SOME people who attend Old Firm matches might never learn. But there is always something to be gleaned from the Glasgow grudge match and yesterday was no different. Here, Herald Sport tries to make sense of it all:
Rangers are made of sterner stuff
By the stats, Steven Gerrard has presided over the Ibrox club’s worst start to a league campaign since 1989/90, claiming a five-point haul from the opening 12 available which even he accepts is disappointing. There is huge mitigation, though, in the club’s Europa League exploits and there was further evidence yesterday of their new-found defensive stability. While Celtic dominated possession and hit the woodwork four times, Rangers defended their penalty box well and reacted after going behind.
McGregor was lucky to stay on. Without Scotland’s in-form goalkeeper, the tally in yesterday’s match would have been far greater. And the Ibrox side nearly had to do without him. Taking Kristoffer Ajer’s presence in his six yard box as an open invitation to kick out at him, the goalkeeper could well have been dismissed if referee Willie Collum had seen the incident, even if it was hard to tell how much there was in the way of contact.
Keeping Ntcham was masterstroke. Amid all the furore about Celtic’s sale of Moussa Dembele to Lyon, the fact they managed to keep hold of Olivier Ntcham in the face of interest from Porto has been glossed over. The former Manchester City player is arguably as important as any Celtic player right now, he popped up with an excellent winner on the day and forced McGregor to beat another shot onto the crossbar.
The atmosphere wasn’t quite the same. The Celtic fans created quite a din but the dynamic of this match has changed with only 800 visiting fans in the corner as opposed to the best part of 7000. While it was more like a Clasico or a big European match, things turned a little bit ugly towards the end when a triumphalist lap of honour included a bit of taunting of the Rangers fans.
Ryan Christie has a role to play this season. Introduced up front against Suduva in midweek, he was given a taste of the Old Firm match yesterday. Winning a free kick on the edge of the box for a controversial foul against Connor Goldson, it would be Scotland’s gain if he can play his way into consistent game time.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel