Rangers bottle it again; Celtic will be alerted as Ibrox side show first sign of weakness

By John McGinley

December 16, 2020

Steven Gerrard’s Rangers have again been knocked out of a domestic cup competition after a 3-2 Betfred Cup defeat to St Mirren in Paisley tonight.

Celtic exited the tournament in the last round, giving the Ibrox side an excellent opportunity to win a piece of silverware this season.

However, they’ve bottled it again, losing to the Buddies within 90 minutes. The trophy drought will go on, for now.

Former Republic of Ireland international Jamie McGrath was the man who scored a superb double for St Mirren, first coolly slotting home a penalty before finishing past Allan McGregor in the second half.

Then, a Cork-born defender, Conor McCarthy became the hero with a last gasp winner.

Celtic will be alerted

We can’t gloat too much about this result of course. It’s not as if we covered ourselves in glory against Ross County at Celtic Park last month.

However, tonight’s result will undoubtedly alert Neil Lennon and his Bhoys.

Rangers have, unfortunately, been machine-like with their consistency this term, picking up positive result after positive results.

This is their first competitive defeat of the entire season. That they’ve shown a sign of weakness is fantastic news for Celtic.

Everyone will again raise question marks about the ability of Gerrard’s team to seal the deal and win silverware. Do they have what it takes to be winners?

They’ve been nothing but failures so far and, despite a strong start to the season, tonight is another bad omen for them.

Celtic have a lot to prove

The task for Lennon’s men will now be finding their own consistency.

Tonight’s Rangers result means nothing for our season in terms of direct effect.

Thank you Jamie McGrath, from a Celtic fan / (Photo by Craig Williamson/SNS Group via Getty Images)

However, as they head into a tricky set of fixtures against Motherwell, St Johnstone, Hibernian and, then back to tonight’s victors St Mirren, we can only keep winning and keep our fingers crossed they drop points.

If Celtic are to win back disillusioned fans, we need to win every game between now and the upcoming Ibrox derby.

Arguably, we need to win that one too.

Let’s start to turn this around.