As the dust had just started to settle on Celtic’s win over Rangers yesterday, Graeme Souness fanned the flames with a bizarre claim about the game at Celtic Park.
It has been widely accepted that Celtic were vastly superior in the 3-0 win over Rangers and that the scoreline could have been a lot heavier had Brendan Rodgers’ side taken all their chances.
Apart from the ten minute spell at the beginning of the match, Celtic were fairly comfortable in the game as goals from Daizen Maeda, Kyogo Furuhashi and Callum McGregor ensured all three Scottish Premiership points stayed at Celtic Park.
However, Graeme Souness had a particularly different take on the game as he tried to argue a case about the gap between Celtic and Rangers and what Rodgers’ team didn’t do against the Ibrox club.
Souness’ confusing verdict on Celtic’s win over Rangers
Now I get Souness will want to defend his club after another defeat at the hands of Celtic but the argument the former Rangers manager puts up to do that is utterly bizarre.
Souness told talkSPORT, “They have the better players. They have the better strikers. And if you want to win football matches you have to put the ball in the back of the net.
“Can I read some stats to you from yesterday’s game? Forget the result, so you don’t know the result.
“So Celtic had 53% possession, Rangers had 47% at Parkhead, that’s not bad for an away team.
“Celtic had 14 shots. Rangers had 13 shots. Celtic had four on target. Rangers had four on target. Celtic had five off-target. We had five off-target. Does that sound like a game that’s been one-sided to you?
“There’s no doubt about it. There is a gap. That gap for me looking at it, is that Celtic have better strikers.
“Those stats are not suggesting that they are absolutely turning up in mullering Rangers at Parkhead.
“I’m not watching the game yesterday and sitting there feeling we’re getting absolutely tonked here. I didn’t I didn’t feel that.
“Maybe that’s because I’m a blue nose. But I didn’t see Celtic wave after wave of attack or our goalkeeper to make lots and lots of saves, I didn’t see that yesterday.”
Souness is in denial about Celtic
What makes Souness’ comments even more strange is that he admits goals win games but to create an argument about the gap between Celtic and Rangers he trundles out stats and asks Jim White and Simon Jordan to omit the most important one.
The scoreline. 3-0 is as emphatic a win as you can get in a Glasgow Derby in recent times. In fact, as 67 Hail Hail pointed out before the game, you have to go back two years to find a scoreline that exceeds yesterday’s result.
To be honest, you have to at least credit Souness for putting up a case (however flawed it is) for his old club but the facts are this.
Even Kris Boyd admits that what Rangers offered against Celtic was ’embarrassing’.
Celtic were dominant, they didn’t get out of second gear and had Maeda, Hatate and Paulo Bernardo finished their chances, the scoreline could have been five or six nil.
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