JARROD LATE SHOW TIPS IT FOR TIGERS
Rangers boss’s wild celebration after first win at Celtic in 10 years
Edouard Kent Katic
STEVEN GERRARD screamed into a TV camera and raced down the touchline in celebration after Rangers’ first win at Parkhead since 2010.
The Gers boss (right) hailed beating Celtic as the biggest moment of his managerial career.
“It feels the best right now,” said Gerrard. “It’s emotional.
“You can see in my reaction after the game. It’s a big moment for the team, for the club, it has been through too much pain here.”
Nikola Katic’s 56th-minute header sealed the points for the visitors after Celtic’s Odsonne Edouard cancelled out Ryan Kent’s opener.
The win moves Rangers to within two points of Neil Lennon’s Scottish Premiership tabletoppers with a game in hand – although it came at the cost of an injurytime red card for Alfredo Morelos, who collected a second booking for diving.
Gerrard was fuming after losing the League Cup final to the Hoops and said: “Celtic took a trophy away from us but we’ve come away with huge belief from that game. That’s why we’ve come here, took the game to Celtic and got a lot of joy from it.
“Hopefully a lot of people will take notice of that performance. It’s a big win because this club hasn’t had much success here for a long time.”
Rangers keeper Allan McGregor saved Ryan Christie’s penalty – awarded for a foul by Christopher Jullien on Katic – before Kent’s 36thminute opener.
Rangers coach Michael Beale was also sent off after Morelos’ dismissal in an explosive end to the game.
Defeat brought an end to Celtic’s 11-game winning streak in the league.
Lennon said: “We’re just off the back of winning 11 or 12 games in a row so it’s not the mentality that worried me today, it was the lack of physicality and being a little stand-offish.
“They have to get really hungry now, to hold on to how they feel at the minute and use that as a motivation.
“It’s game on. It’s a two-point cushion and if Rangers win their game in hand they will have a one-point cushion, so there’s nothing in it.
“I felt we were not reacting quickly enough to things. In the throes of the game they were a little better than us.”
JARROD BOWEN did nothing to justify his status as a Premier League target – until it really mattered.
The Hull striker had barely a kick, let alone a chance to add to his 15 league goals this season.
But with a minute left, he flighted a free-kick to the far post for Jackson Irvine to half-volley the winner to complete an unlikely comeback win.
It was not what Bowen (above) made a name for with 22 goals last season and six strikes in his previous five games against yesterday’s opponents.
But Tigers boss Grant McCann was happy enough as his team stayed three points behind the play-off places.
“Jarrod is having a tremendous season and if he isn’t scoring, he’s creating,” McCann said. “He was in a difficult role and wasn’t going to have a lot of the ball but he delivered that one moment of magic to win the game.”
Hull’s promotion hopes took a knock when midfielder Ilias Chair gave QPR the lead on 20 minutes.
But George Honeyman levelled with his first goal for the Tigers since arriving from Sunderland in August and he will never score an easier one thanks to QPR keeper Joe Lumley’s dropped cross.
Rangers recovered and peppered the Hull goal until that late sucker punch.
QPR boss Mark Warburton said: “They have some really good players so we had to be organised and we were. The ball kept flashing across their box but we didn’t put it in the net. We looked really good but the score says 2-1 Hull and that’s the hard part.”
QPR: