Rangers vs Celtic | 1-3 (AET) | Scottish League Cup 2025

As the two sides lined up at Hampden for this seasons League Cup Semi Final there was dubiety amongst both sets of fans. Both Danny Rohl and Martin O’Neil have recently arrived and tried to change their sides fortunes but it’s early days for both.

Rangers and Celtic, were both off the back of midweek wins in the SPFL, however the season has been under par overall. Both sides have dropped points and shipped goals, with neither leading in the domestic league just now but being a cup game, there would ultimately only be one winner here.

When the Celtic lineup was announced, there wasn’t too many surprises. They played their usual 4-2-3-1 shape with Kenny in ahead of Iheanacho and Saracchi starting ahead of Kieran Tierney. Both changes were enforced due to fitness.

Rangers also kept the shape that had earned three points, with us lining up in a 3-4-2-1 shape which was expected to make us more robust at the back. We also made changes from midweek, with Aasgaard given the nod ahead of Moore and Tavernier into the wingback slot ahead of Djeidi Gassama.

The last change for Rangers, maybe hurt the most for this game. Mohammed Diomande replaced the banned Barron and although Diomande had a good game compared to some of his colleagues, he just isn’t the player to replace the fight and grit of someone like Barron.

Once the handshakes and formalities were out of the way, the game kicked off with Rangers defending the goals with their fans behind. For any of those fans at Easter Road on Wednesday, they must have been stunned by the meek and heartless performance they saw from kick off.

We were given an early warning in the 18th minute, in the form of a quick free-kick from Celtic. Nygren fed into Maeda who then went to shoot, this caused a ricochet in the box and ultimately led to a deflection from Raskin into his own goal.

On this occasion we were saved by VAR, which correctly identified Maeda being slightly offside. You might have expected that would be the wakeup call, the call to arms this Rangers side needed to show some of the heart they did in that midweek game. You would have been wrong…

Just six minutes later, following a further period of Celtic pressure they earned a corner kick. This was dispatched by Johnny Kenny, who bulleted a header past Jack Butland. There was nothing Butland could have done and this time, there was no VAR reprieve.

As the half wore on, Rangers didn’t create some opportunities with Aasgaard shooting straight at Schmeichel and Chermiti missing a couple of gilt edged chances, however these were brief spots in a half predominantly dominated by Celtic.

As we approached the half time whistle, many Rangers players were likely just looking to get to half time, without things getting any worse. Unfortunately they got worse as Aasgaard tried to play the ball over his head, turn and bring it back under his control. Unfortunately for him, Ralston has closed behind him and whilst he was fully focussed on the ball, he followed through driving his studs into Ralston’s leg. Nick Walsh showed no hesitation reaching for his red card and VAR agreed with the ruling. Rangers were now down to ten men.

Just a few minutes later, the Rangers fans expected this to be evened up as Austin Trusty opened his foot to kick Jack Butland in the head. Walsh took the time to consider this and eventually bought out a yellow card, which VAR again supported. According to James Tavernier, in his post-match interview, this one wasn’t a red because he didn’t kick him hard enough!

As the second half kicked off, I expected the worse but whatever Danny Rohl said at half time must have had an impact, along with his substitutions. The second half was much more even on the balance, with Celtic still enjoying spells of control but Rangers also having some control and at points setting them on the back foot.

The Rangers pressure culminated in the 81st minute, when Ralston dived at the ball and it hit penalty he failed to punish Ralston with a yellow card. The cynics amongst our support will likely deduce that is because he was already on a yellow, meaning he would have walked.

Tavernier converted the resulting penalty, giving us some hope of taking something and this only continued as the second half wound down. Diomande and Raskin were both withdrawn for wingers, with Tavernier completing the makeshift midfield.

In hindsight this wasn’t great as it ceded control to Celtic in the middle of the park. That is probably one of the few things Rohl got wrong today but given we were chasing the game and a man down, it’s perfectly understandable he “went for it.”

As we began extra time, Celtic began to make the man advantage count and tired legs saw us give far too much space for McGregor who rifled a shot straight at Butland. Jack had a great game in the main today but this particular moment will be one he wants to forget as he totally misjudged the shot and let it sneak past.

Celtic had more control in extra time and they again made it count in the 109th minute with new signing, Osmand, securing their 3rd and their place in the final next month. On the balance of the game, they were deserving of going through but the fight that Rangers showed in that second half will give fans belief that there is something there for Rohl to work with. It’s hard to escape the fact we would probably have folded like a deck chair if Martin was still on the touchline.

Hard to take this one, given we did show the fight to get back into it and especially with some contentious decisions, again favouring one team. That said we’ve still got the League, the Europa League and the Scottish Cup to play for. Even if we can’t win these, fans will be looking to see us do as well as we can. Next up the slight issue of a visit from Roma on Thursday.