Should Kenny Miller start for Rangers against Celtic?

Every year, you think it’ll be the last. You always think that the year of our proddy lord, 2k18, is surely the dawning of a new age. An age in which we will proudly go to Hampden Park to watch Rangers or Scotland and not have to watch Kenny Miller fruitlessly running around the pitch to no avail. Surely, we thought, we have Alfredo Morelos and Jason Cummings, and Miller has hardly played any football this entire season. This has to be our year. But no.

Keith Jackson has opined in his column today that “it may understandably irritate the Rangers support”, but the 38 year-old “remains Rangers’ best attacking option.” At the risk of stating the obvious, we are led to assume that Mr Jackson has not seen much of Rangers this season, or of Miller, or of attacking, or of options, or of things remaining.

Kenny Miller has missed most of the season due to injury, and Rangers have clearly toiled in the final third in his absence, only managing to score a mere 67 goals in the season so far, which leaves us languishing in first in the goals scored table. That’s just eighteen goals ahead of Hibs and seventeen ahead of Aberdeen in the race for second.

Defending, really, is where the problem has been. Yes, Rangers have had moments to go for the jugular where they’ve failed to do so, such as in the recent second halves against Motherwell and against Celtic. But the fact that we were in a position of needing three or more goals to win a game says more about the limitations of Bruno Alves, Russell Martin and Fabio Cardoso than our inability to do so says about our forwards.

Look, if Josh Windass is absent - who for all his faults is ideally-suited to an Old Firm Hampden semi - then Graeme Murty may well conclude that Miller is his best option and give him a start. That’s his call. But ‘our best attacking option’? Jesus christ.