Rangers and Celtic: Albus Dumbledore spell continues - but why Ange Postecoglou won't be changing

The spell Rangers continue to hold over Celtic is powerful, so enduring, you begin to wonder if it has been cast by Professor Albus Dumbledore.

Celtic's Kyogo Furuhashi (left) goes down under the challenge of Rangers' Steven Davis during the clash at Ibrox.

There is a remarkable durability about the Ibrox men – the true mark of champions – and never is it more intoxicating than when they are pitted against their bitterest rivals. The 1-0 outcome that delivered them their latest derby win in the teams’ first meeting of this cinch Premiership season means they have now gone seven games unbeaten in the fixture; their longest such sequence since between 1999 and 2000.

It came in the cauldron of a concoction that seemed so potently set up for the Parkhead side for a first victory over their rivals in 20 months. The attacking alchemy produced in the past month at the Celtic helm by Ange Postecoglou was supposed to turn Rangers to lead. Add to the mix the Covid-19 issues that denied the home side their manager Steven Gerrard, captain James Tavernier and talismanic keeper Allan McGregor and the iffy form that the Ibrox team had been exhibiting in recent weeks, and everything appeared in Celtic’s favour.

What ensued, though, was tantamount to a greatest misses package from their previous six derbies without success. Dominating possession without making it tell...check, Celtic seeing twice as much of the ball as their hosts across the 90 minutes. Squandering huge chances...check, with Odsonne Edouard and Kyogo Furuhashi fluffing their lines in front of goal either half. Conceding a goal from a set-piece...check, with Filip Helander outjumping the isolated Carl Starfelt for the 67th minute decider. Game-changing blocks from a Rangers keeper...check, with Robbie McCrorie playing the McGregor role with aplomb.

Celtic, as with their more aggressive forward intent under Postecoglou, should have represented a different proposition from the side that had lost in their three previous visits to the Govan ground. Across the afternoon they had six individuals – debutants Josip Juranovic, Joe Hart, Liel Abada, substitute Adam Montgomery, Furuhashi and Starfelt – experiencing the white-hot atmosphere of a unique contest for the first time. All that changed for their club, though, was that now a further clutch of players have been scarred by the derby.

For all that Celtic were obliterated across the last league campaign by their greatest adversaries in finishing a monstrous 25 point behind them, in at least two of their match-ups they performed with more about them than was true of this first major setback for Postecoglou. They were closer to taking something in the 1-0 new year Ibrox defeat, when an own goal did for them on an afternoon that marked Rangers’ only game in the past decade they didn’t fashion a single effort on target, despite playing against ten men for the last half hour following Nir Bitton’s dismissal. Meanwhile, in March, under interim manager John Kennedy, they passed up a hatful of opportunities to have to settle for only a 1-1 draw.

Only. How their Australian manager would have settled for a single point in the clubs’ latest skirmish. It was understandable that he pointed to the encounter as being a tight game “that could have gone either way”, but the fact is that all three points headed the way of Rangers, and that was no mere accident. Gerrard’s men – who racked up a 22nd straight home league victory – trust in their approach, and are capable of hanging tough when they require to do so, in a manner that would appear thus far to remain beyond this recast Celtic team.

It won’t be back to the drawing board for Postecoglou. There is only one playing pattern the 56-year-old will ever follow. However, it will be sobering that, when it came to their most exacting domestic assignment they weren’t simply found wanting but – as no-one predicted – couldn’t even fashion a single goal. A first such low in the 11-game tenure of the new Celtic manager.

Moreover, in having now lost two of their first four league games, Celtic have made their poorest start to a league campaign since they endured defeats in their first two league games in their 10-stopping campaign on 1997-98.

The fact they recovered to win the title will give them some hope that a similar turnaround can be effected in this campaign. They are still bedding in a raft of new players, with more to come in the closing days of the window as moves for Greek striker Georgios Giakoumakis and Portuguese winger Filipe Jota appear to be on stream, but they will beware the lessons from history too.

They had won nine straight games before losing the first derby of last season, which set in motion a buckling that allowed an increasingly commanding Rangers to stretch away from them across the winter months. Furthermore, only in five of the past 32 seasons when both have been in the same league and carving up championships between them, has one of the Glasgow clubs taken the title after losing the first derby.

Following the 6-0 home wins in the league over Dundee and St Mirren in the Premiership that preceded their Ibrox failure, it can only said at this point in time that Postecoglou’s Celtic resemble flat-track bullies. Those characteristics may be enough to prevent them losing touch in the title, but they won’t be enough to put them within touching distance of the title. Not when they have champions that seem to have the formula to bully them whenever they share a pitch.