Scottish Premiership: Rangers 3 Celtic 3
The tightest Scottish title race in more than a decade is still far too close to call after Rangers recovered from two goals down to collect a potentially season-defining point.
The draw leaves Brendan Rodgers’s Celtic one point ahead at the top of the table but Philippe Clement’s side have a game in hand. Moreover the Belgian has arguably gained a psychological advantage after using his substitutes to restorative effect as, in the course of an extraordinary second half, he dented Rodgers’s formidable reputation as Glasgow’s Old Firm tactical king.
Clement has certainly transformed Rangers’ fortunes since succeeding Michael Beale in October, winning 19 of his 32 league games but, in the first half, his team was outwitted by the former Liverpool and Leicester manager’s choreography as Celtic’s coach showed precisely why he had won 80 per cent of his previous Old Firm fixtures across two spells on Clydeside.
In the preamble to kick-off one newspaper headline described Rodgers as “the wrong man in the wrong movie” but Celtic’s manager very swiftly slipped into leading man mode. Only 21 seconds had elapsed when James Tavernier hesitated momentarily in the face of Joe Hart’s long kick upfield.
When the Rangers captain attempted a clearance it flew straight at the onrushing Daizen Maeda who watched in delight as it ricocheted off his shin and flew into the net from 20 yards. Maybe Tavernier had forgotten about the impressive Maeda’s rapid change of pace or perhaps he failed to realise he was being closed down by the Japan winger until it was too late for a wrong-footed, utterly stranded and blameless Jack Butland to do anything about it.
Butland has kept so many clean sheets for Clement’s side this season that there is some puzzlement about Gareth Southgate’s failure to offer the 31-year-old a return to his England squad. Perhaps taking the hint, Southgate was at Ibrox, presumably to watch Butland first-hand.
The Rangers goalkeeper soon had ample scope to show off his reflexes and composure amid the capriciously swirling second half of Storm Kathleen, the gusty winds creating far from ideal playing conditions.
Not that Butland seemed remotely fazed as he calmly saved a shot from the increasingly influential Maeda before brilliantly finger-tipping Matt O’Riley’s header to safety. By then Connor Goldson had missed a stellar headed chance at the opposite end and the defender experienced further mortification while defending a corner and conceding a handball penalty awarded following a VAR review.
When it was expertly converted by an outwardly nonchalant O’Riley, who waited for Butland to commit before aiming his kick straight down the middle, the mood in the ground turned distinctly edgy. The absence of any visiting fans – barred on security grounds – ensured that the team in green celebrated the second goal against a backdrop of absolute silence, but it did not take long for the mutterings of discontent to become audible. A key area of concern centred on Tavernier’s evident discomfiture in the face of Maeda.
With Celtic overcoming the awkward conditions by largely controlling midfield courtesy of much intelligent passing, movement and carefully calibrated pressing, Rodgers was winning the tactical battle and Kyogo Furuhashi began giving Clement’s defence a few frights.
If Celtic’s manager must have been delighted with the way his players were overcoming the absence of their Scotland midfielder Callum McGregor, whose Achilles trouble left him only fit enough to start on the bench, Hart was rather underemployed.
Or at least until the end of the first period when he seized a chance to remind Southgate he was a former England goalkeeper too by expertly spreading himself to deny Fabio Silva when left one on one against the forward.
Early in the second half Silva was booked for simulation by the referee after John Beaton believed he had tumbled far too easily in the area following fleeting brush contact from Alastair Johnston. But Beaton changed his mind following a VAR review, pointing to the spot and indicating the booking would be rescinded.
Tavernier’s afternoon improved immeasurably as he struck the kick cleanly into the top corner and, almost immediately Cyriel Dessers had the ball in the back of the net again as Ibrox turned, briefly, exultant. Rodgers looked stunned but was rescued by yet another VAR review leading to that “equaliser” being disallowed for a foul by Tom Lawrence on Tomori Iwata in the build-up.
Nonetheless it was suddenly Celtic’s turn to look rattled as, for the first time, Rangers forced a high-intensity, high-pressing tempo. Rodgers needed to respond and, in the 65th minute, he introduced McGregor.
It was a Rangers substitute convalescing from his own injury problems who scored the next goal though. When the gifted Abdullah Sima capitalised on McGregor’s awful concession of possession, his shot took a hefty deflection off the same player as Clement’s side drew level in the 86th minute.
Euphoria re-entered the Ibrox air only to evaporate two minutes later when another substitute, Celtic’s Adam Idah fooled everyone by shaping to shoot left footed before directing the ball beneath the diving Butland with his left following Paulo Bernardo’s wonderful pass.
It was not the denouement. That was left to Rabbi Matondo who ensured the points were shared thanks to a sublimely curling stoppage-time equaliser registered in the wake of John Lundstram’s pass and Hyunjun Yang’s slapdash defending.
All that remained was a minor bout of push and shove between the players at the final whistle before Rangers embarked on a lap of honour. – Guardian
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