Key events
Joshua Keeling does the email version of shaking his head: “As a neutral, it’s going to be thoroughly dispiriting if Celtic win the league again. If they win it even when they’ve spent significant parts of the season in turmoil, what hope is there that they’ll ever be seriously challenged?”
The title race final run-in:
Wednesday 13th
Hearts v Falkirk (8pm)
Motherwell v Celtic (8pm)
Saturday 16th
Celtic v Hearts (12.30pm)
Both Hearts and Celtic have the title in their hands.
Celtic move to within one point of leaders Hearts at the top of the table with two games to go. Both teams play on Wednesday before what could be a title decider between them at Celtic Park next Saturday. Boy oh boy.
Full time: Celtic 3-1 Rangers
Celtic are two wins from the Premiership title. Daizen Maeda has a lot to do with it with two second-half goals – one a sensational bicycle kick – seeing off Rangers in this Old Firm and from the title race as well.
90+4 min: Sarrachi catches Rommens in the face but Rangers come again. Engels clears this time but Aasgaard wins a free-kick around 35 yards from goal.
90+3 min: Rangers hit the bar! Miovski is unlucky to see his header come back off the bar after a cross from the right.
90+2 min: McGregor clears a Barron corner to big cheers. Rangers are still battling.
90 min: A flurry of fouls slows the game down even further. Hatate gets a yellow for preventing a Rangers restart. He then leads a counterattack down the right before Celtic come back for some safe possession.
Four minutes added.
88 min: Miovski leaves one on Ralston and is perplexed to see that he’s given away a foul. Just another opportunity for Celtic to slow the game down.
86 min: Aasgaard is caught on the ball in a dangerous position inside his own half but Djiga mops up. Fernandez is penalised for a tackle on Ralston in the Celtic half.
84 min: Gassama retrives a deep Fernandez cross but Maeda gets back to do some dirty work. Sterling’s cross is then blocked by Tierney, who goes down with cramp. Sarrachi comes on for the grimacing left-back, who can barely walk. What a shift he’s put in.
82 min: Iheanacho and Ralston enter the fray for Celtic, replacing Yang and Johnston.
81 min: Maeda is spared his blushes after being played through one-on-one with Butland, his hat-trick to complete, and putting the ball wide. He was well offside and the flag belatedly goes up.
80 min: Scales is next in the book after tugging back Chermiti by the neck/face. Barron swings the resulting free-kick into the box and Djiga’s header is gathered by easily Sinisalo.
78 min: There’s a bit of pushing and shoving involving a few players after Celtic win a goal-kick. Referee Nick Walsh shows a yellow each for Tierney and Rommens. It wasn’t just them.
77 min: Martin O’Neill makes his second change as Hatate comes on for Nygren. Chukwuani makes way for Miovski for Rangers.
75 min: Johnston and Engels were caught in a pile-up at the back post defending that cross and both are OK are receiving treatment. Aasgaard’s corner is headed away by the first man.
74 min: Rangers look for a lifeline. Rommens’ corner is headed away by Scales. Djiga then challenges for a cross at the back post and Johnston concedes another corner.
73 min: Moore’s drive towards goal is halted on the edge of the area by a strong challenge from Tierney. Chermiti then fires into the side-netting via a deflection.
72 min: Fernandez, who’s been Rangers’ best player, tries to do it all himself down the left wing but is penalised for offside after he gets the ball back in the Celtic area.
70 min: Rangers made a triple change not long after Celtic’s third – Sterling, Aasgaard, Gassama on; Antman, Diomande, Tavernier off. They’re seeing a fair bit of the ball but don’t know what to do with it.
“Lubomir Moravcik watching admiringly in the crowd,” notes Simon McMahon after Maeda’s wonderful second. “Surely one of the most underrated of all European players. He played for Celtic at the tail end of his career and was a joy to watch. I still don’t know if he was right or left footed.”
