O\u2019Neill also said in his post-match press conference that it was \u201creally, really strange\u201d to be back in the thrum of an Old Firm occasion and gave an honest assessment of the game\u2019s turns and twists.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s easy to sound patronising after you\u2019ve won, but I\u2019ve been watching Rangers from a distance and thought they weren\u2019t fantastic,\u201d O\u2019Neill said. \u201cBut they showed a lot of resilience (today).<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought they did really well, particularly having spent a lot of the game with 10 men.\u201d<\/p>\n
Match facts: Celtic scored on 25 minutes, Johnny Kenny heading in an Arne Engels corner. On 38 minutes, Thelo Aasgaard was shown a straight red card for a high lunge at Anthony Ralston. In first-half added time, Auston Trusty was fortunate not to be shown another when he left his boot on the head of Rangers goalkeeper Jack Butland. Trusty was named man of the match regardless. He was merely booked for his stray boot, one of nine players to see yellow.<\/p>\n
Celtic were in control and numerically superior, but Rangers seized the second half, and captain James Tavernier converted a penalty kick in the 81st minute. That brought another half-hour, but with those in blue understandably tiring. Tavernier\u2019s Celtic counterpart Callum McGregor pinged in a beautiful second from 25 yards, and teenager Callum Osmand tapped in a third four days after O\u2019Neill had given him a debut.<\/p>\n
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\n Osmand celebrates his goal (Craig Williamson\/SNS Group via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Neither club looked in crisis and in each boardroom, that will have been a relief, because it has appeared otherwise this season. Rangers have had to remove Russell Martin and Celtic Rodgers, but there are other metrics with which to substantiate the crisis claim. The word \u2018Europe\u2019 features prominently.<\/p>\n
As O\u2019Neill noted, Celtic thoughts now turn to Thursday night and a trip to Denmark to face FC Midtjylland. O\u2019Neill saw the Danes win at Nottingham Forest last month and is aware of the scale of that challenge. The same night, Rangers host Roma.<\/p>\n
That both matches are in the Europa League, Europe\u2019s second tier, says much about the season to date. The reason, of course, is because both clubs failed to qualify for the Champions League. Celtic could not score against Kairat Almaty of Kazakhstan over two legs and lost a penalty shootout in late August; 24 hours later, Rangers lost the second leg of their qualifier 6-0 at Club Brugge, having lost the first 3-1 at Ibrox.<\/p>\n
It brought another bout of Scottish introspection about the standard of the domestic game. Earlier the same month, Dundee United had lost their Europa League play-off \u2014 in another penalty shootout \u2014 against Rapid Vienna. Hibernian were then eliminated in their qualifier in extra time at Legia Warsaw. So near and so far, Hibs and Dundee United exited the continent.<\/p>\n
Aberdeen were another to lose a Europa League play-off in August \u2014 to Steaua Bucharest (now known as FCSB<\/a>) \u2014 but the Dons had the consolation of a guaranteed place in the Conference League. Unfortunately for the club made famous by Sir Alex Ferguson, the Dons are 36th of 36 clubs in UEFA\u2019s reconfigured league system. They lost their last match 6-0 at AEK Athens and now go to Larnaca, who have just beaten Crystal Palace. Fans need optimism as well as cash to make these voyages.<\/p>\n Aberdeen\u2019s six and 36 numbers are familiar to Rangers and the tangible overall impact for Scotland is a drop down UEFA\u2019s coefficient rankings. This matters: essentially, the lower a league\u2019s current and recent coefficient history, the fewer clubs it can send into UEFA competitions. Those who do get there face extra hurdles, such as going into a qualifying round a stage earlier. It\u2019s a hard spiral to stop and reverse.<\/p>\n With each European defeat, that is what looms for Scotland, and a further knock-on is that it makes recruitment more difficult.<\/p>\n \n Tavernier after scoring a penalty for Rangers (Ian MacNicol\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n The theatre of an afternoon like this will always offer some appeal, though, even if the play was often as scrappy as it was compelling.<\/p>\n Watching from afar, and no doubt enjoying it from their maroon barstools in Edinburgh, were all involved at Hearts. One club\u2019s crisis \u2014 or two in this instance \u2014 is another club\u2019s opportunity. In a country where there has been no champion outside the Glasgow Two since 1985, Hearts have zoomed to nine wins and two draws<\/a> in their 11 league games and are nine points ahead of Celtic, who they beat 3-1 last Sunday.<\/p>\n On Saturday, Hearts won 4-0 against Dundee, which means their goal difference is +19 to Celtic\u2019s +8. Celtic do have a game in hand, but that goal difference will act as an extra point as time goes on. It is the sort of marginal gain to make Tony Bloom smile. The Brighton and Hove Albion owner invested \u00a310m into Hearts in June and allied the club to his Jamestown Analytics scouting network. In forwards Claudio Braga and Alexandros Kyziridis, Jamestown has already delivered two impactful contributors, and at least two more are expected soon.<\/p>\n New goalkeeper Alexander Schwolow, a 33-year-old German who has spent his career in the Bundesliga with the likes of Freiburg and Hertha Berlin, joined Hearts on the last day of the summer transfer window. Schwolow was a free agent; he has kept five clean sheets in seven matches.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GettyImages-2244660637-scaled.jpg\")
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