Celtic-Rangers reaction: Pandemic hex reversed; Game-changing millennium trophy mountain; respect for ref

Celtic’s 1-0 Scottish Cup semi-final win over Rangers secured by a first-half Jota header was an outcome that came with major repercussions.

Pandemic hex reversed

It was understandable for Celtic supporters to be crowing over their team’s mastery of their rivals in digesting the state of play for the two clubs once the dust had settled at Hampden. A fifth treble in seven years – and a record eighth overall – is their team’s for the taking following a third straight derby success. Ange Postecoglou has suffered only one defeat in the fixture – an extra-time loss in the last four of the Scottish Cup a year ago – in nine. Yet, as a team that prizes itself on suffocating opponents with a sparkling brand of football, there has been a distinct lack of piazz as they have picked off Rangers since the pre-Michael Beale pasting of their fierest foes 4-0 in their own backyard last September. No-one is saying their record since flatters them, but the breaks have certainly fallen their way this season in the derby.

Rangers had the upper hand for much of the second half at Hampden as Celtic hardly resembled the all-conquering domestic force their form on the home front would suggest. Meandering spells from Postecoglou’s team have been witnessed in each of the past four match-ups between the pair. Indeed, it would not have been an unfair reflection of the teams in their new year meeting down Govan way had the home side, then under Beale’s charge for a matter of weeks, held on for a 2-1 win. As opposed to serving up a messy late equaliser.

Celtic winger Jota's decisive strike in the Hampden semi-final with rivals Rangers ultimately could be considered a goal of huge significance beyond settling the encounter. (Photo by Paul Devlin / SNS Group)

It feels that the situation has completely flipped from two years ago when it seemed, however indifferently Rangers performed, Celtic couldn’t buy a win in the empty stadiums dictated by the pandemic restrictions. Fate decreed that everything fell the way of Steven Gerrard’s men as they proved unbeatable in these match-ups – as they were across the entire top flight campaign in breezing to an historic the title. But until Celtic’s fracturing towards the end of that campaign, rarely was there as much between the duo as results suggested. For two-third of it, Celtic consistently out-possessed and out-chanced their ancient adversaries in their head-to-heads. Heck, Rangers succeeded in winning the new year derby in that season despite the encounter being notable as the only one the Ibrox men have played domestically in the past 15 years when they have not fashioned a single shot on target (the 1-0 victory over 10 men owed to an own goal off the shoulder of Callum McGregor).

It is impossible not to feel for Beale in the here and now. His squad have run their race, most certainly, and he acknowledged as much afterwards in talking of a dozen incomings and outgoings over the summer. Celtic required that foundations-up-complete-rebuild when Postecoglou arrived in June 2021, but, underpinned by the sales of key playing assets, his board could furnish him with the near £40m to regain domestic supremacy. And by Jiminy, he spent his kitty exceptionally. Beale requires to do as much with a far more modest outlay but the likeable and oft-misunderstood Englishman deserves a degree of credit for moving his team much closer to Celtic … even as they paradoxically seem further away than ever. Rangers’ spirit has been willing in recent derbies, it is just that their defensive reliability and forcefulness that has been weak. Credit to Celtic for feasting on their flaws in pivotal moments, but it would be one-eyed not to recognise they have exhibited a surprising number of deficiencies themselves that might well have been exploited.

The Parkhead club’s game-changing millennium trophy mountain

Cast your mind back to the first season of this century reaching its conclusion. It did so with Rangers hoovering up league – by a whopping 21 points – and Scottish Cup. As Celtic, under the interim management of Kenny Dalglish following the failed John Barnes experiment, claimed a League Cup booby prize. It seemed then that the Scottish game’s pecking order was set in stone and that the silverware differential between our game’s trophy munchers merely was set to grow. Then the vital numbers stood at Rangers having landed 111 major honours with Celtic sitting on 78. Fast forward to the present moment. Should Postecoglou’s men make it over the line in the title – a foregone conclusion with a 13-point gap and five games remaining – and see off Inverness Caledonian Thistle in the Scottish Cup final in June 3 – as close to a given as football offers up – these trophy hauls will be the very same for outright major trophies secured … Rangers’ title success in the inaugural top flight of 1990-91 a shared success with Dumbarton after both finished on the same points (with Dumbarton’s superior goal difference not taken into account).

If they avoid any slips in the next five weeks, Celtic will take their haul of honours to 39 in this millennium – and, incredibly, 16 of the most recent 21 contested – to Rangers’ 16 on the same measure. The Ibrox men would then sit on 117 major trophies to their rivals’ 116, leaving silverware supremacy and the most successful club in the world claim firmly in play. A turn of events that did not seem possible in 2000, it became so with the twin game-changers of Celtic recruiting Martin O’Neill and Rangers’ proving guilty of malfeasance under then-owner David Murray as a result of a ruinous misuse of a tax avoidance scheme that led to the club’s liquidation.

Respect for ref Robertson

It cannot have been easy for Don Robertson to step into the semi-final as a late, late referee replacement for Willie Collum, who damaged his hamstring in the warm-up. Robertson turned up at Hampden expecting to conduct the far less onerous fourth official duties, only to be thrust centre stage. There always will be quibbles with certain decisions - it comes with the territory for poor, put-upon officials - but Robertson took charge and was firmly in charge of a potentially powderkeg fixture in which so much was at stake. A bruising encounter at times, he never allowed it to boil over by using his yellow cards judiciously and, rightly, felt no compunction brandish a red – the occasion a record 10th straight such derby when no player has been dismissed. He warrants a bravo so, eh, bravo Mr Robertson.