Martin O’Neill expects to see Celtic ease their way to the title this season – but he has warned that the Parkhead side will improve in the long-term if they are pushed by a strong Rangers side.

The teams meet on Saturday at lunchtime, the first league outing between them since Rangers went into administration in 2012.

It will be Brendan Rodgers’ first experience of the fixture and O’Neill – whose debut against the Ibrox side was the 6-2 game in 2000 – believes that the game will help to fine-tune Celtic ahead of their meeting against Barcelona in the Nou Camp next Tuesday night.

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However, he has also stressed a belief that being pushed domestically by the Ibrox side replicates the level of intensity and pressure required if Celtic are to sustain a presence at the top level of European competition.

“I honestly think that Celtic and the league itself missed Rangers,” said O’Neill. “That might not be a universally popular theory but I would have to say from a distance that I think it is better for Celtic to be competing with Rangers for titles and Cups than not.

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“I don’t care what anyone says; if you want to be a good team, a team capable of competing in European football then you need to play at a certain level. To play at a certain level you need to be pushed and kept on your toes. That means having real competition and tension within the league.

“That is what brings out the best in you. I understand that Rangers will not be at the same level as Celtic for a while, maybe for a long time, I don’t know. But what I would say is this: if you have a good league, a good Celtic, good competition, you have a pressure that spurs you on all the time.”

O’Neill expects that Rodgers will have no problem in coming out on top this season in terms of the league title – a championship which would be Celtic’s sixth successive win – but he expects that as time goes on, Rangers will grow in strength and resume the mantle of the Parkhead side’s main challengers.

“I wouldn’t be able to see past Celtic for the title this year, although of course you just never know. But gradually as Rangers get stronger, that will, I believe anyway, be good news for Celtic.

“From a purely football perspective, that is how you improve and get better. That tension and that pressure keeps you playing at a certain level. It elevates you. If you want to be able to go on and mix it in the Champions League then you need to be playing at the best level you can get to every week.”

So far, it has been a relatively charmed existence for Rodgers at Celtic Park. The only blot on his copybook was the defeat in Gibraltar to Lincoln Red Imps, a result that had no lasting significance as Celtic progressed to the group stages of the Champions League.

The defeat to Rangers in the semi-final of the Scottish Cup at Hampden effectively set the seal on Ronny Deila’s time at the club, but under Rodgers Celtic already seem like a different team, albeit that there is a core of the same personnel.

Hosting Rangers at Celtic Park in a game that is weighted with what has gone on over the precious four seasons adds another layer of significance to Rodgers’ first meeting against the Ibrox side. And no matter what the outcome or how it comes about, O’Neill expects that his countryman will be glad just to get out the other side of it.

“I remember hearing Walter Smith say something along the lines that you never really enjoy a win in these games but rather you feel a sense of relief and I would say that was just about right,” he reflected.

“They are very unique occasions. I don’t think that Rangers will push Celtic for the title. Not this season. But they will get stronger again and in a one-off game it is always interesting.

“The build-up to the games against Rangers always started very early, I felt. There would be a sense of them even when the games were still some distance away. Quite often the intensity of the build-up wasn’t quite lived up to in a football sense during the games but the matches themselves were always full on.

“The whole experience will be something that Brendan will enjoy. It is an experience that you feel a stronger manager for when you come out of them. They are also games that get you in exactly the right frame of mind for the Champions League because there is so much tension and expectation on you.”

O’Neill’s debut in the fixture was an “extraordinary” experience yet curiously, he recalls never feeling entirely relaxed in that game until the sixth goal went in.

“I was never truly comfortable in that game, believe it or not, until the last goal went in. I started to think then that, yeah, we might be all right.”

Rodgers will look to replicate the same level of comfort this weekend.