Barry Ferguson is panicking about the final against Celtic. He’s not the only one.

You’ve got to give some credit to Barry Ferguson.

Not a lot of credit, because we don’t make a habit of that around here, but a little. And here’s why: Ferguson knows that the Ibrox club is in a spot of bother as the cup final looms in December, and he isn’t shy about saying so.

He’s not the only one, either.

In his piece on Derek McInnes the other day, Keith Jackson said he suspects things could get ugly at Hampden. And by ugly, he doesn’t just mean a straightforward Celtic victory; he’s talking about something traumatic, something deeply scarring for the Ibrox club and its fans.

You only have to look at how we brushed aside Aberdeen to see that we’re more than capable of inflicting that kind of damage.

So how likely is it?

This new manager hasn’t beaten us yet; the best he’s managed was a 3-3 draw at home in a game we really should have won. They were well beaten at Celtic Park at the start of the season, but we’ve yet to give him the kind of comprehensive hammering we’re more than capable of. They were fortunate we didn’t do it back then, and weakness is radiating from them right now.

Most fans who watched their last game agree it was scrappy and uninspiring. Many believe that if Vargas had just been a bit sharper and put the ball in the net for Hearts, the day could have ended in disaster for Clement and his team.

A late equaliser might have rattled them to the point of collapse.

This is a side low on morale, not playing particularly well. So, it’s exhilarating to think about what a Celtic team firing on all cylinders might do—especially if we score early in the final.

Ferguson thinks their only hope is to mark Maeda out of the game. We’ve covered this before: mark Maeda out, and you leave space for Kyogo. Put markers on both of them, and Nicholas Kühn will tear them apart. It’s as simple as that. There are no easy answers for them in this fixture.

I think the outcome could be beautiful. Not ugly, beautiful.

If we play as we did against Aberdeen, it’ll be bad enough for them.

If we play like we did against RB Leipzig, it could be a level of defeat so comprehensive their grandkids might be put off football.

We have other games to handle before then, of course.

But even now, you can tell that Ferguson and others associated with Ibrox are fixated on this cup final. He’s even suggested they consider resting players for their game against Spurs, so they have a fully fit squad at Hampden. If they do that, Spurs will almost certainly hammer them, and their morale will be shot to pieces going into the final.

But no matter what they choose to do, their squad is smaller than ours and has less quality in depth. We have a tougher challenge in some ways with our Champions League tie in Zagreb, and we’ll need to return from that and immediately focus on the cup final.

But the key difference is that we can rotate our squad. We can rest players while fielding strong line-ups that are more than capable of doing the job.

Ferguson is clearly worried, and he’s not alone. Read the comments from the village idiot, Jackson, and others—there’s a clear theme of concern. Derek Ferguson alone seems to think this season can be salvaged, but when he expressed that view recently, he was met with disbelief.

We have to guard against complacency because that can be a killer. But I don’t see that happening with this side. This team never lets its guard down. It always strives for its best, and I’m confident that they’ll carry that into the final and beyond. The fans can look forward to it; the players will focus on one game at a time.

Already, you can see them preparing for the final by phasing Tavernier out. They know he’s likely to struggle against Maeda, as he has in every match so far. They’re testing out midfield options, hoping something sticks better than their last efforts. And while they scramble for solutions, we keep improving.

They probably hope to have a few injured players back for the final, but look at the calendar—they don’t have much time to get long-term injuries match fit or test new tactics to see if they work. What we’ve seen from them so far is pretty much what we’re going to get, and what we’ve seen hasn’t exactly set the world on fire.

It’s no wonder Ferguson and others are worried. And I don’t think they’re looking forward to this match at all.