Rangers 2-2 Celtic: ‘Hearts & Motherwell the winners after compelling Old Firm stalemate’
They were serenaded during the break. O’Neill made changes, as he had to. In came Reo Hatate and Sebastian Tounekti and out went the new men for this fixture, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Junior Adamu. O’Neill could have pulled the trigger much more, but he let it go at two o’clock. And it worked. He initially misunderstood his team badly, but later corrected the mistakes.
The mentality of sports. You can spend 100 years studying this topic and still not understand it. Yes, it was about new blood and new tactical thinking, but it was more than that. A team with this belief suddenly began to run out of power. A zero-belief team was suddenly reborn. Trust is a fickle beast. Celtic dominated the second half.
Hatate, a player who has looked like a bad version of his best this season, has had a huge impact. He made the first save from Jack Butland after 55 minutes. Celtic were now on top. The Rangers were in full retreat.
It was just reward when Kieran Tierney pulled one back with a header, Rangers were clear and Celtic were helpless. Where was this urgency before? Daizen Maeda and Luke McCowan could and should have scored.
After being released from prison frequently lately, the thought has arisen that maybe time will catch up with them again. Maybe all this pressure was too little, too late. There was no breakaway action against Hibernian last week and you were hard-pressed to see anyone coming here with a few minutes remaining.
Of course it did. The way this season has been going – drama at every turn – a late penalty was never going to cut it theatrically. No, no. There had to be more.
Hatate’s penalty and shot on the rebound were saved by Butland. Ibrox grimaced as the goalkeeper put in a heroic performance and the goal let out a guttural groan as Hatate got third time lucky. Visiting Celtic fans from afar went wild. Sanity has been torn from the clutches of madness.
Celtic drew. Not what they came for, not what they needed, but it was more than what they thought when they took a break. And it’s a lot less than what the Rangers thought they were getting.
