THERE may only have been a solitary goal to separate Celtic and Rangers on this occasion. And it might have taken the Parkhead club until there were just three minutes of regulation time remaining to score it. But this contest was every bit as one-sided as the 5-1 game had been last month.
Rangers gave a far better account of themselves than they had in the opening Old Firm match of the season. Their players could certainly hold their heads up as they walked off the park at the end of the 90 minutes despite losing 1-0. It was far from being the humiliation they had suffered last time around.
Yet, the considerable gulf in quality that clearly exists between the city rivals was obvious as this Betfred Cup semi-final wore on at Hampden yesterday. It would have been a gross injustice if there had been any other outcome.
Moussa Dembele, who had netted a hat-trick on his debut in the world-famous fixture at Celtic Park, ensured his side progressed to the final when he diverted a Leigh Griffiths cut back in with a cheeky back heel at the death. His delightful effort was greeted with sighs of relief as well as cheers in one half of the stadium.It was far more tense than it should have been for the victors.
There is growing speculation about whether Brendan Rodgers’s side is capable of winning a treble in the 2016/17 campaign. We are little over two months into the season and the Scottish Cup has still to even get underway. But such talk does not seem misplaced given their domestic dominance and their performance here.
The Rangers fans stayed inside the ground in large numbers to applaud their team after the final whistle. Given the effort they had put into the game their show of support for their players was deserved. Mark Warburton did the best he could with the personnel he had at his disposal. But at no stage did his side look capable of snatching a result.
Warburton is, possibly as a result of his “our Plan B is to do Plan A better” comment last season, often criticised for being too rigid in his approach to his team formation and tactics. Yet, his team selection was certainly a departure from the norm yesterday.
He brought in Lee Hodson, who had enjoyed an excellent game for Northern Ireland against Germany in a Russia 2018 qualifier earlier this month, at right back and moved James Tavernier forward.
That was recognition of the hard work that Hodson has done in training since arriving in the summer, the occasional defensive lapses of Tavernier and the threat posed by the opposition team down the left wing through Kieran Tierney and Scott Sinclair.
With Andy Halliday, Jason Holt, Josh Windass and Tavernier in the starting line-up Rangers certainly had far more running in them than in their previous encounter with Celtic when Joey Barton and Niko Kranjcar struggled with the pace and intensity. But they were still unable to trouble their opponents to any significant degree.
Scott Brown, the Celtic captain who had been so disappointing in the Scottish Cup semi-final at the National Stadium back in April, continued his impressive run of form. He harried Rangers players relentlessly and won possession for his side time and time again. His adversaries had no answer to his industry.
Rangers contained Celtic well during the first half without ever really threatening to net themselves. They had an ambitious appeal for a penalty waved away in the 15th minute after Barrie McKay had thrown himself to ground when Jozo Simunovic won the ball cleanly in his area. Referee Craig Thomson was unimpressed and booked the winger for diving.
Matt Gilks, preferred to Wes Foderingham in goals for another League Cup outing, had a couple of rash moments. He gifted Rogic the ball needlessly with a poor clearance and failed to deal with a Halliday passback adequately. But he produced fine blocks from Scott Sinclair twice, Kieran Tierney and Stuart Armstrong to keep his team on level terms.
Rodgers had left Kolo Toure, who gifted Borussia Moenchengladbach two goals in a Champions League defeat at Parkhead on Wednesday evening, on the bench and gone with Simunovic and Erik Sviatchenko at centre back. The new pairing performed confidently as Celtic kept their third clean sheet in four outings.
Simunovic was well placed to block a Holt shot with his body inside the Celtic box on the hour mark. That was the only occasion Rangers looked like scoring. Gordon gathered tame attempts from Tavernier and Windass. Those efforts aside he was untroubled.
Sviatchenko had the ball in the back of the Rangers net in the four minutes after the start of the second half. The defender rose well to meet a Sinclair cross and glanced a header beyond Gilks. But Clint Hill went to ground and Thomson ruled that he had been fouled by the scorer. It was a harsh decision.
In the second half, Rangers struggled to get out of their own half . When Windass, Kenny Miller and McKay made way for Joe Garner, Martyn Waghorn and Joe Dodoo respectively in the closing stages it injected some much-needed energy into their play.
The longer, though, that Celtic went without scoring the greater the likelihood of them being caught out by a sucker punch. But the arrival of Griffiths, who replaced Rogic with 20 minutes remaining, proved crucial.
He gathered a diagonal ball upfield by Simonovic at the death, got in behind Lee Wallace and supplied Dembele who put the ball into the net and his team into the final.
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