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Rangers boss Philippe Clement
Dessers did what Dessers does. He ran about a lot, he bounced off the impenetrable duo of Cameron Carter-Vickers and Liam Scales, threw his arms around every now and then while botching whatever slim pickings came his way.
It’s been the same story for a calendar year now. For Rodgers, it was all as stress free and straightforward as it’s possible to be on derby day.
Mind you, having experienced only one defeat from his previous 18 of these basket case encounters, the Celtic boss has learned how to cope with the madness of it all and bring it under his control.
He even had the luxury of the most expensively assembled substitutes bench in Celtic’s history, with six of his reinforcements costing a combined total of around £30m – just to further alleviate any in-game tensions.
Granted, this latest one may have ended like most of the others but, even so, Rodgers may have been a little taken aback by how it began given the surprisingly aggressive, high tempo approach adopted by the visitors.
Clement had spoken a lot about the need for his players to be brave at the home of their rivals and that’s precisely how they had opened up.
Matondo could also have helped himself to an opener had he shown the courage to get his head on a Tavernier cross but his half hearted effort flew wide from five yards. But when the collapse came, it was quite spectacular. And it didn’t take all that long.
Just seconds after Matondo’s miss Callum McGregor slipped into space for the first time and released Nicolas Kuhn with a perfectly measured pass. The German’s cut back presented Kyogo Furuhashi with a tap in and even though VAR came to Rangers’ rescue – catching Kuhn an inch or two offside – that one attack seemed to scare Clement’s players into a state of out and out panic.
They were completely and utterly doomed from that point. Within six minutes they were behind when Daizen Maeda escaped from Tavernier to tuck a shot away from close range after Alistair Johnston had hit the byline to frazzle Propper’s mind.
The defender slipped at the crucial moment and, bizarrely, attempted to cut the ball out with his head while flat out in the six yard box. But although his head was all over the shop it wasn’t in the one place where he needed it to be and this was the start of the end of all Clement’s best laid plans.
He now has a lot of thinking to do if he’s to convince his own supporters that he really is the man with the plan after all.
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