Giving such a large present during this joyous season of the year was kind.
But Saturday’s barnstormer of an Old Firm derby does need some careful unpacking, just like any excellent present. First and foremost, Celtic’s 2-1 victory should at least give one side of Glasgow some perspective. Additionally, by taking an eight-point lead atop the table, it will undoubtedly give Brendan Rodgers much-needed breathing room at a crucial juncture in his first season back in charge.
The most entitled element at the heart of this club was, after all, only a few weeks ago threatening to turn fully on the manager and simultaneously gesturing mutinously towards the directors box. Take the board apart. Fire the manager. After losing to Hearts at home on December 16, they were so distraught by the possibility of losing for a 13th title in 14 years that they would have chased Hoopy the Huddle Hound down London Road. Their eyes were so opened.
Thus, Saturday’s triumph over the closest and dearest will have, if nothing else, brought some serenity to the situation and perhaps even given people a chance to stop and consider how absurd this overreaction is. After Rodgers regained control of the title chase this season over the course of almost 100 minutes of epic derby day mayhem, Rangers were forced to lament their losses and consider their future under Philippe Clement’s direction.
The Belgian has taken over from Michael Beale and has done a very good job so far, but the fact remains that he and his team failed to deliver the goods this past weekend when it counted most, and this most recent heartbreaking loss will have stoked some long-standing worries. Put another way, Rangers would have crossed the Clyde River safely and returned home with their own title hopes intact, if not considerably improved, if Clement had had access to at least one suitable striker.
Rather, he was forced to settle for Cyriel Dessers, a player who has the regrettable tendency to take five awkward touches when only one good one is needed. Despite his best efforts, Dessers has been tasked with spearheading Clement’s assault, but Saturday showed again how unfit he is for the position. Too frequently, he was unable to hold the ball aloft and find teammates to join him in play when his team needed him to.
Even more telling was the fact that he froze like a rabbit in headlights each time he had a sight at Celtic’s goal. To put it bluntly, Clement cannot hope to mount a title defense from this point forward without strengthening his attacking alternatives this month, as Cyriel is a repeat offender in that area. The Wolves striker Fabio Silva’s loan arrival could at least temporarily help things. However, Clement ought to request that his board call Hearts and inquire about the cost of hiring Lawrence Shankland, at the absolute least.
While Shankland is a proven performer in the SPFL, Silva is a high-profile player with an enormous price tag of £35 million and a lot of unrealized potential.
Because in times like these, all a manager needs is the peace of mind that comes from knowing that he has players on his squad who he can count on to perform when it matters most. That explains why, following Saturday’s altercation in the east end, Rodgers waxed lyrical about the performance of his captain, Callum McGregor. Throughout the entire game, McGregor was the best player on the field. But he was the one who took it by the scruff of the neck and wouldn’t let go for the ten or fifteen minutes leading up to Celtic’s first goal.
During that time, McGregor elevated his skill to a level that nobody wearing a Rangers uniform could match, especially Todd Cantwell, who was tasked with keeping him in check. During a thrilling first fifteen minutes, Cantwell had fired up and posed a creative danger, but when McGregor truly got going in the middle of the pitch, the Englishman found himself gasping for air. He just never got better.
Cantwell is perhaps his team’s most gifted player, so Clement will be concerned about that as well. However, the management is running out of time and space to accommodate any more passengers at this moment. Naturally, and rather cunningly, the Rangers manager pointed the finger at match official Nick Walsh and VAR operator Willie Collum during the weekend to divert attention from his team’s own shortcomings.
After the match, Clement emphasized that his team should have received a penalty for a clear handball committed by Alistair Johnston in the first half. He was mistaken, though. The authorities made the correct call by refusing to give the spot kick, somehow, in spite of themselves. However, their method of getting there fails almost every semblance of a smell test. Direct communication from Clydesdale House to Sky and BBC Radio Scotland informed them that Johnston’s arm movement was not deemed “unnatural,” so the punishment was not imposed. Whatever the intended meaning of that is.
Then, halfway through the second half, a screen capture was shown, indicating that Abdallah Sima had been offside seconds earlier. This looked suspiciously like a hastily put together and completely unconvincing retroactive cover up. The former Celtic manager would have been mentally revisiting the uproar that resulted from hearing the words “Dougie Dougie” on that fateful afternoon at Tannadice when his team were denied a penalty of their own, so it was ironic that he was watching from Sky’s studio.
Though the conclusion was right in the end, there is regrettably a strong Dougie Dougie II vibe to it. Furthermore, as Dougie McDonald found out years ago, these kinds of disputes usually don’t go away on their own.
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