Advantage who? Rangers held by Celtic towards the title

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Advantage who? Rangers held by Celtic towards the title
GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - APRIL 07: Rangers manager Philippe Clement and Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers embrace on the final whistle after the Cinch Scottish Premiership match between Rangers FC and Celtic FC at Ibrox Stadium on April 07, 2024 in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images) (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)

The upshot now is who gained more yesterday?

Who got more out of that result?

Prematch, Kris Boyd said Rangers would win, while ex-Celtic man Neil Lennon admitted his team would be the happier of both sides in event of a draw.

And despite Rangers manager Philippe Clement’s nonsense about a point won, about a morale victory and being happy with his players’ character, this was two points dropped at home in a must-win match.

Yes, as a quick aside before we go on, Clement spouts a lot of mince now, same as all his predecessors aside Giovanni van Bronckhorst. He praises rubbish, backs up poor performances with superlatives and seems satisfied when there’s nothing really to be content with.

For the faults Gio had, he never said anything that wasn’t true – he just played it cryptic and coy. He certainly never talked rubbish, which after Clement’s first four months of seemingly shooting (mostly) from the hip, he’s fallen recently often into the same trap of verbal diarrhoea as Michael Beale offered, albeit nowhere near as prolific (he was filled with utter lies 24/7).

But this rant is aside the point – what is the upshot of the result? Who got more from it?

The answer is that Celtic will feel more disappointed not to have won, but also gained more from a huge draw at Ibrox – Rangers must go to Dundee and get the three points to take that two point lead, and it requires a huge bounce back.

The ball is on our court and we need to offer something in midweek.

So we’d say, fractionally, it’s marginally advantage Celtic, but as we explained before, Clement has 6 points over Rodgers since his arrival, so on a basis of data Clement has the patterns to win the league even if he never beats Celtic.

At this point, we really can’t call it.

On a data level, Clement maybe has an advantage, but on the pitch and in the Old Firm fixtures, Celtic are feeling they slightly shade it.

It’s been taken out of our hands to the extent it was in them prior to kick off, and it is literally anyone’s title.

The bookies don’t agree though – the overall numbers favour Rangers strongly, they’re odds-on. Celtic are 11/10.

But titles aren’t won in Patrick Power we’re afraid.

Time, as always, will tell.

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