Full time: Rangers 0-1 Celtic
Late heartbreak for Rangers but they cannot complain too much. Celtic were utterly dominant and only the fingertips and toes of Matt Gilks kept the scoreline blank for so long. A classy Moussa Dembélé goal won the game and booked Celtic a return trip to Hampden Park to face Aberdeen in the League Cup final. That’s all from me, thanks for reading.
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90+4 min Dodoo can’t keep in a long diagonal pass and that might be that.
90+3 min Rangers come forwards but don’t have long if they are going to take this semi-final to extra time.
90+1 min Four minutes to be added on. In the first of those Leigh Griffiths sprints though on goal chasing another long pass and should put the game to bed, but tries a scoop which the exceptional Matt Gilks reads.
90 min Dembélé was booked, by the way, for charging into the crowd to celebrate. On BT Sport the decision has left Chris Sutton apoplectic.
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GOAL! Rangers 0-1 Celtic (Dembélé, 88)
Finally Rangers’ resistance crumbles. An innocuous long ball isn’t dealt with and Leigh Griffiths spins into the box before crossing with the outside of his boot for the arriving Moussa Dembélé, who finishes brilliantly with a Cruyff-turn on the run at the near post.
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86 min Yet another save from Matt Gilks who must have made 10 at least. This is one of Celtic’s better chances, James Forrest sprinting into the box on the overlap and collecting the ball in his stride before shooting towards the far corner, but the keeper gets his toe to it to keep it out.
84 min This game is being played at a breathless pace. Rangers go forward through Joe Dodoo who tries to wriggle free of the Celtic defence before shooting low, but his strike hits a man in blue and deflects away from the target.
82 min A brilliantly measured tackle by Lee Wallace on Scott Sinclair in the Rangers box! Get it wrong and it is all but game over, but Wallace nudges the ball with his heel at just about the same moment as he cleans out the winger. It looked spot on despite Celtic’s protestations.
79 min Celtic’s shot count has ramped up to 18 now – Stuart Armstrong sees his effort go wide before James Forrest tries his luck from range with the same result. There has only been one team in this match for the most part, but all it takes is one chance and all that...
77 min Dembélé tries his luck with a curling effort which for once leaves Gilks stationary, but it loops wide. Barrie McKay, booked in the first half for a dive that wasn’t, is replaced by Joe Dodoo.
76 min Half a chance for Rangers on the break but Wallace’s cross is just too far away from the sub Joe Garner in the box. At the other end Griffiths is on the ball again and digs out a shot on target, but Gilks gets down to his right and holds it.
74 min Joe Dodoo is warming up and it looks like the 21-year-old striker will be the next into the fray for Rangers.
72 min Griffiths’ impact is immediate, flashing a cross along the six-yard box into the corridor of indecision where Clint Hill almost pokes the ball into his own net. To Brendan Rodgers’ frustration on the sideline, it runs just past the far post.
70 min Kenny Miller doesn’t look to happy as he is replaced by Martyn Waghorn. Josh Windass leaves the field too, with Joe Garner taking his spot. Celtic make a switch too, with the impressive Tom Rogic making way for Leigh Griffiths. Griffiths called on Rodgers to play him alongside Dembélé from the start this week, but he will have to make do with the last 20 minutes.
67 min Halliday brings down Brown in a threatening position 25 yards out. Scott Sinclair steps up for Celtic and sweeps an arcing free-kick towards the top corner but Matt Gilks stretches and pushes the ball on to the bar with his finger tips before snaffling the rebound. A brilliant save.
65 min Windass bursts through midfield and tries to find Miller breaking beyond the defenders, but passes too close to a Celtic shirt. Rangers need to take advantage of those moments.
63 min Brendan Rodgers makes the first change of the match: Stuart Armstrong replaces Nir Bitton.
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61 min Excellent buildup by Celtic with Rogic again at its heart. He chips forward for Dembélé who controls the ball on his chest in the box before spinning and volleying a shot towards the corner, but Gilks gets across to make another important stop.
59 min Huge chance for Rangers! They break down the right and Tavernier cuts a low cross to the penalty spot where Holt is arriving. He fires a powerful first-time shot on target but Simunovic does excellently to make the block.
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57 min Rogic lashes a shot from 25 yards which fizzes just past the post with Gilks beaten. A really well struck effort by one of the best players on the pitch.
55 min How Rangers could do with the injured Kranjcar to get his foot on the ball in midfield and gain some control. Things are a little frantic and that is playing into the Celtic’s hands.
53 min Chris Sutton is aghast. He can’t believe Craig Thomson has been “conned” by Clint Hill there. Sutton has probably let his impartiality hat slip a touch there but it did look suspiciously like a goal. Either way, Rangers have started pretty shakily in this second period and need to get themselves together.
Goal disallowed!
