Aaron Ramsey, spluttering Rangers, motoring Celtic and the title: Key factors at play as Dortmund dilemma comes into view

Attempting to read the runes over the destination of the title becomes a pastime impossible to resist whenever the Glasgow footballing institutions find themselves engaged in a battle royale for top flight supremacy.

Rangers loanee Aaron Ramsey has experienced a slow burn to his time at Ibrox following his deadline day move from Juventus but it is far too early to dismiss his potential impact - even as former Celtic attacker Kris Commons has done so in his newspaper column. (Photo by Alan Harvey / SNS Group)

Such indulgences then are guaranteed by Celtic having opened up a three-point gap over Rangers at the summit of the cinch Premiership table following Sunday’s twists. Ange Postecoglou’s men forcing a late winner at home to Dundee hours after the Ibrox club could not do likewise in being held at Tannadice will ensure the deployment of various forms of clairvoyance and mysticism, never mind good, old fashioned number-crunching. All with the purpose of ascertaining which of the two will more assiduously navigate the remaining 11 league games to plant the league flag on their patch. Two of these encounters, crucially, pitting them against each other.

Contrasting trajectories

Even if Celtic current advantages extend to a nine-goal superior goal difference that effectively demands Rangers affect a four-point swing, the reality is that the present status of Postecoglou’s men is one of huge promise. And not more. Not yet. It isn’t fence-sitting to say, as the Australian continually does, that no undulations thus far in the title race could be considered of monumental importance. Especially with what is just around the corner. Celtic, just as their Achilles heel of defending set-pieces has reared up again, head to Easter Road on Sunday, host St Mirren the following midweek, then pitch up at the plastic of their bogey team Livingston. As they do so, Rangers will entertain Motherwell and Aberdeen, either side of a midweek trip to Perth for a date with St Johnstone. It is not a stretch to believe that in the course of these three rounds of fixtures alone, Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s men could wipe out the current arrears. All before Celtic have to travel to their place on April 3.

Celtic's Joe Hart and club captain Callum McGregor salute their support at full-time after a late winner in a 3-2 success over Dundee on Sunday allowed them to open up a three-point gap over Rangers in the title race. (Photo by Craig Williamson / SNS Group)

Equally, though, there are trends that are sure to have the pores of the Rangers’ faithful secreting in discomfiting fashion. The inability to perm a vibrant display into a victory over Dundee United spoke of a growing unreliability that is infecting Van Bronckhorst’s side.

A fourth straight league game on the road when they have failed to secure full points, they haven’t endured such a sequence since the first two months of the 2018-19 season as Steven Gerrard had a bumpy ride setting out in management. Rangers have dropped nine points in this fledgling year; one into which they headed boasting a six-point advantage over their sworn enemies. In contrast, Postecoglou’s side have been faultless in the Premiership since Christmas. Away to Hibs this weekend, they will be seeking a ninth straight league success – a sequence they last achieved when stacking up 22 straight top flight victories during their invincibles treble-winning season of 2016-17. Currently on a 21-game unbeaten league run, they have dropped only six points over that five-month sequence. Across the corresponding number of games, Rangers have dribbled away 13 points.

Reinforcements and premature pronouncements on Aaron Ramsey

The January transfer window was considered a period potentially pivotal to shaping the outcome of the championship. As it stands, the business conducted then has proved of much greater benefit to Celtic than the additions last month made by their city rivals. It is surely not coincidental that Postecoglou’s men have enjoyed their best league form of the season subsequent to the post-winter shutdown, just as Rangers have experienced their most faltering spell.

Rangers midfielder John Lundstram celebrates with Ryan Jack and Scott Arfield after his superb strike to make it 3-0 in the 4-2 win over Borrusia Dortmund last week. One of the finest European away results in Ibrox club's history, it could yet though have unintended and unwelcome consequences for Giovanni van Bronckhorst men in the title race. (Photo by Alan Harvey / SNS Group)

Moreover, of the five signings Celtic made in the window, three of them – Reo Hatate, Daizen Maeda and Matt O’Riley – started the 3-2 win over Dundee. By contrast, none of the major reinforcements recruited by Van Bronckhorst appeared in his first XI on Tayside. While Amad Diallo and James Sands were on the bench, the injury absence of Aaron Ramsey has set the hares running. Former Celtic attacker Kris Commons seemed to have his hair on fire as he proclaimed in his Daily Mail column on Monday that “time is running out” for the on-loan Juventus midfielder “to make any sort of appreciable impact at Ibrox”. Surely a desperately premature pronoucement when three months of the season still remain? It isn’t ideal that the Wales captain with a chequered fitness history has had a slow burn to his stint in Scotland, but he is a mere three weeks into it. He could be flying before the next derby rolls around, and his pedigree suggests he is exactly the sort of player who could make the difference in such an environment if that is the case.

The issue for Rangers is that Celtic could also be profoundly bolstered by then. Kyogo Furuhashi and David Turnbull haven’t been available at all in 2022 as the result of hamstring problems, but they are expected to be back in the next month. With a 16-goal return, the Japanese striker was the outstanding performer in Scotland in the first half of the season. Meanwhile, the early impacts of Hatate and O’Riley have caused Turnbull’s contribution in the first half of the term to be curiously under-appreciated. Joe Aribo is regarded as Rangers most accomplished performer this season. Yet despite having played more minutes than Celtic’s playmaker, the Nigerian has scored two goals fewer than the 22-year-old – who has netted nine times – while the pair have both produced seven assists.

The European dimension

The one truly iridescent display served up by Rangers in 2022 came with their phenomenal 4-2 victory away to Borrussia Dortmund in the opening leg of the Europa League last 16 play-off. A result secured just ahead of Celtic slumping to a miserable 3-1 defeat at home to Bodo/Glimt at the same juncture of the Conference League. Yet, it might say something about how the fates have sometimes appeared to be toying with the Ibrox club in recent times that any coup de grace delivered against the Budesliga heavyweights on Thursday – as, in all likelihood, Celtic exit their third European competition – has the capacity to ultimately appear a seriously mixed blessing. Two free midweeks early next month for Postecoglou’s men as Rangers stretch themselves in high intensity competition could be divined as small margins playing advantageously for Celtic. In the tightest of title races, such little things can matter a lot.

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