Lee Wallace focused on Rangers' title bid rather than Celtic tie
Tuesday 8 March 2016 11:18, UK
Lee Wallace says Rangers won’t be distracted from their Championship title bid after being paired with Celtic in the Scottish Cup.
The Ibrox side will play their city rivals at Hampden Park in the semi-finals of the competition on April 16 or 17 following their 4-0 over Dundee on Saturday.
Rangers hold a 14-point advantage over Hibernian at the top of the Scottish Championship with nine games remaining following an unbeaten league run stretching back to December.
The prospect of facing Celtic is clearly appealing and hype is already building in Glasgow, but Rangers boss Mark Warburton has banned talk of the game in his dressing room and captain Wallace is keen to concentrate on more immediate issues.
"It's a great draw and it's a game the boys will look forward to. It's the kind of match we all want to be playing in," Wallace said.
"One of the highlights of my career is my goal against Celtic in the derby four years ago and that's something which will live with me forever.
"The League Cup game against them last season was one of the big disappointments I've encountered and we didn't do ourselves justice that day.
"We'll look to do better this time but the game is a long way off yet and we've a league to try to win first.
"That's our primary focus. We have some tough fixtures coming up before Celtic and we are only thinking about them just now, nothing else.
"We're in a commanding position in the league and it has been made more commanding after the results recently.
"But with the way the manager has our minds and our mentalities working every day at training, what is going on elsewhere doesn't really affect us. We just concentrate on us.
"We're not far away from getting back to where we belong and that's a phrase a lot of us have used in the last couple of years.
"It's nice to finally say we're almost there but we have still to see the job through so we are focused on that."
