Rangers made it two home wins out of two against Scottish Premiership champions Celtic this season, beating their bitter rivals 2-0 today.

In those fixtures; Steven Gerrard has got his tactics spot on against first Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic and then Neil Lennon’s Hoops team.

The Gers outplayed and outfought Celtic in every department this afternoon, that will give the Rangers boss plenty of encouragement for next term.

I should point out that although Rangers were strong today, the Hoops were poor and disjointed. The champs didn’t really get going and only really created one chance at goal.

A big part of that though was down to the Rangers defensive performance.

The back four were disciplined at the back and would have someone follow main threat Odsonne Edouard around the pitch and snuff out his chances of getting in behind them.

Another plus for the Light Blues was their defending from the front, especially in the first half hour. They would press from the get go and that led to their breakthrough as they won the ball deep inside the opposition’s half, they would then win a free-kick and captain James Tavernier would then score from that resulting free-kick.

In particular, Nikola Katic was solid in defence. He took it in turns with Connor Goldson when it came to looking after Edouard and keeping the striker quiet.

The Croatian centre-back was strong in the air and looked composed. It was good to see him getting this chance and taking it. Joe Worrall has had a few poor performances in big encounters this season and let’s face it it doesn’t look likely he’ll be back at Ibrox next season, so it seems obviously to build Katic up again.

Nikola has come back into the team in recent weeks and it’s no surprise that the defence have been stronger, keeping three out of four cleansheets and winning all those games too.

I also think Goldson is better when the Croat is playing in alongside him. Katic seems to be more relaxed at the back and that gives Goldson the opportunity to command things as the defensive leader.

You can see today just how passionate Nikola Katic is about playing and playing for Rangers.

In the midfield, Glen Kamara looked very good.

The Finn reminds me of a young Barry Ferguson. He looks very composed when in possession, seems to know who is around him (both teammates & the opposition) and has a quick turn to put markers on their backside. He did that a few times today.

The twenty-three year old international ghosted past Celtic skipper Scott Brown and provided the assist for Scott Arfield to score the game’s second goal.

I think it was extremely smart business from Rangers to bring the midfielder into the club early in January, rather than wait to get him for free in the summer. It allows Glen time to get used to the Gers style of play, he will only get better for next season and he won’t have the confidence zapped out of him by suffering relegation at Dundee.

His performance today was fantastic and that’s now the yardstick he’ll be judged on as a Rangers player.

These two Gerrard recruits highlight that things are getting better in the transfer market for the Ibrox side.

Add to that the great displays of Scott Arfield and Jermain Defoe and you can see why Gers supporters might be looking forward to the next campaign.

It was a solid display today and the Govan outfit deserved the three points but they need to find more consistently next season.

They’ve won their last six games but they’ve not found winning runs like that easy to come by this year. Do that next season and they could finally challenge for silverware once again!

Posted on May 12th, 2019 by scott
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