It is safe to say that Celtic put on the style this weekend to come out with a dominant 4-0 win over the Rangers. Most people expected this to be a very tight game, and a tight title race for that matter, but based on the evidence from the first Glasgow Derby of the season, there seems to be quite some gap between the two sides at this point of time.
Liel Abada continued to have joy against the Rangers defenders, and scored a brace this time around. Jota scored a wonderful dinked effort over the goalkeeper. And David Turnbull made the most of a mistake from the opposition, and made it 4-0 in favour of the Hoops to send them five points clear at the top of the table.
This is without doubt a huge blow for the Rangers, who were riding high after managing to qualify for the UEFA Champions League group stages by getting past PSV Eindhoven in the play-offs.
As reported by 67 Hail Hail, while speaking to BBC Sportsound after the game, Rangers manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst said:
"“We knew the threat they have from quickly taken throw-ins and free-kicks and I think we were exposed two times, which gave two goals away and for me that’s very disappointing because we knew that they were going to do that and still we weren’t prepared enough.“Those moments – especially in the first half – will decide the game, the longer that the nil is on the scoreboard, the more you can grow in the game, but today wasn’t the case, very disappointed by the result, by the goals we had against us, including the fourth one in the second half, and I’m very disappointed that we couldn’t give the game we all wanted for our fans.“It is a gap, of course, we know that we’ve lost five points already this season, there’s still a lot of games to be played, and also three games against Celtic so we have to move on and get stronger and make sure that those moments we have today can never happen again, no matter which opposition you play.”"
Van Bronckhorst makes honest admission after Rangers’ 4-0 loss vs Celtic
It is safe to say that Celtic were the dominant side this weekend and it did not look like they had any troubles getting past past season’s Europa League finalists.
Of course, one has to wonder whether the Rangers have been weakened this summer. They have brought in a few decent players but have lost two key players in the form of Joe Aribo and Calvin Bassey.
It remains to be seen what they do from here. For Celtic though, the path seems to be clear, continue doing what they are doing and pick up points.
They have been perfect this season till now, but that will be put up to a huge test this midweek, when they take on Real Madrid in the UEFA Champions League group stage at Parkhead.