Celtic unperturbed by Rangers' gasp to tune of £100m - but Hearts reaction says it all

Having beaten Aberdeen 1-0 at Tynecastle on Saturday afternoon, their head coach Derek McInnes and his players sat back and watched a high noon Sunday showdown between their two title rivals from the east. Surely a few of them celebrated Reo Hatate’s stoppage-time equaliser for Celtic ...

The upshot of this 2-2 stalemate between the Old Firm is that Hearts ended the week six points clear at the top of the Premiership. Rangers are in second, with Celtic a further two points behind in third. They have a game in hand, which takes place on Wednesday up in Aberdeen. Win that and they will feel like the most legitimate threat to Hearts.

The Jam Tarts lost at Ibrox two weeks ago to Rangers, which moved the Govan side to within two points of the summit. bUT Hearts have recovered amply with two 1-0 wins. Neither side of Glasgow has prevailed domestically since. Just as they get close to striking distance, McInnes’ players kick for home.

Do either Rangers or Celtic have enough to reel them in? A pulsating, entertaining derby was evidence that this is Hearts’ title for the losing now. Both teams played well in stages but as has been their undoing this season, they were unable to maintain their optimum level for the full match. Inconsistency plagues both teams, unlike Hearts, whose resilience and relentlessness must be of envy to the Old Firm.

Rangers totally dominated the first half against a shell-shocked Celtic and led 2-0 after 26 minutes. It ought to have been more given the disparity between the pair. As it was, the visiting manager Martin O’Neill was able to get his players in at the break with just a two-goal deficit and with some stern words and the introduction of Hatate and Sebastian Tounekti, they turned the tables. Celtic penned Rangers in and could have scored more than twice. In the end, a draw was probably fair.

Youssef Chermiti scored one of the best goals this fixture has ever seen to get us up and running. Rangers had gone for the jugular with an adventurous 4-2-2-2 formation laced with power and physicality. It was the same recipe their head coach Danny Rohl had used to spear Hearts 4-2 a fortnight before. It took just eight minutes to draw first blood.

Youssef Chermiti is clearly a better striker with winter window signing Ryan Naderi next to him. He scored a hat-trick against Hearts and is beginning to show the doubters why Rangers spent £9 million on him. Had his opener been netted by a £100m man, the gasps would have been just as audible.

The Chermiti moments

Rangers pinched the ball off Celtic deep in their own half and eventually the ball was worked wide to Andreas Skov Olsen. The Dane stood up a lovely cross and Chermiti, unmarked but with the ball slightly behind him, arced his body and unleashed a perfectly-timed bicycle kick that exploded into the net. Not quite as good as Scott McTominay for Scotland against Denmark, but then again, what will be?

Chermiti bagged a brace against Celtic back in January and the trick was repeated on 26 minutes. This time the concession was self-inflicted by the visitors, although the Portuguese should be applauded for his finish. Dane Murray wildly swung at a delivery into his penalty box and missed it. Julian Araujo failed to deal with the mess and Chermiti outmuscled him, flicked the ball back into his path and then gently prodded it home.

At this point it was a question of how many Rangers would win by. They were superior in every department. Celtic did not test their keeper Jack Butland in the whole of the first half. Experienced duo Callum McGregor and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlian were lost boys in the midfield battle. Their defence creaked like an old, hole-ridden ship.

O’Neill deserves enormous credit for spotting that Oxlade-Chamberlain could not deal with the ferocity and pace of this fixture. Hatate came on at half time and Celtic were plugged up.

Rangers, however, must take culpability for their stark drop-off in quality. The petrol gauge quickly went into the red. The team of the first 45 minutes had vanished. After running amok, Chermiti went missing in attack, Tochi Chukwuani and Nicolas Raskin were overpowered in midfield. Rohl introduced Mohamed Diomande for Naderi in an attempt to shore it up, but it was in vain.

By that point Celtic had halved the arrears. Benjamin Nygren’s accurate clip into Rangers’ penalty box was headed home sweetly by Kieran Tierney on 56 minutes. Daizen Maeda, Dane Murray, Luke McCowan and Hatate all spurned good chances to level before the latter finally found the leveller.

Hatate could have done from the penalty spot after VAR identified that Rangers defender Emmanuel Fernandez had blocked a Maeda header with his hand. Butland saved his weak effort, and the first rebound, but the second came back to the midfielder’s feet and he bundled the ball home.

There wasn’t enough time for Celtic to go on and find a winner at Ibrox. They will endeavour not to start so sloppily when they return next Sunday for a Scottish Cup quarter-final against the same opponent.

Before that, Celtic must take care of Aberdeen in the league. Failure to do so and they will give even more hope to Hearts. An eight-point gap with all three teams having nine matches to play would have an insurmountable look about it for the defending champions.

Maybe they, and Rangers, are too far behind in any case. For all the drama and entertainment of this Old Firm derby, Hearts came out of it in an even stronger position. They have been shortened by the bookies to 6/5 favourites to be coronated in May.