Title hunger compelled Rangers to dominate

RANGERS' win in the first Old Firm game of the season at Parkhead yesterday may have been no more valuable points-wise than a victory against any other team in the league, but the manner in which they dominated Celtic in their own back-yard spoke volumes about how serious Walter Smith's men are about regaining the SPL title.

The bookies were suitably impressed, so much so they slashed Rangers' title price right across the board from 6-4 before the match into a best price of 5-6 afterwards.

Those odds may look generous come May next year because on this performance Rangers are a team improving fast, while Celtic look in serious need of some freshening up.

It's only a matter of weeks since the Gers suffered a catastrophic defeat in the Champions League qualifier against Kaunas but, since then, the team has been strengthened considerably with the signings of Madjid Bougherra, Pedro Mendes and Steven Davis.

These three in particular have added some much-needed composure on the ball as prior to their arrival Rangers were struggling to put together more than three or four passes at a time.

It would appear the rest of the players in the squad have raised their game accordingly. Kirk Broadfoot had his best game by far in a Rangers jersey yesterday and Kevin Thomson seems to be revelling in his role alongside Mendes.

Prior to this match, not many would have predicted a 4-2 victory for Rangers and I'd imagine even fewer would have anticipated that Walter Smith would match up against Celtic's 4-4-2 formation with a new-look partnership of Daniel Cousin and Kenny Miller up front. In fairness, Celtic never looked comfortable at any stage against either striker – not one of their back-four could match them for pace and Cousin, in particular, gave Stephen McManus and Gary Caldwell a torrid time.

Celtic, as usual, came out trying to dominate their opponents and put them on the back foot, but Rangers, to their credit, were better in possession playing some great triangles in the middle of the park with Davis, Thomson and Mendes pulling the strings.

With both of Celtic's full-backs – Andrea Hinkel and Mark Wilson – trying to support down the flanks there were gaping holes at the back for Rangers' forwards to exploit. The opening goal came as a result of some great individual play by Cousin, but both Wilson and Artur Boruc were guilty of making basic errors in the build-up.

A harmless ball in the channel by Mendes was seized upon by Cousin and, as Wilson hesitated, the Rangers striker took the chance to put his head down and run for goal.

Initially, it looked like Cousin was going to cut the ball for Miller but Boruc showed him too much of his near post and paid the price as Cousin slotted home from an acute angle.

As good a keeper as Boruc can be, he is prone to the odd clanger and later in the game he only served to reinforce that point.

The inclusion of Cousin in the starting line-up was a big surprise, but his performance totally vindicated the manager's decision to pick him.

There have been times in the past when Cousin has looked disinterested playing for Rangers, but when he gets his mind focused on the job he has proved himself to be a real handful.

It was a shame he ended being shown a red card after having played so well and personally, I thought his sending-off was harsh.

In every challenge he made, his eyes were only on the ball and like most strikers, he jumps with his arms up to gain leverage. He was effectively sent off for persistent fouling, some of which were debatable, to say the least.

Both Caldwell and McManus made a point of drawing the referee's attention to the amount of fouls he had totted up and it looked like they were putting the ref under undue pressure as they clearly couldn't cope with Cousin's physical presence.

Miller took a little while longer to get a foothold in the game and for a while he seemed to be affected by the jeers from the Celtic support, but the beauty of football is that every now and then a player gets the chance to answer his critics in the best way possible and yesterday afternoon, Miller did it in style. It may take a little while longer for him to win over the Rangers support, but a brace at Celtic Park has got to help.