It has been a long seven years in Perth without the SPL, but finally the St Johnstone fans will see a top-flight game against an Old Firm side this weekend at McDiarmid Park - and in large part they owe it to their manager Derek McInnes, and his predecessor Owen Coyle.

Coyle, who is now excelling at Burnley of course, arguably got the ball rolling for the Perthshire side. He even signed the current gaffer McInnes as a player-coach while he was looking to guide St Johnstone into the SPL. I wonder if Owen ever thought Derek would be the man to take his good work on to the next level?

In fact, McInnes’ impact at the Scottish club has been so huge that after Coyle travelled north earlier this year to assess his old club, he summated that the Saints would survive this year in the SPL - but only if they could hold onto McInnes.

Well there’s some good news for the St Johnstone fans ahead of the big clash with Rangers live on ESPN this weekend – McInnes has indeed put pen to paper and committed himself to the Saints until 2011.

That news will be a massive boost to all the St Johnstone players as well, as McInnes was a favourite while he pulled on the blue strip at McDiarmid Park and he remains a firm favourite as boss as well. The manager who learned his trade at Ibrox under the man in the away dugout this weekend – Walter Smith – has shown maturity in his first few top-flight games in charge.

Impressively, he’s also even stuck with his purist approach, trying to get his newly-promoted team to keep the ball on the deck. I took notice of that when the Saints played Celtic earlier this year at Parkhead. Okay they lost 5-2, but they used the ball nicely at times, and few teams score twice at Parkhead by the way!

The fact that St Johnstone also won their first SPL game of the season a couple of weeks ago against Hamilton will help their confidence – it will allow them to play with more freedom against Rangers.

The Ibrox side will not be expecting to head south on Saturday afternoon without all three points though, so McInnes’ men will have to be on top form.

Rangers got their campaign back on track two weeks ago against Celtic, even if it wasn’t the most convincing of displays. Prior to the Old Firm encounter the Gers had gone three SPL games in a row without a goal – a truly amazing stat. Kenny Miller was the man who broke down Celtic’s defence in that match (or perhaps the Celtic defence broke down themselves) and he will have re-enforcements on Saturday to help him up top.

Kris Boyd is a surprise inclusion in the squad after his swift return from the fractured eye-socket he suffered against Celtic. Kyle Lafferty (who came on for Boyd at Ibrox early on) will also be key in the coming weeks. Anyone watching Northern Ireland’s World Cup Qualifying campaign in recent months will have noticed how devastating Lafferty can be when he’s on-form.

The Rangers fans may have wondered what all the fuss was about when Kyle first arrived at Ibrox (as he took time to settle), but I’m pretty sure the striker will have a big role to play for Walter Smith this season.

Keep an eye out pre-match for our interview with McInnes by the way, as we’re going to try and re-unite him with old pal Ally McCoist prior to kick-off. Those two were great friends at Ibrox when they played together during the nine-in-a-row years, and I’m sure they will have some stories for us on Saturday.