MICHAEL O'Neill reckons Lee Hodson is a big game player who could have a vital role in today's Old Firm match - blunting the thrusts of Scott Sinclair down the Celtic left.
The pacy 27-year-old has been one of the revelations of the Scottish season but Hodson had some success in limiting his threat in the League Cup semi-final between the two teams at Hampden and will almost certainly be faced with the same task at Celtic Park today.
The player has started just six games all season long before that cup semi-final, but O'Neill, who pitted Hodson against Julian Draxler as Northern Ireland went down to 2-0 to Germany in Hannover in 2016, expects him to rise to the challenge again as the Ibrox side aim to become the first domestic side to beat Celtic this season.
“It will be interesting to see because he [Hodson] has had to be patient and play second fiddle to James Tavernier for a lot of the season," said O'Neill. “But I thought he played very well the last time. He was brought in to do a job on Scott Sinclair and he did that very well. Scott has been fantastic this season but maybe that game was one of his quieter games. Lee has that capability, he's a very good one-on-one defender.
"We’ve played him in big games at international level and he has a very good temperament for them. We played earlier in the campaign against Germany and he played very well for us.
"He played against Julian Draxler, and while Draxler scored the first goal it didn't come from Lee! He’d drifted inside. But he [Hodson] is a player we’ve had in the squad for a long time and sometimes he’s had to be patient with us as well in terms of his opportunities. But one thing you can say about him is he’ll deal with that. If he's given the opportunity I know he’ll be ready to take that chance."
Having been on the wrong end of a 5-1 defeat in September, exactly how Rangers tackle their visit to the East End of Glasgow remains to be seen, but O'Neill feels Murty will adopt a pragmatic approach.
“If you look at the way Celtic are playing, it's going to be very difficult to outscore them," said O'Neill. "If Celtic do lose this season, I can't see them losing 3-2. So you need to stop them scoring if you're going to win the game. They’ll lose a game 1-0 and someone will have to stop them scoring. That’ll be a big challenge. So Rangers’ defensive shape will be vital.”
“Rangers played very expansive and open under Mark Warburton and at times the two centre-halves are asked to defend big areas of the pitch. Tavernier’s obviously a very attack-minded full-back as well. In certain games, maybe over-committing will help them but you can't imagine they’ll do that at Celtic Park. Graeme Murty’s also a full-back so it's hard to imagine he’ll leave them exposed."
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