Further comedy comes from the assertion that Thomson was our Man of the Match. Funny that: when I heard the team sheets read out, Kevin was not playing. They of course are referring to the referee, Craig Thomson. Yes, the very same ref who threw the ball into Artur Boruc’s hands at a drop ball situation. The only team cheating was the same team who have now had four different players booked this season for simulation. But let's have a look at the penalty decisions, just to be fair.
To me there were four incidents which you could have highlighted (quite where Jackson gets five from I’m not sure?) starting with Maloney and Davie Weir's coming together after about 12 minutes. For me Maloney had lost the ball and careered into Weir making it look spectacular. Watch it again and you will see Maloney played for it but I will admit - out of all their claims - this was the most likely to have been given. The second involved the same duo again and I still believe the ref was right to book the Celtic player, Maloney was going down way before Weir was even near him and he had lost control of the ball. I sat directly behind that decision and Maloney dived, no one will convince me otherwise. The fact he hardly argued with the booking tells you everything. The penalty was indeed the correct decision, Papac was clumsy in a situation Rangers should have dealt with long before it got that far. The fourth contentious decision saw Mark Wilson booked for simulation and having seen it again I hope he realises just how ridiculous he looked, as it would have got a ten rating in the discipline of diving. Again, he had lost the ball which begs the question: were the Celtic players told to simply fling themselves to the floor every time they were around the box? I believe they were.
Now that has been discussed we can get back to talking about what is most important and that is Rangers.
This was a must win for us and a real 6 pointer. Defeat wasn’t an option and a draw was hardly an inspiring prospect either. The news from FF poster Barrybaldy - who posted on Saturday evening that McCulloch, Thomson and, more importantly, Bougherra were all out of the game - had done nothing but add to my already downbeat feelings about the match. As I took my seat on Sunday at around 1205 and quickly scanned the players warming up, it was a real shock that Andy Little was to be starting at right back.
Now, this is where I will fall out with Walter Smith. The decision to play Andy Little on Sunday was both unfair and highly selfish. If Andy Little is deemed good enough to be thrown into the Glasgow derby, against arguably Celtic’s most dangerous player, why has he been snubbed in games such as Queen of the South? To expect him just to come in and perform in this game is hardly fair. This game could have finished his Rangers career before it had even started, a mistake could have shot his confidence to pieces. This isn’t even a player who had been playing as right back regularly either: Andy Little spent all of last year's reserve season as a striker, a very promising one at that. To ask him to perform at right back in this fixture is a bit much. But all that was to prove irrelevant after the youngster got injured inside the first minute. I hope to see Andy Little again in the Rangers first team, I just hope next time it's more favourable on the young man.
As the game began I was hugely impressed by the noise generated by our support, it was certainly as impressive as I have known it in a long time. But I was quite strangely reserved as I sat there, I had convinced myself this was going to be a bad day and when Kris Boyd combined with Kenny Miller to make it 1-0 I was actually quite shocked as I celebrated. We had been given the perfect start and for once Rangers had taken their first chance, maybe things weren’t going to be as bad as I had convinced myself? 16 minutes on the clock and it was 2-0 and it really was dreamland for me. I couldn’t quite believe it, to be honest, I just couldn’t see it coming. It really was a strange feeling, somewhat of shock and disbelief.
At 2-0 I did begin to believe and I briefly thought to myself we might just hammer them here, but no sooner had I arrived at that thought that Celtic had managed to claw their way back into a game through some ridiculous defending by Rangers. So we are going to do it the hard way, hardly a surprise eh? Positional changes did nothing to help the flow of our game and at half time despite our lead I wasn’t overly impressed by our performance. The first 30 minutes in the second half did nothing towards dispelling that feeling either. Until we learn as a team to stop sitting back and to start pressing high up the park we will continue to suffer from nervous and anxious finishes to games. We have some good footballers - especially in our midfield - and they need to learn to be more composed on the ball. The last 10 minutes saw us play some nice stuff and pass the ball about well, with Mendes showing why we all demand more from him. If only we could do that at the start of games we wouldn’t have struggled to find form so far this season.
In truth when you watch the game back, despite all Celtic's possession, they do nothing but flatter to conceive. While they may look dangerous there is no cut and thrust to their game and in truth, despite a slight scare from Maloney as he dragged a shot wide, we were never in danger. Our makeshift defence coped remarkably well, Weir was once again a rock at the heart of defence, organising and dominating, I thought he was unlucky not to be awarded the Man of the Match. Simply standing up to the threat was enough to extinguish it and we can take a great deal of heart from our victory.
Effort and desire was shown and if we can build on it in the coming weeks we will defend our title. We have let Celtic of the hook already this season with dull draws but Walter Smith has again dragged us past our greatest rivals with a gutsy performance against all the odds - while most moan about our manager can you point to anyone else who can continue to get the best out his squad the way he does? Smith makes us able to compete where previous managers this decade have failed. Our victory proves that and I’m hoping the morale boost gained will see us get stronger and begin to play some decent stuff. We are a much better team than we have shown - and I include Sunday in that - but this was a game where only the result mattered and in the end Good prevailed over Evil.
Make it count now, Rangers, and get us back to where we belong.