Dan Neil has revealed Rangers arrived at Celtic Park with an 'us against the world' mentality which helped them turn the hostile home atmosphere.
Gers dominated their rivals in a 1-0 victory on Sunday afternoon but it could have been more as Derek McInnes' side passed up big chances to see off their old foes.
The home side had a packed house of 60,000 punters backing them at Parkhead but Neil insists that was never a problem for the visitors. Instead he says it was a challenge the Rangers players were itching to take on.
As the Light Blues began to overrun Celtic in their own backyard, Neil could sense the home support's frustration. And psychologically, the midfielder believes that was a major benefit to the Ibrox outfit who were excellent to a man.
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"I think all the lads were looking forward to the challenge," Neil told Premier Sports Scottish Football Social Club. "We'd obviously had a massive backing the week before which helped us and I said in the interview it was like a 12th man.
"But we had to almost turn the psychology of it to that it was us against literally everybody in there so the confidence bit is a massive thing. Getting the result the week before, confidence was through the roof for everyone.
"It was important that we instilled in the changing room that it was still going to be a tough match and a completely different one from the week before. Not only just the circumstances with the venue, no fans for us, but the game itself. We knew they were going to change something but we didn't know what.
"We had to be prepared that we might have to fix things during the game because they might come at us. But in terms of the atmosphere, we had to try and use it to our advantage as well and frustrate the Celtic fans.
"Out of possession, whether it was going man for man or sitting in the block and closing the middle of the pitch, everyone did fantastic. And you could feel a sense of frustration in the stadium and we had to keep playing off that."
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Ryan Naderi found the back of the net for his fourth goal of the season at Celtic Park and the stunned silence with no travelling fans in attendance was deafening. At least it was in Neil's head.
"It was silent but in your head it's never silent! I was running to the corner with all sorts of things going through my head but it sums up Ryan's game that he was alert for 90 minutes," he added.
"It's the best game I've seen him play since I joined the club he was absolutely brilliant."
Neil has already credited manager Derek McInnes for his team talks this season and the former Sunderland man believes his chat with the boys before kick-off in the east end of Glasgow was one of his best.
The 55-year-old knew how important it was to silence the home support and he made sure to impress that on the players who were already well aware of their opportunity.
"(Turning Celtic fans) was definitely part of the team talk and he's brilliant at them. Every single one's been a real war cry and really good," Neil added.
"But a lot of it was forget last week, that's done. It's a completely new game and new circumstances. We got through to the semi-final of the cup which is brilliant but if we lose this game it's eight points, so it's just as important. Focus on the now, game by game and we need a result.
"All the lads bought into it."
