Rangers boss Philippe Clement has reiterated how Celtic’s incredible domestic consistency comes down to Brendan Rodgers inheriting a core group of players who have been at the club for a long time and understand what success means.
That’s something Clement is still trying to drill into his squad, but it seemed to all click in Rangers favour as they defeated Celtic 3-0 at Ibrox in the first Old Firm clash of 2025.
Despite registering his first ever win over Celtic, Clement and Rangers still sit 11 points behind the Parkhead club in the Scottish Premiership table.
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"It's a lot," the Rangers manager said on the current deficit, with 19 league matches played.
"It's also credit to Celtic who were very consistent but with a squad who has been together for years already.
"They replaced one player from last season by two players, and they've spent £30million to make the depth in the squad bigger and then to have more possibilities to make rotation.
"Last season in December, when they had to replace a few players with Carter-Vickers and Hatate out, they lost points along the way.
"So, we've been building longer term and it's about us building as fast as possible to make this gap in the league smaller."
Up next for Rangers is a trip to face Hibernian on Sunday lunchtime, and Clement urged his team to conquer their next challenge as he looks to build on the momentum from their huge derby victory.
"It's a difficult away game," he admitted. "Rangers are not always the most popular team against Hibs, I've seen in the past.
"Hibs are doing really well the last couple of weeks, so it's going to be the next challenge that we are going to take as a group and we are looking forward to that.
"But everybody needs to stay humble and to work hard to get the result again."
On any injured players such as captain James Tavernier and goalkeeper Jack Butland returning, he added: "I can't really say much today. I will see tomorrow [Saturday] if somebody comes back."
