Rivals’ hyped-up derby response means nothing as Celtic are now in control

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Well who saw that coming? Rangers managed to hammer a hopeless Hearts side at Ibrox and all of a sudden they’re back again apparently.

We all knew the hype was going to be well over-the-top if they overcame Robbie Neilson’s side. The idea of them responding to their derby-day mauling at Celtic Park with 3 points yesterday was always going to produce an over-the-top reaction from the media and their supporters.

Whether it be their fans spouting the usual guff [Daily Record], or pundits trying to make it a bigger deal than it actually is [Sky Sports], the truth is we expected this.

It’s not as if we could’ve relied on Hearts to make a big challenge of it either. Not when they couldn’t even rely on their best defender in John Souttar to play. They were hugely disappointing yet still managed to get at Rangers for much of the game up until the final half-hour.

And whilst an extension of our 1-point lead at the top would’ve been welcome, the truth is it doesn’t really matter. It’s all about the Celtic from here on in, and that’s something Rangers fans simply do not want to admit.

Because so long as Celtic are seeing off opponents and continuing to pick up 3 points, there’s nothing Rangers can do about their league position.

Celtic are doing the business on the park and Rangers can’t do anything about it

The real story yesterday came at Fir Park. Celtic had been lauded for their performance at Parkhead against the Ibrox side, but question marks hovered over whether we could replicate it in North Lanarkshire. Whether we could cope with being top of the pile under Ange.

We only went and produced an even better display than what we showed against Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s men. Celtic could easily have left Motherwell with 8 or 9 goals to their name. And that’s only the sitters we’re talking about.

That scoreline and performance made the Rangers game relatively irrelevant. Sure, a win for them narrowed the gap back to 1 point, but they still ended the day exactly where they started it – 2nd place.

So when people are saying that the real Rangers are back and that they’ve learned their lessons, it’s difficult to take it seriously. Because the truth is they simply can’t cope with Celtic when we play at our electric best. They feared the Hoops every time we came forward on Wednesday and it’s because we were exploiting all of their weaknesses.

It’s easy to thrive against a lesser quality side and pretend that you’ve improved. Chances are Celtic will simply show Rangers up again when the sides meet at Ibrox on April 3rd. Rangers won’t prove a single thing until then, instead it should only be accepted as noise.

They were shown up badly last week by a slicker, quicker, and better Celtic team. No amount of results against other SPFL sides will make up for it.

In other news, Scott Brown set for return vs Celtic after being dropped by Aberdeen boss