Attendance 58,851
This final ‘Old Firm’ fixture of the season found an
injury-ravaged Rangers’ side facing their nemesis
having lost all four previous clashes during the
current campaign together with the final game of last
season.
Manager Alex McLeish made one change from the side
that overwhelmed Motherwell one week ago, with Michael
Mols replacing Hamed Namouchi. Celtic were at full
strength.
It was Celtic who were first to threaten with
Stanislav Varga having the ball in the net from an
Alan Thompson free-kick only for it to be disallowed
for Henrik Larsson’s foul on Frank De Boer in the
third minute.
Larsson himself was next to trouble Klos with a
22-yard cross on the quarter-hour mark, then within
two minutes more the goalkeeper was again under
pressure from Sutton’s challenge from Stilian Petrov’s
cross.
Chris Sutton backing into defenders had peppered every
Celtic attack, fouls that went unpunished by the
referee.
Rangers were starting to play their way into the game
with a Stephen Hughes volley from a Michael Mols flick
being deflected wide in 25 minutes.
Twice in quick succession Didier Agathe was guilty of
blatant diving that went unpunished by Referee Hugh
Dallas.
Hughes again came close eleven minutes later when his
twenty-yard chip was again deflected wide of the
target.
Celtic goalkeeper David Marshall proved equal to the
task from the resultant Mikel Arteta corner, touching
over De Boer’s near-post header.
Sixty seconds later Marshall fumbled a Mols drive from
twenty yards, but the inrushing Steven Thompson could
do no better than direct his effort from the rebound
over the bar.
It was all Rangers at this juncture, a Ricksen pass in
42 minutes releasing Chris Burke wide on the right
only for the winger’s low ball across the face of goal
to find no takers.
Rangers had been the better team during the
first-half, but the teams were level at the interval.
Celtic restarted on the offensive, Thompson’s 56th
minute corner finding Varga at the back post only for
his effort to be deflected wide.
Two minutes later Petrov dispossessed Arteta only to
see his low drive turned wide by Klos.
The Bulgarian might have opened the scoring in 61
minutes when he shot wide after Allan Hutton’s slip
had allowed Larsson to centre the ball.
Didier Agathe was causing problems down the right, and
from one quick break in 65 minutes he finished a
lung-busting solo run with a shot into the side-net.
Five minutes later Klos in quick succession turned
headers from Sutton and Larsson over the bar, both
from Petrov corners, then held a Bobo Balde header
from a Thompson cross in 73 minutes.
Celtic now had the bulk of the pressure, with Zurab
Khizanishvili thwarting Petrov in 78 minutes when he
scooped the ball off his toe.
Four minutes later Larsson should have opened the
scoring when he shot weakly straight at Klos from a
Petrov lay-off.
In the dying seconds Thompson might have won the game
for Rangers when his header from Paulo Vanoli’s cross
was wide of the target.
The winning goal when it arrived came at the other
end, Marshall’s long kick-out, headed on by Sutton,
found Larsson who played it back to Sutton who curled
the ball over Klos.
It was a cruel way to lose the game, but what was
shameful in the aftermath was Alan Thompson’s assault
on Ricksen when he slapped the Ranger in the face -
Referee Hugh Dallas again failing to spot the
incident.
Alex McLeish afterwards lamented:
"It was a sore way to lose. We gave everything, and
had weathered the pressure. Steven Thompson might even
have sneaked it at the end."
CELTIC Marshall; McNamara, Balde, Varga; Agathe,
Lennon, Petrov, Pearson (McGeady 84), Thompson;
Larsson, Sutton
UNUSED SUBS Douglas, Lambert, Mjallby, Beattie
RANGERS Klos; Hutton, F. De Boer, Khizanishvili,
Vanoli; Burke, Ricksen, Arteta, Hughes (Ball 86);
Mols, Thompson
UNUSED SUBS McGregor, Ross, McCormack, Adam
REFEREE Hugh Dallas