Rangers Fan View: Celtic victory was laid on a plate for us and we blew it!

When Rangers take the lead at home twice in one match, you would expect they come away with the victory. But it wasn’t to be. We absolutely blew it, there is no doubt about it. It will fit into the narrative of the season when it comes to a close with two words: what if.

We scored two very decent goals, one from Windass and one from Candeias. They came from us putting pressure on the ball, but after we scored on each occasion, we sat back and allowed Celtic to settle into their rhythm. If we had kept it up, they were there for the taking, no doubt about it.

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The midfield battle is one that we normally lose against teams who play three in there against our two: Hibs, Kilmarnock and this match was no different. Sean Goss was completely overcome by the occasion and was bullied by Ntcham all game long. I actually felt sorry for Greg Docherty. He was in there trying to do two players’ jobs. So effectively it was 3 vs 1 in their favour.

Windass after his goal was completely ineffective; you could have taken him off and not noticed any difference to the game. I talked last week about him having to do a Kranjcar job on Brown. Looks like I was kidding myself on. It’s now time to make a decision with him in terms of his position long term. He is not a winger, and he has proven he is never a playmaker so in my opinion he should be used as a striker. He simply doesn’t have the brain or tactical discipline to play as a no.10.

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Furthermore, I felt our game management was very poor within the game as well. Twice we went in front and twice we were pegged back. Losing that sloppy goal before half-time was one of the factors that lead to us losing the game. At that time in the game, you don’t make rash decisions like Wes did or get caught out of position like Cardoso. You see the half out. We didn’t and paid for it in the end.

We played well up until Siminovic saw red, and that’s when it was apparent which team had a manager in their dugout and which team had a youth coach in theirs. When Simunovic the red card, Rodgers had to change it. He did then 10 minutes later he saw we were pushing for it, kept the 3 in midfield and went 4-3-2. Edouard ultimately won him the game.

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By contrast, Murty waited until beyond the 70th minute before removing Goss for Cummings. In fact, any manager with any cojones would have gone for it as soon as they went down to 10. He should have brought Holt on for Goss for his energy in midfield and replaced a non-existant Windass with Cummings to give us another threat up top. But he waited until Celtic went 3-2 up before changing it. It just showed how far we are behind, not on the pitch, but in the dugout. It may sound harsh, but sometimes the truth isn’t nice to hear. It’s that kind of failure to be able to read a game and influence it which should mean that he should not be in the job beyond the summer even if he does win the Scottish Cup.

He cannot legislate for Morelos’ sitter, of course, but a football match is not defined by one moment. It’s defined by a number of different factors and when it came to the crunch Rodgers earned his fat salary and Murty, well, stood on the sideline and watched it happen.

We will never have a better opportunity than this one to beat them this season. I am sure the players and the manager will have a few sleepless nights about how they could have impacted the result.

We can talk until we are blue in the face about improvement but at this club winning matters. And yesterday, we absolutely failed.