It was a very Celtic victory. A very Ange Postecoglou performance. Demonstrating all the strengths – and a few of the weaknesses – we’ve come to expect from his team.
The first major trophy of the season went to the Hoops because they had more of the ball, controlled key areas of a sticky Hampden pitch not overly suited to their style – and rode out the storm that hit once Rangers got a grip of themselves. Above all, Celtic looked the more rounded, better-drilled team. Especially in the department where so many games are decided.
The midfield three of Callum McGregor, Aaron Mooy and Reo Hatate ran through, around and over the top of the Rangers trio of John Lundstram, Glen Kamara and – especially – Malik Tillman to take control where it mattered. Time and again, Hatate and Mooy were able to get on the ball in the space between the Rangers midfield and defence.
Photo 1, from early in a move that ended with a poor Jota shot, showed just how ragged the Light Blues were controlling this key area.
The spacing between all three Rangers lines – back four, midfield three and forward trio – was all over the place, as Photo 2 (a snapshot replicated repeatedly in the game) shows. Giving Celtic captain McGregor that much time and space on the ball can’t have been part of Beale’s plan.
Celtic’s opening goal may have been scored by the irrepressible Kyogo Furuhashi, meanwhile. But it was made by a midfield that, in Ange-ball terms, has to include the full-backs.
Look at Photo 3 and you’ll see how easy it was for Hatate, who had ridden a challenge from Lundstram, to find Mooy in that golden zone in front of the defence.
From there, it’s a case of the Aussie turning and driving at the back four, before finding Taylor overlapping for a perfect cross. As good as it was from a Celtic perspective, any coach would be going mad if they saw their team carved open with such ease.
Rangers obviously rallied after half-time, with the combination of Borna Barisic and Ryan Kent (Photo 4) showing a rare flash of clever combination play to win a corner.
Celtic had no thoughts of sitting back to defend, which meant their opponents were presented with overloads on the counter attack, like the four-v-three break (Photo 5) that ended with Kent hitting the post.
Once again, though, the Celtic midfield were able to play through Rangers to make it 2-0. Photo 6 shows how easy they make it look.
Following a driving run by the excellent McGregor to draw opponents towards him, all Mooy has to do is play a straight pass for the run of Hatate. Kyogo, who must know that crashing the six-yard line half a dozen times in any game will give him about a goal-and-a-half on average, did the rest.
Credit Rangers for getting back into the contest and grabbing a goal back. They had opportunities to equalise – but Celtic had more chances to add a bit of insult to injury by scoring a couple more.
Overall, Beale’s men looked like a team much closer to the start of their journey than Postecoglou’s extremely well-ordered group of proven winners. The fact Rangers changed their entire midfield just after the hour mark – a good 15 minutes too late – said plenty.
And Celtic? Well, Postecoglou did say his team would benefit from a couple of full training weeks, without midweek fixtures to disrupt the shape work and detailed phases of play he wanted to rehearse with his squad.
So, yes, they were probably more open and vulnerable to counter-attack than many fans would have liked, especially when supposedly “defending” a 2-1 lead. But nobody really expected them to sit in, at any stage. Not when their game plan was providing Rangers with a lengthy list of interconnected problems intended to give Beale’s boys only two options – a bad one and a worse one – in most situations.
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