Rangers 3-0 Celtic: A Phil-harmonic performance

Sometimes as a football fan, you have genuine moments of disbelief at what your witnessing. Normally this is unfortunately because what your seeing is so so much worse than you expected, think about how you felt watching Umar Sadiq being caught offside for the 100th time against Aberdeen in the league cup semi final.

But occasionally you get those moments where a genuinely amazing performance and result comes out of left field, yesterday was one of those. I'm glad I've recorded exactly how I felt about the game in my pre-match because we have a record of how little I expected what actually occurred.

When the lineup was released I wasn't surprised to see Ridvan lining up at right back. I'd say it worried me, but I'd already given up hope so I didn't have any specific areas of concern really.

The first 2/3 minutes of the game actually felt very shaky. We gave the ball away under no pressure and Celtic looked to get in behind early but were unable to.

Shortly after that came the first big moment of the match. Celtic played a slack pass into midfield, Raskin(captain for the day) charged in and won the ball. He advanced onto the Celtic backline before laying the ball off smartly for Hagi who smashed the ball low into the bottom corner beyond the despairing reach of Schmeichel.

It was a great finish from a player who started the season playing for the reserves due to some silly clause in his contract about a wage rise. I've always liked Hagi so to say I was pleased for him is an understatement.

In terms of shape and approach the first half felt very much like the cup final. Taking the lead after forcing a mistake from Celtic (admittedly much earlier in the half) but overall not making great use of the ball when it was in our possession.

Our ability to move the ball forwards in transition was extremely impressive. Bajrami was the key to that, he held his position in the centre of the pitch whenever McGregor vacated that space to get forward. Anytime we regained possession, Bajrami was always available and allowed the rest of the attacking players to join the attack.

There was a particularly slick attacking move in the first half involving Igamane, Bajrami and Cerny which ended with a deflected Cerny strike hitting the bar. At that point it was very clear that we were looking to hurt Celtic in transition specifically rather than by building ourselves.

The pattern of the first half was Celtic trying to build patiently through McGregor or Hatate and Rangers committing Raskin and Diomande to press them into oblivion. It's easy to talk about the success of that approach after the fact, but during the first half I was extremely worried. There were 4/5 occasions in which Celtic bypassed our press and moved the ball into the middle third. In each of these situations, our backline looked extremely exposed and I thought that if any of the Celtic midfield had played near their best they'd have found their forwards in behind. Thankfully, the decision making and execution from Celtic was awful for the entire game.

Going into half time I was worried we hadn't built on our great start. I felt like Celtic couldn't be as bad as they were in the first half and would take advantage of the spaces we were leaving when committing to the press so heavily.

The second half began and Celtic looked a bit more active. But even then, we continually won the physical battle in midfield and pushed Celtic back with our threat in transition. It seemed like the inevitable equaliser had come from Kyogo after a ball in behind found the Japanese forward who controlled and lobbed Liam Kelly. The flag was raised and that was pretty much all Celtic offered in the second half.

Rangers continued to have many chances to hurt Celtic in transition. The decision making was questionable at times, but I had no issues with the way we were getting the ball into the final third.

It seemed like the second goal was in our hands when Cerny was sent clean through as Celtic stepped up slowly. He beared down on Schmeichel and bent his finish round him... only to find the inside of the post and see the ball bounce out. It was so close and as much as Celtic hadn't threatened in the second half, you still worried about what might happen if we passed up any more chances.

Celtic had made a triple change this point to try get them going. I think they brought on around 22 million pounds worth of reinforcements. This seemed to have the opposite effect as Celtic lost their ability to keep the ball and McGregor looked isolated in midfield.

The changes seemed even more ineffective when we added our second from a corner. Our corners had been a bit of a mixed bag but this delivery was met in the box by Raskin. The header then deflected and fell kindly for Robin Propper to slide the ball home emphatically.

Despite the assurance from Chris Sutton on the Sky commentary that it "only takes one goal for the game to change". I actually thought you could see the belief leave Celtic when we got our second goal. Even though the use of the ball from Celtic had been poor, they had been trying to move it quickly. Now they looked a little lost and were waiting for the final whistle.

It gave me great joy to watch us take advantage of their heads dropping to add a third. Jefte stepped up and won the ball before charging into the final third, his cross bounced off a Celtic defender and Danilo finished it well. I'd been worried about the introduction of Danilo for Bajrami given the Albanians tenacity and positioning, but that goal swiftly clamped me.

The final whistle went, but not before a disappointing incident when Engels was struck by an object from the crowd. It really took away from a great performance and hopefully the culprit is appropriately charged and not seen at Ibrox again.

This had truly been a great performance by this Rangers team. Undoubtedly the best we've seen under Clement. I was surprised by just how poor Celtic were, but you need to be able to take advantage of that and the team deserves credit for sticking to the game plan and executing it effectively.

Raskin and Diomande were the real key players here. Raskin's bravery in stepping up to intercept the ball in front of Hatate/Bernardo helped set the tone and created the first goal. Diomande got stuck in as well, but his ability to hold the ball and turn out of tight spaces helped us escape the Celtic press time and time again.

I'd be remiss not to praise Ridvan Yilmaz, playing on his unfavoured side against Maeda. He looked untroubled the entire match, similarly to the Cup final we cut off the supply by forcing Taylor to worry about Cerny. And while Maeda is an extremely dangerous player, when left on his own he doesn't carry the same threat. Not even Maeda's trademark pressing could effect the Turkish left back. On another note, why did Ridvan keep shooting? He had 6 shots by my count, he endeavoured into the final third well several times, but would have been better placed to pass the ball a few times l think.

So, we come to the elephant in the room, Philippe Clement. There's no doubt he deserves massive credit for the set up and performance yesterday. He out-coached Rodgers and that was brilliant to see. Does it change my opinion on his future at Rangers? I don't think so, one of the themes when discussing the result yesterday is that it's an important mental barrier conquered ahead of next season, this season we are still 11 points behind.

But why are we 11 points behind despite a 3-0 Old Firm win? Well, because of Philippe Clement. Now's not the time to call for the managers head, a win like that will give him stay of execution. But I have this nagging feeling at the back of my head that we will be back to our usual selves against Hibs on Sunday.

Absolutely enjoy the celebrations and watching the goals back for now though. We deserve to have some fun and joy in our lives.