At the end, every fibre of Derek McInnes' being must have wanted to have one of those Steven Gerrard moments, a scream of delight and relief into a Celtic Park camera lens, a human reaction to a significant victory on hostile terrain. McInnes, though, showed little emotion. He shook hands with a now beleaguered Martin O'Neill and pretty much got out of there.
Later, the first words he uttered on radio were about not going "overboard" after back-to-back wins against their city rivals. "Just three points." he said. "Three points closer to Celtic." That's true, of course, but it was also the first time a Rangers manager has won his first two games against Celtic since Graeme Souness in 1986.
McInnes was 15 years old at the time. So there was historical context but also deep relevance in the here and now. Rangers were good, and clearly deserving of the win, but they didn't quite hit the levels of ruthlessness of a week ago at Ibrox.
They can be better and yet they won as comfortably as it's possible to win when the margin at the end is just a single goal. Their superiority would have been better reflected had they won by two. Naderi goal gives Rangers second derby win over Celtic in week Rangers flip narrative as McInnes makes mark Scott Brown & Andy Halliday discuss Old Firm game on YouTube O'Neill said there was "not much between the sides" but nobody was really buying that, Celtic folk chief among them.
The Celtic manager has problems and they're mounting game-by-game. His team is physically weak and mentally substandard. They have lost the elan they had in a few games in early season.
They were out-played, out-muscled and out-coached. O'Neill has time to pause now, time to reassess. Time, perhaps, to question whether he's got the answers to the myriad ills of his team.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