5o min Clint Hill goes down under a challenge by Erik Sviatchenko as the Danish defender hooks a header into the corner of the net from the penalty spot. Celtic celebrate but Craig Thomson is quick to rule it out. Replays show it was a pretty soft foul, if one at all.
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49 min Forrest has another sighter after Rogic had poked a pass into the forward, but Kiernan slides to block the chance. Corner.
47 min Scott Brown is throwing his weight around at the beginning of this half. His work helps Celtic move the ball to James Forrest who clatters a left-foot shot from the edge of the box just over Matt Gilks’ bar.
Kick-off!
Kenny Miller gets the second half going with a very modern pass straight back to his midfield with his first touch. No team-mate in sight near the centre-circle. I refuse to get used to it.
Or for something more on-point, here’s one from the archives...
Half-time entertainment
I have been addicted to watching these recently. MLS penalty shootouts from the 90s, when dribbling from outside the box was a thing. The first taker’s scoop into the air is something to behold:
Half-time: Rangers 0-0 Celtic
Tom Rogic had the best chance of the half after Matt Gilks served him a ludicrous pass from his own goal-line, but the Celtic midfielder’s touch was almost as bad as Gilks’ and the keeper was able to shut him down. Celtic have been on top but it’s all square at the break.
43 min Kenny Miller charges back into his own half – think Wayne Rooney circa 2004 – and makes an expertly timed tackle for his team, earning a big cheer from the Rangers support.
41 min It’s a little scrappy but Rangers are digging in around their own box and keeping Celtic at bay. Bar the odd crazy moment, this has been a far more organised defensive display by Mark Warburton’s side than five weeks ago. Tierney strikes a shot at goal from 18 yards but it’s easily held by Gilks.
39 min In Rangers’ latest tribute to Pep-ball, Andy Halliday thwacks a long pass back to Matt Gilks which the keeper gets nowhere near, conceding a silly corner. For once it’s a useful delivery but Rangers deal with it well.
37 min On BT Sport, Chris Sutton is getting his huff on over a Beyoncé concert which seems to be the route cause of a pretty ropey pitch at Hampden.
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35 min Moussa Dembélé faces up to Rob Kiernan and takes on his man, but the Rangers centre-back sticks to the task and pokes the ball away. We haven’t seen much of the 20-year-old striker so far.
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33 min Holt dashes through down the left and this time the flag does stay down, but nobody in blue reads his delivery across the box and it drifts harmlessly away.
31 min A very late offside decision stops a promising Rangers counterattack, though replays show the assistant should have stuck to his initial guns and kept his flag down.
29 min Celtic earn and then waste another corner. “If you have a moment amid the thud and blunder of the game,” emails Ian Copestake, “I have been wondering where Jordan Rossiter is and whether Joey Barton has taken him away to tutor him in the ways of righteousness.” He was supposed to be back for this one but remains mysteriously injured.
27 min Rogic spins his man and powers towards the box, curling a shot at the far post from 20 yards but it bounces wide. The driving run deserved a better finish.
25 min Rangers enjoy a much-needed spell of possession in Celtic’s half, but seem to lack the guile to slice through the pack of green and white hoops and it all breaks down. At the other end Dembélé takes a tumble in the box but the referee is not interested, and rightly so.
22 min Apologies, it was Rogic, not Dembélé. He could have played a simple square pass and Sinclair would have tapped in to finish off a horror-gif of a goal from Gilks’ point of view. But Rogic took a heavy first touch and the keeper was able to smother the chance at his feet.
20 min Matt Gilks comes over all Claudio Bravo, passing the ball casually straight to Dembélé from his own goal-line before somehow saving the one-on-one he had created. Yikes.
18 min Tierney is causing havoc down Rangers’ right side as he scurries up from full-back. The 19-year-old wins a corner from Hodson but, not for the first time, Celtic’s set-piece delivery is pretty woeful.
16 min Scott Sinclair races through on the counterattack with a brilliant chance to open the scoring for Celtic, but Gilks throws out a leg to keep the winger’s low shot out. Crucial save.
14 min Penalty to Rangers... No! Simunovic puts his foot in on Barrie McKay in the box and Craig Thomson blows immediately, but as Rangers celebrate the referee points the other way and books McKay for simulation. On replay it certainly wasn’t a penalty, but it didn’t look much like a dive either.
12 min Craig Thomson is letting a few off-the-ball barges go, which is raring up the crowd. Scott Brown is the latest to leave a shoulder in but the referee either doesn’t see it or doesn’t want to stop the game.
10 min The first chance of the match falls to Tom Rogic after another Celtic attack down the left. Sinclair feeds the tall midfielder on the edge of the box who swings at it and his deflected shot almost spoons over Gilks and in, but the back-pedalling goalkeeper manages to tip over his bar and the corner is wasted.
