Celtic winning the cup is a perfect weekend for Rangers

In the end, the weekend couldn’t have actually gone better for Rangers. Ibrox Noise takes you through the implications of a colossal weekend in the race for 55 and dominance in Scottish football.

Friday:

It was all about prep for Motherwell off a dismal display in Paisley. A critical must-win match was on the horizon and Stevie and Joe Aribo did their press work, discussing low blocks. They knew what was coming.

Over at Parkhead they were desperate to get another fake cup, to make it 12. Anything less than the convincing trophy on top of a potential win for Rangers spelled disaster at their end.

Saturday:

Stevie names the strongest team he has to face Motherwell, but they struggle. Until 73 minutes it looks like a giant weekend is going to see a seismic momentum swing with Rangers losing at home in their second defeat in a row. All Celtic have to do is win another cup and the mood is with them again.

90 minutes and Rangers have ground out mentally the biggest win of the season by a mile. A match in which we just couldn’t score, and we scrape it, actually convincingly in the end, and Celtic’s league hearts are broken.

Sunday:

Celtic are up against a Championship team to win the fake cup, and after a categorically abysmal performance from Lennon’s men Hearts take it to penalties. Celtic scrape the win and add a 12th fake cup to their other 11.

This is the best outcome we could have hoped for.

1: It keeps Lennon in a job. We don’t want him going anywhere.

2: It compounds Rangers’ lead in the league, extending it while Celtic had a day off SPL duty.

3: It gave Celtic their fake 12 and a massive stay of execution.

4: It was the absolutely, most humiliatingly worst way for Celtic to win anything – being held by an average team and only getting by via a lottery.

In the end, we couldn’t have written a better script.

While our gut always wants Celtic to lose, on this occasion them winning the worst possible way is actually long-term much better for Rangers.

So this weekend really was a great one for the bigger picture – whatever the BBC wants you to think…