THEY say absence makes the heart grow fonder – but Neil Lennon doubts whether much love will be shown when Celtic and Rangers meet for the first Old Firm clash in almost three years tomorrow.

Despite his affiliations with the Hoops, Lennon can’t guarantee he will get a chance to watch the Hampden Park clash – his attentions distracted by work in the transfer market at Wanderers.

But his opinion has been sought by all and sundry this week north of the border as Scotland’s two giants meet – in the semi-final of the League Cup – for the first time since he was in the dugout at Parkhead in April 2012.

“My whole focus is on Wolves at the moment but maybe I’ll have a peep over the border and see how it goes,” he said. “It isn’t on terrestrial TV down here, so you can only watch it on Sky, and that’s if you can afford it.

“I’d imagine I’ll be pretty busy on Sunday but I'll be getting a lot of messages one way or another.

“I've had plenty of press down here this week talking about it and it's one of those games that will prick the imagination of a lot of people.

“It'll be fascinating to watch but it won't be a Celtic-Rangers game as we've known it in the recent past in terms of quality on the pitch.

“But in terms of the ingredients of the game it will be no different, in fact it will be more so as there's not been one for a couple of years.”

Rangers’ incredible fall from grace has rocked football north of the border and left Celtic virtually unchallenged at the top of the SPL until this season.

That was one of the reasons Lennon sought a different challenge elsewhere in the summer, eventually finding his way to Wanderers in October.

Lennon has never ruled out returning to Parkhead in the future but believes it will be years before the competitiveness he experienced in the top flight will be restored.

“There's no question not having the Old Firm has damaged Scottish football,” he said. “Look at the gates, the lack of revenue in the game and it's nothing to do with Celtic, it's not their fault.

“They've gone about their business as normal but there's certainly a lack of interest in the game now there's one dominant team and the other team have been mismanaged in such a bad way.

“But I think in two or three years, Rangers will be back to somewhere recognisable to where they were before.”