Rangers 0—1 Celtic.

dembele goal.jpg

Those with long memories can remember a certain Ranger’s goalie being virtually unbeatable, Celtic doing everything but score and Brian Laudrup galloping up the park and winning it for Rangers. Matt Gilks played a great impression of Andy Goram, but there was no great Dane to run away with it for the underdogs. Leigh Griffiths, in 87 minutes, set up the other best striker in Scottish football, Moussa Dembele whose sublime touch won the game for Celtic. The referee played his part (costing me £66 as my bet for first goalscorer was declared void) as Erik Sviatchenko’s header into the bottom of the net is disallowed, prompting bygone talks of Masonic conspiracy, but let’s be charitable and say the referee was  as knackered as Tom Rogic gets after half-an-hour of football, and the man in black spent more of the game following play and running into the Ranger’s box than any of the thin blue line. There was no 5—1 score line here, but on chances missed it certainly should have been. Gilks presenting Rogic with a miskicked pass in the six-yard box was the pick of the bunch. Sinclair’s free kick against the bar another standout. Matt Gilks was Ranger’s man of the match, in fact, he was man of the match overall, slightly ahead on points of Celtic’s captain, Scott Brown. If it were a boxing match it would have been stopped long before the end. 

But Gilks must have taken a head knock, in his after-match interview he talked of Rangers being the better team. The coaching staff better get that looked at. Mark Warbuton, the Ranger’s manager must have headed every ball as well, because he seemed slightly concussed, gibbering that the gap between his team and Celtic has shortened. I’d check his eyesight too. The best rejoinder I heard was that was because Celtic had now lapped them.

Aberdeen in the league cup final. It will be a closer game than this one, because we know they’ll do, what they always do, go Walter Smith, sit in, and try and score on the breakaway. They’ve done it before. But they’d need their keeper to play like Gilks. A referee to disallow a couple of goals. Breakway and go up the park and score. In fact they need Brian Laudrup. And while they’re there might as well bring his brother Michael along. Look forward to the first trophy of the season.