Rangers warmed up for next week’s Celtic Park showdown by demolishing a poor Ross County side at Hampden.
After a quiet start, Cyriel Dessers opened the floodgates for Philippe Clement’s side, and a deluge of goals followed.
Rabbi Matondo added a second before the break, before a flurry of strikes from Dessers again, Tom Lawrence and then another for Matondo stunned the Staggies, who were made to pay the price for some dreadful defending.
The icing on the cake to a hugely satisfying afternoon for Clement was a goal for substitute Danilo in the closing minutes.
It all added up to a fond farewell to the national stadium - Rangers will hope, anyway - and it means that they will travel across Glasgow next week for an altogether tougher task in fine fettle.
Here are the talking points from Hampden…
Dessers continues to win over the doubters
Say what you will about Dessers – and plenty do – but the stats in this early part of the season make favourable reading for the striker.
He now has five goals across the first six matches of the campaign. It took him 19 games and we were into early November before he reached that tally last season.
He may never win over some of his doubters, but he took his first goal brilliantly here, peeling off the back of the County backline and being found by Lawrence after some good play from the attacking midfielder.
Dessers can be accused of being hesitant in front of goal and sometimes takes too many touches in such situations, but not this time. He was decisive and clinical, smashing the ball low across Ross Laidlaw and into the bottom corner to give his side the lead after a rather lackadaisical start.
He was in the right place at the right time to get a striker’s goal later too, bundling home from a yard or two.
If Rangers are to have any chance of winning at Celtic Park next week, Dessers will need to have one of his good days, and on this evidence, he is bang in the mood and bang in form.
Tom Lawrence also impresses
Another man who has some convincing to do is Lawrence, who frustrates at times not because he lacks ability, but because he undoubtedly possesses plenty of it, and just doesn’t show it anywhere near enough.
Long spells of games can pass him by, and the opening 18 minutes or so did here again, but when he then picked the ball up on the turn in midfield, he showed the quality that he possesses.
Swivelling away from one sliding challenge, he then shimmied and feinted past another, before getting his head up and perfectly weighting his pass into the path of Dessers for his teammate to fire Rangers into the lead.
It was a lovely piece of football, and a snapshot of the sort of thing that Lawrence is capable of. The Rangers fans just want to see it on a much more consistent basis. He frustrated them moments after that classy contribution, right on cue, by dragging wide when in on Laidlaw.
To his credit, he shrugged that off and made no mistake with his next chance, finishing well after powering into the box and getting on the end of Matondo’s pass. The challenge now for Lawrence is to bring this sort of performance to the party every week.
Parting gifts from Matondo?
Continuing with the theme, Matondo is another man who can flatter to deceive at times, and has been rumoured with an exit from Rangers before the next week is out. Clement may want him to hang around for a little while longer though after this showing.
County just couldn’t handle the winger, who hit two goals and got two assists to his name on the day.
It remains to be seen whether this performance will be enough to convince the Rangers manager that he deserves a place in the team for the trip across the city next week, or if it instead will be enough to persuade a potential suitor to take him away from the club in the coming days.
But, similarly to Lawrence, these glimpses of his ability also serve to frustrate fans that he hasn’t brought such influence to bear regularly throughout his career in a blue jersey, and hasn’t justified his hefty pay packet anywhere near often enough.
No case for County’s woeful defence
Oh dear. The one thing that is a non-negotiable when trying to get a result in Glasgow is that you defend well, and County did not. Don Cowie will no doubt be frustrated by the manner of the goals that his team conceded, with his men their own worst enemies at times.
Yes, Rangers have to take credit for the way they carved out those opportunities, but the defending for Matondo's first goal was particularly dozy.
They had reason to be aggrieved when Rangers hit their third, mind you, as there looked to be a clear foul by Lawrence as County were mounting a promising counterattack of their own. Referee Ross Hardie disagreed, much to the disbelief of just about everyone inside Hampden, and Rangers didn’t hang about as they worked the ball up the park and Matondo crossed for Dessers to get his second and their third, killing off what little fight was left in the visitors.
As woeful as their defending was, there was a ray of light at the other end, with Ronan Hale again looking bright.
Indeed, he might have given County the lead early on as his clever movement in behind James Tavernier allowed him a chance on the counter, bringing out an eye-catching stop from Jack Butland high to his left.
It is at the back though that alarm bells were ringing for County, who will have to shore things up if they are to have any hope of avoiding another season mired in the relegation battle
Rangers defence down to bare bones for Celtic
With Robin Propper sitting this one out with a muscle issue, the last thing that Rangers manager Clement would have wanted was another injury to a centre back, but that is what he got as Leon Balogun became the latest defensive casualty.
As a swarm of players wet up under a Rangers corner, John Souttar climbed highest to win the ball and force Laidlaw into a fine save, but as the players all picked themselves up from the scrum in the middle of the box, Balogun remained grounded holding his shoulder.
After a prolonged period of treatment it was decided that he couldn’t continue, with Mohamed Diomande coming on in his place instead of Leon King and Dujon Sterling slotting back into defence, which may say a lot about King’s place in the pecking order.
Clement said on Friday that Propper will ‘two hundred percent’ be back for Celtic Park, and he will hope that prediction comes to pass.
