V Barton deflates
even things up on the pitch, perhaps for a tackle on Barrie McKay, or for the already-booked Kolo Toure whacking a loose ball into the crowd.
If Rangers’ much-derided back line felt they had won a watch when Leigh Griffiths had to settle for a seat in the stands with a calf problem it didn’t turn out that way. Moussa Dembele was the man who ended up with the match ball, a perfect combination of header, right-foot finish and left-foot finish presenting him with the first league hat-trick in this fixture since 1966. Some Celtic fans, such as the ones who surrounded the Ibrox team coach when it arrived, chanting “You’re not Rangers any more”, preferred to think of this as the first ever league meeting between these teams, but anyone with a longer memory would recognise the tell-tale crackle in the air at kick-off.
When the hubbub had subsided, those same home fans were celebrating the biggest win in this fixture since 2000, when Celtic and Rangers swapped four-goal margins of victory in Martin O’Neill’s first season. The parallels between that era and what Brendan Rodgers is undertaking right now are striking, even if Rodgers preferred to evoke the memory of Jock Stein, on the 31st anniversary of his death.
Defeat in April’s Scottish Cup semifinal led to a period of soul searching at Celtic Park, and now the inquest will take place across the city, where Mark Warburton may find that his critics are just getting started. Individual errors sabotaged everything Rangers went out to achieve.
Rob Kiernan was slow to react when confronted with a two-on-one at the back post for the opener, then gifted possession away to Nir Bitton for the second.
Buoyed by Joe Garner’s closerange headed goal before the break, the Ibrox side were threatening an equaliser when another defensive malfunction allowed Scott Sinclair to canter in for the third, and this game was finished as a contest when Philippe Senderos misjudged a bouncing ball and comically slapped it away.
The loss of Kiernan to injury had encouraged Warburton to roll the dice by then, and Rangers were left with a hopeless, lop-sided look.