Derek McInnes claimed his first Old Firm win as Rangers boss with a commanding 3-0 victory over Celtic at Ibrox, sending Martin O’Neill’s side crashing out of the Premier Sports Cup and handing their long unbeaten domestic run its first blemish of the season.
Rangers were utterly dominant from the first whistle to the last on Sunday, and by the time Dan Neil curled home his second goal of the afternoon in the 75th minute, the only question left hanging over Ibrox was how comfortable this quarter-final win had actually been. Celtic, who arrived unbeaten domestically and sitting top of the William Hill Premiership, barely laid a glove on their oldest rivals.
Neil, Rangers’ captain, opened the scoring after 22 minutes with a composed finish from the edge of the box, controlling the ball before drilling it low into the corner. Kevin Kelsy, signed on deadline day, doubled the advantage on 59 minutes with his first goal for the club, arriving at the back post to finish after a deflected cross fell into his path. Neil then wrapped up the scoring 16 minutes from time, cutting inside and bending a shot into the top corner from a similar position to his first. Celtic’s David Johnstone made a couple of smart saves either side of the hour mark to keep the margin at three rather than something more embarrassing, but there was little else for the visitors to take from the afternoon.
McInnes gets his tactics spot on
The most eye-catching part of McInnes’s approach was his use of left back James Penrice as something close to an auxiliary midfielder, part of a man for man pressing structure that gave Celtic no time on the ball and no obvious way through. It worked from the first minute. Celtic, so fluent in their previous three matches, found themselves rushed into misplaced passes and forced into areas of the pitch where Rangers wanted them.
“I feel the performance we gave today was the performance that was required to overcome a team like Celtic,” McInnes said afterwards. “The game demanded our full attention today, it demanded a big performance. And delighted we managed to deliver that.”
It was a significant personal moment for the Rangers manager too. McInnes had watched Celtic deny his former club Hearts the Premiership title last season, and Sunday’s win was his first Old Firm victory since taking charge at Ibrox. Rangers have now won five matches in a row, and few of those wins will have felt as statement making as this one, delivered against the champions in front of a raucous home support with Celtic’s travelling fans absent because of an ongoing ticket allocation dispute between the two clubs.
O’Neill calls for a response
For Martin O’Neill, now in his third spell in charge of Celtic and barely two matches into it, the defeat was a jolt after a summer and early season that had otherwise gone largely to plan. Celtic arrived at Ibrox top of the league, unbeaten domestically, and fresh off winning both the title and the Scottish Cup last season.
“We were well beaten in the end. On the day, just second best,” O’Neill admitted. “They’re strong. I think they’re physically strong.” He added: “We did misplace a lot of passes today when we were comfortable and choosing the wrong option. We didn’t create. That’s a bit of a surprise to me.”
He was blunt about where responsibility lay. “It’s a wake-up call. I have to look at myself for a start, then I look at the team.” Among the few positives O’Neill could point to was the endeavour of young midfielder Colby Donovan, booked early for a strong challenge but praised afterwards for showing, in O’Neill’s words, a big heart even as the game slipped away around him.
Aberdeen await McInnes in the semi-final, and Ibrox awaits again in a week
Rangers now progress to a semi-final against Aberdeen, the club McInnes managed for five years before his move south to Hearts and then across Glasgow to Rangers. That tie is scheduled for the last weekend of October, with Hearts facing Hibernian in the other semi-final. It sets up a familiar test for McInnes, returning to Pittodrie’s rivals with genuine cup final ambitions after Sunday’s demolition job.
There is no time for Celtic to dwell on the defeat either. The two clubs meet again in the league at Celtic Park this coming Sunday, with away fans barred from that fixture too while the ticket dispute rumbles on. It is an unusually quick turnaround for a rivalry of this size, and O’Neill will already know that another poor performance would do real damage to Celtic’s early season position, even with a five point cushion at the top of the table.
That cushion remains for now. Celtic still sit first in the Premiership with 18 points from six matches, four clear of Rangers in second on 13, and this cup exit does not change their league position or their title credentials on paper. But Sunday told a different story about the balance of power between these two clubs right now. McInnes has built something with genuine bite in a short space of time, and O’Neill’s Celtic, so assured domestically until this point, will want considerable answers before they once again take on their city rivals.
For Rangers, the concern will simply be maintaining the levels shown here. For Celtic, there is a week to find out whether Sunday was a one off or the first sign of a genuine title race developing in Scotland.
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