Marvin Bartley says Celtic did something he has never seen since coming up to Scotland vs Rangers

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It’s like two unwanted London buses for the man in Celtic’s dugout, Brendan Rodgers.

Before the turn of the year, the Celtic manager had only suffered one defeat against Rangers over his two spells in Glasgow.

But, within the space of a few months, Rodgers has now suffered back-to-back defeats against Rangers, and he can’t have many complaints.

There has been a common theme to these matches and that’s the performances from Celtic.

Yes, on Sunday, Celtic were missing Callum McGregor through injury, as well as Auston Trusty and Liam Scales being sidelined.

But that still shouldn’t excuse how the champions-elect performed and struggled to cope with Rangers’ press.

• READ MORE: TalkSport presenter slaps down Ally McCoist with a Celtic reality check as he reacts to Rangers win

Marvin Bartley on seeing a first from Celtic against Rangers

Marvin Bartley was at Celtic Park to witness the match first-hand and he was left surprised by what the home side were doing with the ball.

The former Hibernian and Livingston player, who started his career in Scotland in 2015, shared that since moving up from England, he has never seen a Celtic side play ‘so many backward’ and ’square passes’.

Even though Celtic had most of the ball, Bartley felt that Rangers were ‘comfortable’ out of possession, as he told Clyde 1 Superscoreboard.

“It’s also what you do with the possession,” said Bartley.

“Yes, Celtic had a lot of possession, but I don’t remember seeing Celtic playing so many backward passes. So many square passes in all my time of being in Scotland.

“Yeah, they did dominate (possession), but they didn’t move it quick enough and they didn’t run Rangers into the ground like I expected them to do, with forward runs and forward passes.

“Just going from side to side to really stretch Rangers. They didn’t and failed to do so. Rangers were comfortable out of possession. That’s not always something you can put to them, especially here at Celtic Park. When they got the ball, then they were devastating with it. 

“They got three goals. Three very good goals, from their point of view. Celtic, especially the last one, some of the defending was absolutely comical. Brendan Rodgers and his players will be so frustrated and it was so unlike them.

“Callum McGregor, we spoke about it before and we spoke about it at half time, what a miss that he was.”

Celtic’s passing stats against Rangers

This is an issue that Rodgers needs to address for the next meeting because it’s going to be a test of his coaching, as well as the players’ mentality.

The simple fact is that Rangers will continue to go down this road, until they get stopped in their tracks and put on the floor.

But looking back at Celtic’s passing stats against Rangers, this is how the story was read out on paper: