Celtic and Rangers leave two clubs smiling after mesmerising, mediocre show with one costly fall guy

Celtic were by far the better side even before Thelo Aasgaard was given a straight red card for a high foot challenge that left Anthony Ralston with two angry-looking red scratches at the top of his thigh after 38 minutes.

Rangers were so poor prior to this, being the better side wasn't much to shout about. And somehow, bafflingly, despite the numerical disadvantage, the Ibrox side were never completely out of contention until near the very end. Letting Rangers off the hook appeared likely to prove costly for Celtic until a familiar figure helped save the day for another very familiar figure on the sidelines in a pair of Copa Mondials.

Losing to a low-quality Rangers team playing for so long with ten men would have robbed Martin O’Neill of some of the lustre apparent since his re-appointment. A Callum McGregor special – though Jack Butland ought to have stopped it –put Celtic in front for the second time four minutes into extra time. A place in the League Cup final was sealed by teenage substitute Callum Osmand, who got the goal his efforts deserved after 109 minutes of a breathless if untidy tie after he displayed good movement to convert fellow substitute Kieran Tierney’s cross.

Whether O’’Neill is still there to lead the team back out at the national stadium remains to be seen. Calls to appoint him on a permanent basis were harder to take seriously midway through the second half, when Rangers were doing a very good job of disguising the fact they were a man short.

A James Tavernier penalty with ten minutes left following an Anthony Ralston handball put the outcome back in the balance. Indeed, Rangers were the team looking more likely to progress at this point. Reduced to attacking Celtic on the break, the lively substitute Djeidi Gassama was causing O’Neill’s side all kinds of problems. Playing on the counter suited Rangers. It helped conceal their deficiencies. Nevertheless, they are entitled to nurse a grievance – more than one in fact.

Rangers have reason for complaint

Just as Rangers were left despairing about the failure to award them a penalty when Vaclav Cerny was pulled back by Liam Scales in the most recent final of the same competition almost a year and four managers ago, here again they had justifiable reasons for complaint.

If Aasgaard’s unintentional boot near Ralston’s nether regions was deemed to be serious foul play, then what about Auston Trusty catching Butland in the face just before half time? The defender collected only a booking. You can imagine how that went down at the Rangers end of the stadium.

Aggravating these fans further was the fact Ralston stayed on the pitch after conceding the penalty that saw the Ibrox side score a deserved equaliser. He had already been booked for an earlier foul and seemed to nudge the ball with his arm while blocking Gassama’s shot. He wasn’t trying to make himself bigger, seemed to be the rationale for the non-appearance of a card.

Celtic had their own gripe: a comical own goal – Nasser Djiga saw his clearance deflect off Nico Raskin and loop over Butland – chopped off for the tightest of tight offside calls against Daizen Maeda, who was involved in the run-up.

O’Neill was a fairly low-key presence in a tracksuit top that looked like it had been flung towards him by the kitman having been rescued from a Barrowland remainder bin. It looked like it might have dated from his first spell in charge.

His previous experience of an Old Firm game was a 2-1 win at Ibrox in April 2005 when he had John Hartson, Chris Sutton and Craig Bellamy all on the pitch from the start.

The tale of strikers

Much of the pre-match focus here was trained on the quality of forwards available to both managers, with Danny Rohl now the latest Rangers manager to fail to win his first such game in charge. Not many of his predecessors, mind you, are presented with a cup clash at Hampden for their Old Firm debut. He’s not even been a fortnight in the job.

It was interesting that a good striker’s goal separated the teams for so long because good strikers were exactly what some pundits felt were missing from the ingredients before kick off.

Johnny Kenny re-emphasised his intention to take his chance in the team following his midweek brace against Falkirk in O’Neill’s first game back in charge.

However, quite how he got his head to Arne Engels’ corner while surrounded by at least four Rangers players is something for an Ibrox defensive coach – Rohl is yet to appoint any assistants - to consider.

Maybe it’s a strikers’ coach that is the most pressing appointment at Rangers. Youssef Chermiti has something about him. Quite what it is, Ibrox fans might be hard to pinpoint. He is a physical presence, no question, and can hold the ball up, sometimes. But when he was presented with a cast iron chance to score after 22 minutes, following Mohamed Diomande’s cross, he prodded weakly past the post.

Another chance at the back post following Tavernier’s free kick also went a-begging. Chermiti was replaced by Bojan Miovski in the second half after a performance that has not done much to solve the mystery of why Rangers paid a reported £9 million for him.

If he is a project player, as has been suggested, why did he cost so much and why is he starting in such a big game, at the expense of others like Miovski? There are more questions for Rangers to answer after this game but they are perhaps clouded by the spirit shown and the decisions that they will feel went against them.

As for the quality of the match, O’Neill felt both teams showed “signs of life” ahead of the remaining league programme. Like the Rangers defence earlier, he was being slightly generous.