RISE AND SHINE
Old Firm triumph is the perfect shot in the arm for Covid-hit Rangers
FOR Rangers, victory over Celtic no doubt felt like a more powerful antidote to the effects of Covid than ten days in the spare bedroom and a double dose of AstraZeneca.
Yesterday, for a second consecutive season, the narrative of the first meeting between the Old Firm rivals was set by coronavirus.
Steven Gerrard was missing from the touchline, isolating at home after a midweek outbreak. The Ibrox side were also without first-choice goalkeeper Allan McGregor and back-up Jon McLaughlin, as well as two rightbacks in captain James Tavernier and Nathan Patterson, the latter the subject of a determined pursuit by Everton.
To have any chance of extending their unbeaten run against their bitter city rivals to seven games, Rangers needed unexpected heroes to emerge. And emerge they did.
Last season, Leon Balogun was hooked at half time after he was pitched in at right-back against Celtic. Circumstances forced a repeat of that risky experiment yesterday — and this time the veteran central defender was the man of the match.
For 23-year-old goalkeeper Robby McCrorie, meanwhile, this felt like a coming of age. A rite of passage.
Playing his first Old Firm game — only his second first-team appearance for Rangers of any kind — his key save from Kyogo Furuhashi five minutes from time was also his first of the match. A damning reflection of another toothless and gutless Celtic display in this fixture.
Much has been made of Ange Postecoglou’s swashbuckling start to life as Parkhead boss. With 25 goals in their last seven games, the visitors entered this game high on confidence. Yet Postecoglou is now the first Celtic manager to lose on his Old Firm debut since Tony Mowbray in 2009, and a decision to start Odsonne Edouard through the middle before free-scoring talisman Furuhashi now looks like a costly misjudgment.
The better team for long spells in the first half, they were undone in the end by woeful inept finishing and the loss of yet another set-piece goal. If the first ailment was unexpected, the second was entirely predictable.
If this was Edouard’s final game against Rangers, the Frenchman won’t look back on it with any affection. His miss after 25 minutes was staggering. For Celtic, failure to take advantage of first-half dominance is becoming a recurring theme in these matches.
A fly-on-the-wall would have found Gerrard’s half-time team talk on Zoom gripping. Passive and stand-offish for much of the first half, his champions needed to shift through the gears. A crowd of 49,402 demanded it.
Rangers grew into the game in the second half. Despite the exertions of a Europa League trip to Armenia last Thursday night, they upped the tempo in the final half hour as Celtic tired. In midfield, they started winning the ball. And their goal, when it came, was deserved.
Filip Helander has been an intermittent presence in recent weeks, but his bullet header from a Borna Barisic corner in the 66th minute was the only difference between the teams in the end. Yet, for Rangers, the narrow nature of the win mattered little. Despite the ravages of the virus, they have now emerged from two tricky games with a place in the Europa League group stage and another triumph over rivals who are fast developing a mental block.
The adoption of 4-3-3 formations from both managers raised expectations of a game with plenty of goals. It was fast, frantic and endto-end from start to finish. When Alfredo Morelos hooked a shot inches over the crossbar after two minutes, you settled back waiting for the net to bulge time and again. It didn’t quite go that way.
Celtic threw new Croatian right-back Josip Juranovic in for a baptism of fire at left-back and the move seemed to work. In the first 45 minutes, Celtic kept the ball better and posed the greater attacking threat. They also missed an astonishing opportunity to silence the home crowd and place the seed of doubt in Rangers’ minds.
The kind of sitter likely to feature on the What Happened Next round on A Question of Sport, a superb piercing ball from Liel Abada sent Furuhashi scuttling clear on the left. A first-time cross to Edouard only needed the striker to open his body and sidefoot the ball into the net. In one of the most bizarre misses you’ll see, he somehow managed to heel the ball towards the corner flag.
At that point, the possession stats read 66 per cent Celtic. Yet with Balogun exceeding expectations with a series of superbly-timed challenges at right-back, the visitors had yet to land a blow.
What threat Rangers posed came on the counter, and they came closest to a goal after 32 minutes. Kemar Roofe sprinted down the right and crossed for Morelos, the striker turning back inside and teeing up an opportunity for Ryan Kent. Back from the injury which kept him out of the Alashkert game, he curled a shot that clipped the outside of the upright.
One of the key question facing these teams was always legs and running. Rangers had to travel back from Armenia, Celtic from Holland. The longer journey was expected to be the most draining.
And yet as the game entered the final half hour, Rangers grew in confidence. Worryingly for Celtic, their foes looked like the team with more energy and fitness.
Kent’s tame shot gave Joe Hart a save to make and, recognising the switch in the traffic, Postecoglou was on the verge of making a
double change to bring on Tom Rogic and Ismaila Soro for the tiring David Turnbull and ineffectual Edouard.
He couldn’t do it in time to prevent Rangers opening the scoring. Hart dealt with a looping header to punch the ball out for a corner. A Barisic set-piece invited Helander to attack the ball and rise above Carl Starfelt to bullet a header into the net to scenes of Ibrox jubilation.
Yet the hero almost sullied his copybook right away when he misjudged a through ball, allowing Kyogo a rare run on goal. For the first time in the game, McCrorie had to intervene and rushed from his goal to thwart the Japanese striker.
Untroubled for much of the game, Celtic threatened to finish another Old Firm game without a shot on target until they applied late pressure. In hindsight, they’ll wonder if they would have been better playing Furuhashi — with seven goals in eight games — through the middle from the start.
When Rogic got clear and played Furuhashi in on goal, Celtic’s first shot on target was superbly blocked by the legs of McCrorie.
A furious Ryan Christie felt his team-mate should have squared it. Yet Christie had an underwhelming game here — a feature of Rangers matches — and after Edouard’s woeful attempt in the first half, you could hardly blame the Japanese for going it alone.
Celtic’s decision-making let them down when it mattered most. Furuhashi found space again from a Soro through ball moments later and tried to square to substitute Adam Montgomery when he should probably have hit it again. When Celtic needed good decisions, they deserted them too many times.
Sixth in the league after four games, Celtic have now lost twice — at Tynecastle and Ibrox.
They haven’t won an away game in the Premiership since a 2-1 win over St Johnstone on February 14 when Neil Lennon was manager. Despite a new boss and players, they continue to succumb to some old failings.