Every Celtic-supporting man, woman and child in the land, the caller on the radio said to me, will be “quaking in their boots” after the display given by Michael Beale’s Rangers team in the Old Firm derby.
Statements of a combative nature in the immediate aftermath of that particular fixture are good for business. They stir the blood of those who agree with the sentiments expressed. And they provoke retaliatory calls from those who believe they’ve just listened to audible baloney.
The mass outbreak of fear predicted by the caller is, to be realistic, some way off yet. It would surely be wildly premature to suggest otherwise. Beale’s potential to make serious inroads into reducing the gap – which was allowed to develop between Celtic and Rangers before he got here from London – is, at the same time, worthy of recognition.
The difference between Beale’s team and the side he inherited from Giovanni van Bronckhorst will be exhibited today at Tannadice. The Dutchman’s side would, on the rebound from belated disappointment against Celtic, have approached this match with caution and possibly dropped points.
The side who plays today will, in all likelihood, be assured winners because they have a renewed sense of purpose and vigour about them. And so it will be from now until the end of the season by the look of it. While the sound of people trembling in their footwear is non-existent, the Celtic supporters will privately accept the soft touch from the south side of Glasgow has left town.
United won’t suffer a nine-goal shock to the senses administered by Celtic on their last visit to Tannadice but they will be briskly dusted down by the reinvigorated Rangers side under Beale. His only failure has been the inability to infuse Alfredo Morelos with whatever has restored the other players in mind and body.
The Colombian resembles a lost cause and Beale would need to take his share of the blame for that state of affairs. The undoubted decline of a once-valuable asset has been years in the making, a couple of those years spent under Steven Gerrard and Beale. He has been indulged by successive management teams at Ibrox and what you see now is what you get when indulgence takes its toll. Morelos should have punished Celtic on a day when their boss Ange Postecoglou demonstrated he’s as fallible as the next gaffer.
Ange picked the wrong team to begin with at Ibrox. Then his subs were wrong when Greg Taylor got injured and Josip Juranovic’s transfer value dropped every time he touched the ball. But Celtic never stopped and Rangers never started to defend their goal properly when they were intent on running down the clock. I know we’re supposed to believe VAR determined the outcome of the game.
I also know it was Peter Lawwell’s first working day as Celtic chairman and the SFA have already been asked to clarify what constitutes a handball. It looked a stonewall penalty to me when Connor Goldson impeded the progress of a shot from Carl Starfelt.
But here’s the history lesson from an old codger who, as I have stated on this page before, was born into the green half of Glasgow. This isn’t about VAR as such. This is about an institutionalised belief Celtic don’t get an even shake in Scotland. VAR just means a machine has now become the source of suspicion instead of human beings.
Every Celtic-supporting man, woman and child in the land knows that is the case while being free of involuntary shaking in their boots at the same time.
