only in helping it along its way. Despite frantic last-ditch attempts by assorted Celtic defenders, they couldn't stop the ball creeping in at the left upright.

51 min: Celtic corner, which Ki delivers from the left. He sends this one to the far post, where Rangers only half-clear. The ball pings around the penalty area and falls kindly for Anthony Stokes, who shoots tamely. Allan McGregor saves.

54 min: There's a tussle, followed by handbags between Ki and Steven Nasmith. Ki gets booked, Naismith gets a talking-to. The Rangers middfielder offers his hand to the South Korean, but is ignored.

GOAL! Celtic 1-2 Rangers (Miller 54) A dreadful clearance from Forster goes only as far as Naismith, who sends it straight back towards the Celtic penalty area. Mauurice Adu skins two defenders for pace and loops a pass out to Miller on the left. His low volley from 15 yards is beautifully placed inside the left upright and unstoppable. Great finish.

56 min: "I'm sorry to return to what has become a very tiresome debate," writes Tim Love. "But do you think Gray's Athletic should be allowed to join the SPL or do you think they should have to work their way through the Scottish Football League system despite the fact that they'd obviously immediately become the best team in Scotland?"

58 min: There's something of a melee after Kyle Lafferty refuses to give Glenn Loovens the ball after conceding a free-kick by backing into the Celtic defender. Remarkably, Lafferty is first to leave the scene, leaving Kenny Miller to push and shove on his behalf. The Norn Iron international must be under strict instructions not to get himself sent off for doing something stupid. Referee Willie Collom administers a few bollockings, but doesn't take the yellow card out of his pocket.

61 min: For those of you who are still on tenterhooks wondering if Sasa Papac has been replaced and by who, I can reveal that he has indeed gone off injured. Kirk Broadfoot replaced him at half-time.

64 min: Rangers win a throw-in, halfway inside the Celtic half. It's not the most thrilling news I've brought you all day, but it's something.

PENALTY FOR RANGERS! And it's a travesty. The ball hits the referee, who spins around. As he has his back to play, the ball drops for Kirk Broadfoot, who takes a dive while being shepherded by Daniel Majsteorovic. The referee turns back to play to see Broadfoot sprawled on the ground with his hands in the air appealing for a penalty, so he blows his whistle and points to the spot. Seriously, how could he give that? There's today's grist for Neil Lennon's conspiracy mill.

GOAL! Celtic 1-3 Rangers (Miller 66pen) Kenny Miller drills home an unstoppable penalty which goes in off the right upright. Having gone a goal down just before the break, Rangers are now very much in the ascendency.

68min: Celtic substitution: Paddy McCourt on, Anthony Stokes off.

69 min: Having moved over to the right side of midfield to allow Paddy McCourt take up position on the left, Efraim Juarez gallops in from the touchline and sends a cross into the mixer. Samaras heads back across the face of goal from the far post, Rangers half-clear and Jaurez snatches at a shot. He should have done better.

71 min: Celtic free-kick about 25 yards from goal, well right of centre. Ki shoots around the wall and brings a marvellous save out of Allan McGregor.

75 min: As if being two goals down at home to their beloved neighbours wasn't bad enough, Celtic's players are now chasing shadows. Rangers are bossing them around their own manor and they have no answers. They seem completely bereft of ideas.

77 min: Gary Hooper attempts to cross from the right for Samaras, but Celtic's ineffective Greek striker is comfortably beaten in the air again.

78 min: Rangers substitution: Kenny Miller off, Vladimir Weiss on.

79 min: Majstorovic makes a crucial intervention as Steven Naismith attempted to square the ball across the edge of the Celtic six-yard box. Moments later, Madjid Bougherra gets booked for a foul on Georgios Samaras.

80 min: Just 10 minutes to go - Celtic desperately need a goal, but look more likely to concede another than pull one back.

84 min: Technical problems mean I lose a big chunk of text that was less than complimentary about the the talents of Kyle Lafferty. Suffice to say that, with Celtic in all sorts of trouble having been caught on the break, he just squandered a marvellous opportunity to help Steven Davis put Rangers 4-1 up with one of the most inept attempts at a cross I've ever seen. Having galloped over 50 yards to be in position at the far post, Davis was furious with him.

85 min: Celtic win a corner, which is floated deep. The ball's headed clear, but only as far as Mark Wilson, who shoots high and wide from 25 yards.

87 min: There are handbags between Naismith and Samaras after a dreadful challenge on the former by the latter, who gets booked. He could have been sent off for that.

88 min: Rangers substitution: James Beattie on, Kyle Lafferty off.

89 min: Celtic drive forward, but it's fairly futile. For all their huffing and puffing, they've looked pretty clueless today. In the Rangers goal, Allan McGregor's had to make a couple of saves from free-kicks, but apart from that he hasn't been too busy.

90+1 min: "It is not Rangers doing the bossing," writes Alistair Elder. "Any good Celtic fan will tell you it is the establishment." Nice.

Peep! Peep! Peep! Willie Collom puts Celtic out of their misery with three shrill blasts on his whistle. Rangers run out deserving winners to record their ninth straight SPL victory since the start of the season. The last time they did that was 1921, a year when Celtic went on to win the title. Those of you wearing anoraks may also be interested to know that this afternoon's match is only the second time in 67 meetings that a team has come from behind to win an Old Firm derby.