Take two committed, if admittedly flawed, teams. Add 50,000 fervent home supporters. Throw in a dash of refereeing and VAR controversy, and allow John Beaton to stir the pot.
Even renowned chef Gordon Ramsay himself, in attendance at Ibrox to see his beloved Rangers, couldn’t have done more with those ingredients than what the Old Firm produced in a frantic afternoon of action.
Let’s not sugar coat it too much, mind you. This was more all-you-can-eat buffet than two-star Michelin fine dining, but how the fans gorged on what was on offer.
Old Firm clashes – as evidenced here - can often be error-strewn and lacking in guile, but they are invariably beguiling. And this one was the best example of the genre in quite some time.
It took just 22 seconds for the blue-touch paper to be lit here, and with the greatest of respect to Rangers captain James Tavernier, he must have felt like he could have been the filling in one of Ramsay’s infamous idiot sandwiches as Daizen Maeda caught him cold.
And not to overegg the theme, but what a meal the Rangers skipper made of a nothing ball from Celtic goalkeeper Joe Hart.
It’s not as if Tavernier didn’t know that Maeda would be pressing him. It’s what he does. The all-action Celtic winger has forced crucial errors from Tavernier before, and yet, inexplicably, he was somehow caught dozing amid the maelstrom all around him, only realising he as in trouble when it was already too late.
At the last, he tried to slash the ball clear, but succeeded only in sending it cannoning off the shins of Maeda and the ricochet took it past Jack Butland before the keeper – being watched here by England manager Gareth Southgate – could react.
It was an absolute shocker from Tavernier, and it was a microcosm of what made the spectacle so captivating over the piece. The quality might not always have been there, and in fairness to the players, the swirling wind that was added to the mix made their task all the more difficult. But it was thrilling stuff.
Maeda got in behind again when the excellent Reo Hatate slipped the ball into the channel for the winger to bring an impressive save from Butland, before Hatate picked up the scraps and fired just wide.
The winger then robbed Tavernier in his own half, and by this point, the natives were reaching boiling point. Butland dug his skipper out of that particular hole with a great save from Matt O’Riley’s eventual header, but his head looked to have gone.
He didn’t really recover until after the interval, but by that time, Celtic were two to the good, with VAR making its mark for the first time in proceedings. No good Scottish football smorgasbord is complete without a bit of refereeing controversy after all.
Kuhn’s cross was flicked on and eventually scrambled clear, but what referee Beaton had missed was Rangers defender Connor Goldson – for reasons known only to himself - performing the funky chicken. The ball had hit off his elbow, it had been spotted by VAR official Nick Walsh, and a penalty inevitably followed.
O’Riley stepped up and produced an impudent ‘Panenka’ finish to rub salt in Rangers’ wounds, and there was a bitter taste in the mouths of almost all around Ibrox as the teams took their leave at the break.
They would get the response they craved, with Rangers being handed a route back into the game – eventually – following another VAR check.
Fabio Silva went down under the challenge of Alistair Johnston in the area, but perhaps with a ridiculous piece of first half amateur dramatics from the Portuguese winger fresh in his mind, Beaton immediately reached for his pocket and cautioned Silva for simulation.
Walsh again disagreed with his on-field colleague, and after reviewing the incident, Beaton concurred that he had got it wrong. Tavernier gathered himself and finished emphatically – and admirably, given his earlier travails.
There had been much focus on Beaton prior to the game after he was the subject of criticism from Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers, and if not for VAR, there would have been even more focus on him thereafter.
Without meaning to be too harsh, he called all of the big decisions in the game incorrectly, and VAR bailed him out. Which may be taken as a rare vindication of the technology, or perhaps a comment on Beaton's competency, to use a term with which he has recently become familiar.
That was the way of things soon after the Tavernier penalty, with Ibrox erupting as Cyriel Dessers bundled home what appeared to be a quickfire leveller. How Beaton had missed an earlier foul on Tomoki Iwata, only he knows, but justice was done in the end.
Old Firm matches can get to the best of them, mind you, and even Celtic captain Callum McGregor – brought on to steady the ship – made a hash of it to allow Rangers to achieve parity.
His blind, square ball was picked off, and before you knew it, Rangers half-time substitute Abdallah Sima had sent an effort nicking off Liam Scales and into the Celtic net.
Barely a minute later, the wind was sucked out of Ibrox again as Adam Idah sensationally put Celtic back in front, but Rangers would have the last word as Rabbi Motondo produced a rare moment of elegance as he bent a beauty past Hart in stoppage time and ensured that the title race keeps bubbling along nicely.
In the end, both sides probably got their just desserts.
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