66 min: Yang provides a threat again down the Celtic right. He lays the ball inside for Nygren, who shapes to shoot a couple of times before finding Tounekti. Rangers eventually deal with it. There’s a Poznan going on in the crowd.
64 min: Yang dances this way and that against Lommens before digging out a cross to the back post. It comes through to Tierney but his lofted ball into the box drops clear of the crossbar.
62 min: Celtic try to find Maeda again in the penalty area but he bundles Djiga over. He doesn’t stop running, that man. Rangers look shellshocked.
60 min: Wow. Maeda’s single-handedly reignited Celtic’s title challenge this half. Two goals in four minutes.
GOAL! Celtic 3-1 Rangers (Maeda 57)
What an astonishing finish! Straight into the Old Firm annals! Tounetki sends a bobbling ball into the box, Maeda’s first touch is up above his head, back to goal, and he launches himself into an overhead kick that lands inside the far post! My word.
56 min: Danny Röhl sits down in the Rangers dugout and ponders what to do next. Gassama is getting ready to come on.
GOAL! Celtic 2-1 Rangers (Maeda 53)
Maeda connects this time! Scales lifts a ball over the Rangers backline which Tierney scampers on to. Maeda runs across his man as the ball is cut back and the Japan striker tucks it past Butland!
52 min: Maeda inches away! Tounekti feeds a lovely pass through for Engels in the penalty area. His first-time cross is right across the corridor of uncertainty and Maeda throws himself at it at the back post, his boot just short of connecting.
51 min: Maeda tussles with Djiga on the byline and wins a well-earned corner for Celtic. Engels delivers but Fernandez gets a strong head to it.
49 min: Engels gets a talking-to from the referee after tugging on Moore’s shirt after the Spurs loanee had turned smartly in midfield. ‘That’s your last one’ – something like that.
47 min: Rommens tests Celtic’s backline with a free-kick into the box from deep but Maeda heads it up and out.
Restart
Celtic get us back under way. Tounekti, playing on the left, has replaced McCowan. Yang has shifted to the right wing.
Some half-time replays show that Alistair Johnston was lucky to get away with just a yellow card for his sliding challenge on Mikey Moore towards the end of that first half. The studs were up and catch Moore on the ankle – it’s nasty. Anyway, Johnston and Celtic are back out for the second half …
A half-time email from Simon McMahon: “For years Celtic, and to a lesser extent Rangers, have bemoaned a lack of competition in Scotland. They didn’t really mean it, of course, being happy to scoop up the trophies at home while signing every other club’s best players and then blaming those same clubs inability to provide them with any real test for their own lack of success in Europe. I wonder how they’re feeling now? Most fans outside the Old Firm are desperate for Hearts to win the league this season, or at least happy to see it. Will it change things in the longer term? I doubt it, but Hearts fans won’t care about that…”
The table as it stands …
Rangers have looked dangerous throughout that first 45 – Mikey Moore’s goal on 10 minutes was not the first time they opened Celtic up. Martin O’Neill’s side have shown fight and a well-worked move involving Luke McCowan and Arne Engels ended with Yang Hyun-jun drawing them level. It’s wonderfully poised – and both teams need a win in the context of the title race.
Half-time: Celtic 1-1 Rangers
It’s a result that suits Hearts for now.
45 min: Nygren spins in the box and lays the ball back for Engels but he’s off balance as he shoots and Butland watches it fly behind.
One minute added.
43 min: Up the other end Tavernier swings a free-kick into the Celtic box which is headed wide by Djiga at the back post. Really good chance, that.
42 min: Last-ditch defending from Rangers! McCowan threads a ball into the box for Maeda. Djiga slides in to prevent the shot and the angle is too tight for Yang to try for goal himself on the loose ball.
39 min: Johnston goes in the book for Celtic after a rash sliding tackle on Moore on halfway. He gets the ball but catches Moore on the follow-through.
