Celtic dug in to record a memorable victory at Ibrox in Brendan Rodgers’ first Derby match since his summer return to Scottish football.
Four wins out of five along Edmiston Drive broke the hearts of the home fans who petitioned and bullied their Board of Directors into reducing the allocation of away tickets from 7,000 to 700 and now down to zero.
After 10 months in the job today was the day for Micky Beale to step out of the shadows of Steven Gerrard and show that he can manage a team, select the tactics, respond and react with substitutions to deliver the first meaningful win of his career.
He failed.
In the most testing of circumstances Rodgers came up with a way to win, his delight after the match told you everything about the importance of today’s result.
Within the course of eight days the returning Celtic manager recently lost three central defenders plus Reo Hatate.
As an emergency measure Nat Phillips was brought in on loan last week from Liverpool but was unavailable for today’s match meaning that Gustaf Lagerbielke and Liam Scales were paired together with three Celtic appearances to their CV over the last 18 months.
🍀 Kyogo’s first-half strike sealed a memorable 1-0 win for Celtic over fierce rivals Rangers – who had a goal controversially disallowed following a VAR check ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/VlOV9nJLFu
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) September 3, 2023
There was some shaky moments in the first half but on the front foot Celtic’s attackers were causing problems and creating chances.
Kyogo Furuhashi had gone through on goal twice in the first half without scoring but made it third time lucky in stoppage time when he got on the end of a Matt O’Riley header behind Connor Goldson to snap the ball into the net.
Ibrox was silenced but the boos were soon ringing out as 50,000 home fans reacted to a familiar script.
After the break Celtic dropped deeper but created the better chances, Kyogo again missed while Jack Butland saved well from Liel Abada although Don Robertson awarded a goal kick.
Joe Hart stood tall in the Celtic goal, Tony Ralston and Alexandro Bernabei were thrown on for tiring full-backs as Scales grew taller, blocking everything that was thrown his way.
Finally, after seven minutes of stoppage time the final whistle went, the away dug out rejoiced against a backdrop of anger and misery inside a half empty Ibrox.
Next time Rodgers can reasonably expect to have a far stronger squad going into the December 30 Derby, for Micky Beale there may not be a next time.
