'I don't care about what they do': Rangers v Hibs message loud and clear three months on

The Austrian stopper takes confidence from the fact that Hibs won at Ibrox back in May, as well as taking all three points from Celtic Park earlier in the year.

They will come up against a different Rangers three months on - including capital rivals from last term. Derek McInnes has replaced Danny Rohl as manager and they have made nine new signings. Captain James Tavernier has left after 11 years in office. But in their two competitive matches so far this season, they have drawn 1-1 and lost 2-1.

Hibs haven’t fared a great deal better, losing 2-1 on the opening weekend of the Premiership to Motherwell, but Thursday’s last-gasp Conference League victory by the same scoreline against KF Shkendija gives David Gray’s men a little more momentum heading along the M8. They also have more continuity in their squad, with the crux of the team having been together for two years now.

“I actually don’t care about that and what they do,” when it was put to Sallinger that McInnes and former Hearts duo Cammy Devlin and Lawrence Shankland had left the Edinburgh football scene for Glasgow. “We are more focused on ourselves because we have no impact on how they play or anything. So we focus on ourselves and trust our abilities.”

“It could be an advantage playing together for a while now but we can’t affect what Rangers are doing, we have to just focus on ourselves.

“Both games [against the Old Firm] last season were different. If we look back to the first game I think we were a bit lucky in the first half because Rangers created a lot of chances. But in the end we knew we had to win this game because we wanted to finish fourth in the league. They will be the favourites in this game so we will have to defend our box well and use our chances we can get.”

Embroiled in Conference League qualifiers, the busy schedule does not put off Sallinger. This is what the goalkeeper came to Hibs for. It is testing the depth of the squad and they benefitted from one of their injured players in Callum Wright returning against Shkendija. The playmaker came off the bench to make his debut and set up Hibs’ opener on Thursday.

“We want to be playing Thursday and Sunday every week,” the former Hartberg man continued. “We are playing a lot of games but fortunately we are getting players who have been injured back again. Callum came back in and hopefully another few players will be soon too. We have a big squad, a lot of good players and we’ll need the squad on Sunday.”

Hibs have also shown tactical flexibility recently, which Sallinger feels can help them not just at Ibrox but in North Macedonia for the return leg next week.

“Last season we played a back five, the gaffer changed it against Motherwell in the second half and then the second half against Shkendija,” added Sallinger. “We needed something, I thought they were a good side who settled down after the start.

“So we have to find our way to play. We have to be able to play both systems because we have the players to play different ways. When Callum came on you could see we created a lot.”