Hibernian v Rangers 13 05 09

Venue: Easter Road Date: Wednesday 13 May Kick-off time: 1945 BST
Coverage: Setanta Sports, BBC Radio Scotland, Radio(Non UK), Rangers Live(Non UK), List of Satellites, Streams.

Hibernian quartet Rob Jones, Chris Hogg, Colin Nish and Sol Bamba all return from suspension.

Goalkeeper Grzegorz Szamotulski and Denes Rosa are out injured by striker Jonatan Johansson is expected to recover from a knock.
Defenders Sasa Papac and Kirk Broadfoot remain injured for Rangers along with midfielder Barry Ferguson.

Maurice Edu is expected to be fit despite missing training earlier in the week with a knee problem.


Hibernian (from): Ma-Kalambay, Van Zanten, Hogg, Jones, Murray, Rankin, Bamba, Chisholm, Stevenson, Fletcher, Riordan, McNeil, Thicot, Hanlon, Keenan, Nish, O’Brien, McCormack

Rangers (from): Alexander, Dailly, Bougherra, Weir, Whittaker, Davis, Mendes, Edu, S Smith, Lafferty, Boyd, McCulloch, Miller, McGregor, Novo, Velicka, Fleck, Wilson.
 


Hibernian manager Mixu Paatelainen:

“At the moment, Rangers are in pole position. They are two points ahead of Celtic, who have been there virtually all the way until last week.

“Rangers are full of confidence and they know if they win their remaining matches they are champions.

“They are determined and they will make matches very difficult for their opponents, no doubt, as always. There is an extra-positive motivation for Rangers now and that makes it even harder for us and the other teams to play against them.

“But a draw is not a good result for Rangers, so the longer the game goes, if we can defend well, they will get anxious and a little bit nervous and probably start forcing their passes a little bit. In that respect they could make it a little bit easier for us.

“I don’t worry too much how Rangers players will react or feel out there, I’ve got enough to worry about how we play and keep our concentration, but hopefully we can cause them problems and they get nervous and frustrated.

“It’s very important to finish the season on a high.”

Rangers manager Walter Smith:
“We’ve got a good momentum going at the moment which gives us a level of confidence that we can go on and clinch the championship after getting into a good position.

“But everybody can talk about it, it’s putting it into action which is the thing that matters most.

“We have been playing well enough in recent weeks and we know we face three very difficult matches but we go into them with a level of confidence.”

“It’s difficult to play at Easter Road at any time of the season, regardless of how many games we have to play there.

“I always find it a difficult venue to get results and we showed that a couple of weeks ago. We managed to get a win but we had to play extremely well to get that win.

“Hibs are having a good end to the season; they have won a local derby, and I think they are a good side.”


This season: Hibernian 2-3 Rangers, Rangers 1-0 Hibernian, Hibernian 0-3 Rangers.

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