Old Firm – same Old Story….

We’ll cover as many nuances of today’s Old Firm loss at Parkhead in subsequent entries, but there’s little doubt the strides Steven Gerrard has made as Rangers manager and the improvements we’ve seen in the squad to this point were conspicuous by their absence this afternoon and it looked barely any better than a Pedro or Warburton Rangers.

As we discussed yesterday, we weren’t drawing too much conclusion from this match, and had that deep-lying feeling that Rangers were going in the right direction under Stevie, but we have to confess a slight touch of concern about just how stunningly poor his side were, and the evident gulf in class from the first whistle.

Gerrard’s plan had clearly been to contain, and to sit off Celtic – and barely any worthwhile attack was truly mustered in pretty much the whole 90 minutes as a result – our players looked lethargic, slow, and while a few of them notably fought as much as they could, the aching lack of quality on display from the visitors was very much an issue of slight worry.

Of course, there’s a caveat – this is still Scotland’s best team (unfortunately) and Rangers remain a work in progress.

But that our side had to rely on Allan McGregor to stop the score being a lot worse (and more accurate) than 1-0 is certainly not the kind of sign we were looking for.

We will have more precise articles in due course on this, and while we can’t go as far as to call it an atrocity, it was a clear indication the gap between Rangers and Celtic (which often threatens to close) seems to frequently disappear when the two meet.

It’s a long-standing problem – all the good signs leading into an Old Firm match and then the day comes and it’s the same old. Some could even make an argument that this was a step back, in both tactics, performance, and the utterly powderpuff attack.

We don’t know if we would go that far, but what we saw at Parkhead today was in no way what we’d hoped for. Even a battling loss would have been acceptable – this was pretty meek.

How did you readers see it?