Celtic captain Scott Brown would not be drawn on the incident which sparked yesterday’s angry post-match melee after Neil Lennon’s side took full points from a game that frequently threatened to spill over during the regulation 90 minutes.
It finally reached that stage in its aftermath with a number of players dragged into an ugly skirmish, the catalyst for which was Brown celebrating the victory in front of the 800 Rangers supporters inside the ground.
Andy Halliday took umbrage with Brown’s antics but the midfielder offered a mocking answer when questioned about what exactly had taken place; “he came up to congratulate me,” said Brown dryly.
Brown was the focal point of Rangers’ ill-discipline on the park, having taken an elbow on the jaw from Alfredo Morelos before Ryan Kent clearly raised his hands to the Celtic captain after James Forrest’s late winner.
Kent may yet receive a retrospective ban from the SFA to accompany Halliday and Morelos in the stand on Wednesday night for Rangers’ game against Hearts. Not that Brown will offer any eye-witness testimony. “I can’t even remember it,” he said.
If Brown was pivotal to the controversy at the end, he did not stand alone. Wes Foderingham cut a menacing figure with his hood up as he came close to decking a steward while looking to join in the barny while Daniel Candeias could maybe look to show some of the fight he showed on the touchline when he takes to the pitch. Mikael Lustig left the pitch with his strip ripped to pieces and Celtic goalkeeper ForrestScott Bain seemed to cop the bulk of Halliday’s ire.
Compliance officer Clare Whyte will have her work cut out for her this week.
In among the rancour and drama of the day, it was easy to forget the quality of the goals on offer. Edouard was the best player on the park with Kent a close second, despite the fact he hooked one effort over the bar that would have put Rangers into the lead.
Edouard netted a glorious opener when he collected a finely weighted pass before Forrest and was allowed to run at Rangers from the halfway line. Keeping his composure, he lifted the ball coolly past Allan McGregor and was on hand with the same calmness to set up Forrest’s late winner. Callum McGregor had pounced on a slack pass from James Tavernier towards his own defence to play in Edouard, but the striker left Joe Worrall twisting and turning before playing the ball to the feet of Forrest.
And the Celtic winger was cognisant of the role that the young Frenchman played in Celtic’s performance.
“Odsonne scored the goal and then set up mine,” enthused Forrest. “He has scored in a few of these games now and the manager said afterwards it was one of the best Old Firm performances he’s seen. He was holding the ball up and contributed really well.
“You need your striker to be on top in games like this and he was tremendous for 90 minutes. You could see last season when he came in that he is so chilled. Nothing fazes him. Once he gets the ball at his feet he can bully defenders and it was a great performance from him.”
There seemed to be a significant release of pent-up frustration from Celtic following the manner of their defeat to Rangers at Ibrox back in December. Forrest acknowledged that it has lingered for some time.
“After the last one it hurt even more because we didn’t have a game for a good few weeks,” he said. “We were still hurting in Dubai and that is why ever since we have come back we have done well. We were maybe still hurting and we put that right today. Everyone felt it but you don’t want to keep talking about it because it will get you down. “The intensity we showed in the first half was good and the only disappointment was we didn’t get more goals. Rangers got a bit of confidence from the fact it was 1-0.”
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