Well, no surprises.
We’ve been feeble against Rangers all season and today was no different.
As is customary in these fixtures when one side gets thumped there was a sending off for the side on the end of the thumping.
Callum McGregor walked for a second yellow which he got in jig time.
Both were probably legit but considering the second saw advantage played and then said advantage led to a goal there’s not meant to be a yellow under such circumstances but hey……..who cares?!
The game was a dead rubber anyway and even with 11 players on the pitch in our previous four encounters this season we’ve been unable to beat them.
As for Callum, I’m a fan but he’s been poor this season. The boy can’t defend and is a liability anywhere near the back third. He also looks like he needs a rest having been effectively run into the ground over the past few years.
Outside of him, it was just a piss poor day across the park.
When times are tough people look for scapegoats but they also tend to foist undue adulation upon anyone offering a glimmer of hope. Stephen Welsh has benefitted from the latter in a big way during this campaign.
With Jullien spending pretty much the entire season on the sidelines and Shane Duffy an unmitigated disaster not to mention Nir Bitton – temporarily regarded as a modern day Beckenbauer by a section of our support last year before he actually started getting games again – also being pushed back into the shadows then there’s really only been young Welsh as an option to partner Kristofer Ajer.
He’s done okay but has hardly been revelatory and this Ibrox encounter proved he’s still miles off it and how but we’ll get to that.
To the game itself and we started off pretty well and even nearly took the lead when Elyounoussi crashed a thunderous long-range drive at goal only for Allan McGregor to touch it onto the crossbar.
But moments later McGregor followed up his yellow card for an earlier foul on Ryan Kent with a wild lunge at Glen Kamara and from the resulting play on Joe Aribo cut the ball back to Kent who’s curled effort was diverted into the goal via the chest of Kemar Roofe.
Only seconds after that McGregor was shown his second yellow and went for an early shower and a goal and a man down that was pretty much that.
We did get it back to 1-1 on the half-hour mark when Ajer rose high to win a header at a corner which was then finished at close range by Edouard also with his head but only three minutes later Morelos sauntered past Scott Brown and then smashed the ball past the ducking Ajer and despairing Scott Bain at the goalies near post.
David Turnbull spurned a chance to equalise early in the second half with a poorly executed header across goal only for Roofe to seal the victory for the home side with a properly finished header after ghosting into the box and finishing off a good cross from Barisic.
With Edouard floundering upfront and Elyounoussi, an empty jersey for the best part of the afternoon after his early effort the game petered out before the ancient Jermaine Defoe was introduced late on and left the aforementioned Stephen Welsh looking like a carthorse as he left him for dead before stopping to turn him inside and out and then adding the fourth.
The whistle was sweet relief with a 4-1 victory capping off an unbeaten season in these fixtures for the light blues whilst for Celtic it was another desperately poor effort and further evidence that John Kennedy should be nowhere near the manager’s post.
Pretty much no player got pass marks and on this evidence, not many of them deserve the jersey next season.
Can this season not just be over already?
....Always A Tim! 