Rodgers rules and Murty suffers
The pendulum has not swung. There is no title race. But it was fun while it lasted and Sunday’s game at Ibrox was the way it used to be in the unique world of Rangers and Celtic. The way it’s supposed to be.
Don’t take my word for it, as if you would, but remember that Brendan Rodgers said it reminded him of the derbies he watched between the sides when he was growing up in Northern Ireland.
Welcome back. You’ve been missed.
There was, of course, the unsavoury side of life as it attaches itself to this fixture, on and off the park. Celtic players were subjected to missile throwing inside the ground, while Scott Sinclair was the victim of verbal abuse inside Glasgow Airport after the match for the crime of being, er, Scott Sinclair.
But anti-social behaviour on the day of this particular game is a decades old story. Unacceptable back in the day and unacceptable now. Condemned without equivocation.
It won’t go away because the fixture is a cultural phenomenon. It divides the country and it awakens the dark side of peoples’ nature for reasons that we’re all too familiar with.
That is for the courts to deal with, or the airport authorities or behavioural psychologists.
If you want a proper rivalry between Celtic and Rangers and accept that it’s good for business then you’ll need to take the cretinous goings on that go with it. The game won’t sanitise itself over-night because society takes a collective turn for the worse when these two teams meet.
Meanwhile, back at the pitch Sunday’s match stirred the senses and the ramifications of the result are as plentiful as the incidents which went into creating the archetypal five goal thriller.
Celtic are now champions-elect and two-thirds of the way towards a double treble because Rodgers’ game management skills came to the fore at Ibrox. He had an answer for every adversity that came his side’s way and even overcame the handicap of having Dedryck Boyata in his team.
Does that mean defeat from Celtic should cost Graeme Murty the chance to become Rangers’ manager on a permanent basis?
Probably.
Rangers had a real chance to win at the weekend. They were twice in front. They were playing against ten men for one third of the game. And Boyata was playing for Celtic.
But for the fourth time in a row at Ibrox Celtic were the winners. Rodgers has had nine games in charge of his side against Rangers and has never lost. Murty is only responsible for three of those failures to beat Celtic but the future is more important than the past or the present for his employers.
Rangers need a man who can prevent Celtic from a historic, unprecedented ten title wins in a row. Celtic are three short of what their fans see as the be all and end all.
Dave King and his co-directors must therefore ask themselves if Murty is that man, or if they need to put their questionable record of picking new managers back on the line at the end of the season.
Two years ago, Celtic knew Ronny Deila wasn’t the man for the long term and took extraordinary steps to get the man who was able to fit the bill.
Murty always comes across as an un-failingly polite and articulate man who has undoubtedly fashioned a side better than any Mark Warburton or Pedro Caixinha ever fielded, but they can’t beat Celtic.
And losing to ten men on Sunday has planted a sub-conscious doubt in the minds of the players over their ability to ever beat Celtic.
You can always rely on Superscoreboard to be an accurate barometer of public opinion and before the end of Sunday’s programme there were demands for Murty to be removed from office while the more extreme callers wandered into the realms of personal insults to re-inforce their point.
Such is the fall-out when a keenly anticipated game ends in the re-run of an old movie.
A win over Celtic in the Scottish Cup semi-final next month and Murty might, just might, salvage his own situation. But a defeat would surely confirm his return to the job of looking after Rangers’ Under 20 side.
His only hope is that Celtic persevere with Boyata and Jozo Simunovic in central defence.
It’s impossible to contradict Rodgers concerning anything he has done on a domestic basis since arriving at Celtic Park. Two defeats in two years tell you he knows what he’s doing.
But you are sometimes allowed to enter the evidence of your own eyes for consideration and if there has been a less reliable defender than Boyata in a Celtic jersey over the last twenty years then I can’t think of his name.
Sunday’s kamikaze contribution to the thrills and spills at Ibrox was breath-taking in its awfulness.
And Simunovic isn’t much better, wilfully reducing Celtic to ten men with a reckless challenge on Alfredo Morelos.
There’s no point in accusing the assistant referee of bias, over-reaction or anything else. It was a red card every day of the week and a show of indiscipline on Simunovic’s part.
Boyata and Simunovic could yet sabotage Celtic’s dream of a Treble and keep Murty in with a shout of winning the cup and getting the manager’s job at Ibrox, but the game management expert in the other dug-out is still the main obstacle