SIMPLY THE BEST
Gerrard savours his finest triumph as Rangers boss
STEVEN GERRARD last night hailed the best win of his managerial career as Rangers blew the Premiership title race wide open.
Goals from Ryan Kent and Nikola Katic earned the Ibrox side their first Parkhead win since October 2010, cutting Celtic’s lead at the summit to two points, having played a game more.
Allan McGregor’s first-half penalty save from Ryan Christie set the tone for a controlled and deserved victory.
And with the title race back in their own hands, the celebrations of an emotional Gerrard at time-up reflected the magnitude of the victory.
Both Glasgow clubs head to Dubai for a winter break next weekend and, despite the seventh red card of his Rangers career for Alfredo Morelos in added time, Gerrard and his players will bask in the warmer climes a little more easily.
After the biggest statement win of his managerial career to date, the Ibrox boss said: ‘It feels the best right now. I don’t want to take anything away from the fact we have just come out of a Champions League-level group to qualify for the last 32 of the Europa League.
‘But Celtic are a fantastic team. You only have to look at what they have achieved in recent years. They have serial winners in their team.
‘This is a big challenge for me and the players — but we are doing everything we can to take the challenge to them. That’s what we need to keep doing.
‘It’s emotional. You can see that by my reaction after the game. It’s a big moment for the team and the club. It’s been through too much pain here, too many defeats, setbacks and knocks, so it’s a big win, a huge win.’
Despite dominating the Betfred Cup final at Hampden, Rangers still lost that game. But any concerns that the experience might break them mentally or physically proved misplaced. Gerrard insisted his team actually took huge heart and motivation from the experience.
‘Celtic took a trophy away from us a couple of weeks ago in a game that we dominated,’ he said. ‘But we came away with huge belief from that game.
‘It felt different. We weren’t too down over it because we were so pleased with the performance and that’s why we came here and took the game to Celtic.
‘We got a lot of joy from it today,
I always say after a defeat that it’s important to move on and wipe the slate clean.
‘We can enjoy tonight and enjoy the big victory but there’s still loads of work to do. We know we’re competing against good teams. We won’t look at the table too much.
‘A defeat here would have been damaging, a draw would have been “on you go” and a win is big momentum for us. It’s important that we rest, enjoy the little break and come back with a better mentality after the break than we came back with last year.
‘Every game is going to be tough and we have to make sure we are ready when we come back.’
Despite the loss of two points at
Aberdeen, Rangers spent a testing December proving themselves time and again.
After questions were asked of their mental strength when they let slip a 2-0 lead at Pittodrie then failed to take their chances against Celtic at Hampden, Gerrard’s team responded by beating Motherwell, Hibs and Celtic away from home to prove themselves true title contenders.
‘Six weeks ago, people were talking about how hard our fixtures were over this period — Feyenoord away, Porto away, Aberdeen away, Celtic away,’ the Rangers manager continued.
‘The big questions were: can we handle it, how would we cope, where would we be at the end of it? The players have delivered so far and they all deserve credit for it. But there’s a long way to go and we need to keep this focus, keep the mentality and hunger.
‘We’ve reached the last 32 of the Europa League, we went one better than last season in reaching the League Cup final, but unfortunately couldn’t get the trophy for our supporters.
‘But analysing the six months of the season so far, the players have been fantastic and I don’t want to pick one out.’
There was similar euphoria after a 1-0 win over Celtic at Ibrox last December and it proved misplaced. Eight points better off than at the same stage last season, however, the team’s improvement is now impossible to deny.
‘I think you saw the belief in the performance today,’ added Gerrard. ‘It comes from the cup final and the domination we showed over the 90 minutes.
‘We never took our big chances on the cup final day but we came away from that game knowing that we can compete with Celtic and, if we can play to our level, we can more than match them. We showed that again for large parts of this game.
‘If we have a setback, I’ll say we need to regroup and I’ll say the same when we win. Even if it’s a big win against our neighbours, we have to move on.
‘We have a chance to enjoy it,
relax, reflect and get ready for the second half of the season, but we are not over-confident.’
Gerrard was irate when Celtic equalised with a goal which struck Odsonne Edouard’s elbow en route to goal.
A penalty for the hosts and a second yellow card for Morelos added to a general sense of Rangers frustration with the match official, with Gerrard arguing Christopher Jullien should have been sent off for a tangle with Morelos before the Colombian saw red.
‘We’ve got no complaints about the penalty decision,’ said
Gerrard. ‘We thought we had a shout for handball for the Celtic goal. It’s up for debate but we’ve no complaints on that. ‘On Morelos we’ve got no complaints on it. I’ve got time to reset the kid. He was a handful for them for the whole game. ‘He really does some incredible stuff and I think his emotions got the better of him at the end of the game, but I think that frustration might have come from the fact Christopher Jullien didn’t get a straight red moments before because it’s a clear foul on the edge of the box.’