Rangers made it back-to-back wins over Celtic in the space of a week, following up their League Cup success with victory in the first Old Firm league meeting of the season. Ryan Naderi’s goal proved enough to settle the derby, and it came on hostile terrain at Celtic Park, where Derek McInnes’ side repeated the result they had produced at Ibrox seven days earlier.
McInnes kept his emotions in check at the final whistle. Rather than celebrate in front of the cameras, he shook hands with a beleaguered Martin O’Neill and quickly left the scene. His first words on radio afterwards were about refusing to go overboard. “Just three points,” he said. “Three points closer to Celtic.” The caution is understandable, but the result carried real historical weight: it is the first time a Rangers manager has won his first two games against Celtic since Graeme Souness in 1986, when McInnes himself was 15 years old.
Rangers were the better side and deserved the win, even if they did not quite reach the ruthlessness they had shown at Ibrox a week earlier. They can play better, and a one-goal margin flattered Celtic on the day; a two-goal win would have been a fairer reflection of their superiority.
O’Neill’s assessment that there was “not much between the sides” convinced few, Celtic supporters chief among them. The problems at the club are mounting game by game. The team is physically weak and mentally substandard, and the elan it showed in a handful of early-season performances has gone. For the second derby in a row, Celtic were out-played, out-muscled and out-coached.
The manager’s own instincts have also been questioned. Starting Sebastian Tounekti at Ibrox last week looked an odd call and was corrected at half-time. Selecting Sam Johnstone in goal against Rangers backfired. Giving Luke McCowan his first start of the season on Sunday was another curious decision that did not work: the midfielder was off the pace and did not reappear for the second half.
Part of the difficulty lies in the squad O’Neill has been handed. He lacks robust players in midfield because the board has not delivered them, and he no longer has the wingers the club could call on when Daizen Maeda, Liel Abada, the still unfit Jota and Nicolas Kuhn were around. With Yang Hyun-jun absent, and increasingly spoken of as an absent world beater, James Forrest is the best winger Celtic have, according to former captain Scott Brown. Forrest is 35.
The wider run makes grim reading. Celtic’s 5-1 Champions League disintegration against LASK appears to have stripped away not just confidence but heart and soul. There was little gumption in the 3-0 League Cup loss at Ibrox, only a brief early reaction against Ferencvaros in the Europa League before another beating, and now a third poor defeat in a row and a fourth inside a month. O’Neill now has time to pause and reassess, and perhaps to ask whether he has the answers to his team’s myriad ills.
Rangers, by contrast, look transformed. Only weeks ago, as his side exited Europe to the sound of booing, McInnes did not hold back. He said his team were not a possession side, not a pressing side and not a counter-attacking side, that they were too young and too inexperienced, a collection of individuals rather than a unit, with no identity and no discernible style of play. Those weaknesses have become strengths almost overnight. For the second week running, Olwethu Makhanya, 22, was the most dominant and classy defender on the pitch, and Ryan Naderi, 23, was the hardest-working and most effective attacking player. Dan Neil and Nico Raskin, 24 and 25, were again hugely influential in midfield, with Neil growing quickly into the captaincy. The oldest Rangers player from the start was James Penrice at 27, while Celtic fielded six players older than him; the average age of the line-ups was 26.7 against 24.4.
The pattern of the match underlined the shift. At half-time Rangers were not only ahead through Naderi’s goal, they were winning battles all over the pitch, just as they had a week earlier. They led the aerial duels 67.6 per cent to 32.4 per cent, had eight shots to Celtic’s one and six on target to Celtic’s none. Camilo Duran had eight touches of the ball, Kevin Kelsy 13 and Naderi 23, with almost every individual match-up going Rangers’ way. Even the introduction of Celtic’s club record signing Kasper Hogh changed little, and Rangers carved out more chances after the break. Hogh again received no service, and is beginning to look so devoid of belief that even good supply might not be enough for him to reproduce what he so often did for Bodo-Glimt. When a star striker cannot get a start and the leader, Callum McGregor, is being over-run, the problems are too many for O’Neill to solve.
McInnes was right that it is only three points, and the momentum in Glasgow could yet swing back if Celtic get their act together. For now, though, the energy, clarity and optimism belong to the blue half of the city, and the questions facing O’Neill are greater than any he has faced in the city before.