Gerrard savours biggest win as Rangers end Celtic Park hoodoo
Rangers’ Ryan Kent celebrates after scoring with his team-mates during their match against Celtic in Glasgow on Sunday. Reuters
Ryan Kent and Nikola Katic struck either side of Odsonne Edouard’s controversial equaliser to take control of the Scottish Premiership title race.
Gerrard’s men still trail Celtic by two points, but have a game in hand on the Scottish champions as they aim to end a run of eight straight league titles for the green-and-white half of Glasgow.
“It feels the best right now,” said the former Liverpool captain on whether this was his biggest win since taking charge 18 months ago.
“It’s emotional. You can see in my reaction after the game. It’s a big moment for the team, for the club, it’s been through too much pain here.”
Celtic were left to rue Ryan Christie’s penalty miss with the score at 0-0 as they suffered a first home league defeat since May 2018.
Rangers dominated the League Cup final between the sides earlier this month, but a host of missed chances and a stunning goalkeeping performance from Fraser Forster won 10-man Celtic the trophy.
However, Gerrard believes his side’s performance in that match laid the foundations to get their reward this time round.
“Celtic took a trophy away from us, but we’ve come away with huge belief from that game,” added Gerrard.
“That’s why we’ve come here, took the game to Celtic and got a lot of joy from it.”
After a bright start from the visitors, it was Celtic who were gifted a huge chance to take the lead just after the half hour mark when Katic was penalised for holding Christopher Jullien from a corner.
Christie struck his penalty low and hard but Alan McGregor got down to his left to turn the ball to safety.
Just as the hosts were beginning to take control, Rangers scored their first goal against their bitter rivals in three games this season when Kent smashed Borna Barisic’s low cross in off the post.
The lead lasted just six minutes, though, as luck shined on Celtic when Callum McGregor’s shot deflected in off the arm of Edouard and was not spotted by referee Kevin Clancy.
Alfredo Morelos has scored 28 goals this season but had another Old Firm derby to forget as the Colombian has still not netted in 12 meetings against Celtic and was sent-off for the seventh time in two seasons deep into stoppage time.
Agence France-Presse