8 min Celtic try to play out from the back but give the ball away sloppily. Rangers work the ball through midfield and look for Kenny Miller with his back to goal but his first touch is off point and Celtic take it back.
6 min Sinclair looks to feed Tierney again in the full-back channel but the young Celtic defender is offside. No chances as yet, but plenty of exceptional singing from the stands.
4 min Kieran Tierney almost gets on the end of a through pass which would have seen him in on the Rangers goal, but Matt Gilks scampers out just in time to scoop up the threat on the edge of his box.
2 min Tavernier and Brown clatter into a 50-50 in midfield and the Rangers man wins it, sending up a huge roar.
Kick-off!
Craig Thomson gives his whistle a sharp peep and Celtic get the semi-final under way.
If you’ve taken one look at last month’s 5-1 drubbing and already written Rangers off, chow down on this stat sandwich: on the last four occasions the derby has been won by four goals, the thrashed side have got at least a draw from their next meeting. No draws today, of course.
The players stride out to a jam-packed Hampden Park and a flurry of hand-shaking begins. The atmosphere is something to behold. Kick-off imminent.
Brendan Rodgers speaks! “Kolo [Touré] has been in lots of big games, an experienced player. But he’s obviously got a little nick in his groin so there is no need to risk him especially with such a top young centre-back in Jozo Simunovic. We won’t be complacent, every game is different. That [win at Celtic Park] was an exceptional game for us. There might not be so many chances in this game. When we set out our goals for the season we talked about qualifying for Champions League, and then the first silverware is the League Cup. Today gives us the chance to get to a final. For coaches and mangers these are the occasions you want to be involved in.”
Mark Warburton speaks! “We wanted to tighten up on the right-hand side [so Lee Hodson starts].” On Nico Kranjcar’s potentially long-term injury: “It’s a massive shame, he’s worked so hard. He’s had the first scan so we’ll leave it seven to eight days and then have much clearer picture.”
The day’s first tweet really captures the buzz:
@guardian_sport @LawrenceOstlere League Cup Semi in October
— Mo (@Gdmo786Mohammed) October 23, 2016
Kenny Miller made it into our esteemed list of the best goals of the week, though I’m all about Michael Ohana’s flick and header. Distastefully good:
Excited yet? Whet your appetite with Ewan Murray’s preview:
It is debatable whether Rangers actually relish their Sunday afternoon instant shot at redemption. The dust had barely settled on Celtic’s 5-1 demolition of their Old Firm rivals in September when the pair were drawn together in the semi-finals of the League Cup. Stung by what he regarded as wildly excessive coverage of Rangers’ woes at Celtic Park, Mark Warburton pointed to the personnel overhaul he implemented during the close season as a mitigating circumstance. Now, pressure returns to the Rangers manager as he seeks to demonstrate even small measures of progress during the intervening weeks.
As is typical, Warburton’s pre-match analysis is not opposition-specific. “Our focus has been, every week in the league, to try to get a better level of performance and a more consistent level of performance,” he explains. “This is another chance, against another very good team, to win a semi-final. There is no motivation required for the players. Whoever we are playing, this is a cup semi-final.”
The teams!
Rangers: Gilks, Hodson, Kiernan, Hill, Wallace, Halliday, Holt, Windass, Tavernier, Miller, McKay
Subs: Foderingham, Garner, Dodoo, Crooks, Senderos, O’Halloran, Waghorn
Celtic: Gordon, Lustig, Simunovic, Sviatchenko, Tierney, Bitton, Brown, Forrest, Rogic, Sinclair, Dembélé
Subs: De Vries, Toure, Gamboa, Armstrong, Roberts, McGregor
Premable
Sometimes what people mean is obvious. Joey Barton, for instance, is the sort of straight-shooter who really tells it like it is. Sometimes it’s less obvious. Take Mark Warburton’s assessment of Rangers’ hammering at Celtic Park last month. “We don’t see a major gulf. We just got beat 5-1.” Now that is a little confusing. Is it ‘we just got beat 5-1... and haven’t had time to digest the enormous gulf’ or maybe ‘we just got beat 5-1... come back to me when we lose 7-0’. What do you mean, Warbs?
The rest of us saw a chasm in class between the two sides, hardly surprising given Rangers’ recent plight and relative summer spending. But in defeat Warburton will have learned plenty: they are unlikely to be as open this time around and will be hyper-alert to the threat of Moussa Dembélé. A few weeks on, perhaps the balance of power is more even; Rangers have not had Barton in the team since that day at Celtic Park and their form certainly hasn’t suffered.
Celtic continue to prosper domestically under Brendan Rodgers but have been served a reality check in Europe and arrive at Hampden on the back of a comprehensive 2-0 defeat by Borussia Mon a German team. With a win today Rangers can erase some of the perceived gulf and take a step nearer to silverware in the process: a cup final against Aberdeen awaits the winner.
Kick-off: 2.15pm BST
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