Rangers talisman lifts lid on Ibrox ‘psychological switch' and how players thrived on silencing Celtic support
Rangers skipper reveals how players planned to turn home atmosphere in Old Firm victory against Celtic.
Rangers midfielder Dan Neil has revealed how his side used the absence of away fans as fuel, turning silence into strength during their dramatic 1-0 triumph at Celtic at the weekend.
A derby-day hero the previous weekend, Neil bagged a double in a 3-0 Premier Sports Cup quarter-final win over their Glasgow rivals in front of an all-Rangers crowd at Ibrox. However, when the sides met again in league action on Sunday, the roles were reversed, with no away fans allowed in Celtic Park.
Rangers emerged victorious once again, though, with Ryan Naderi’s first-half strike sealing all three points for Derek McInnes’ men. Captained by Neil in the absence of the injured Lawrence Shankland in recent weeks, the English midfielder revealed how his Rangers teammates planned to turn the atmosphere in the stadium against the home side to achieve a second consecutive derby win.
"To be honest, all the lads were looking forward to the challenge of it,” said Neil. “We'd obviously had a massive backing the week before, which massively helped us. As I said in the interview, it was like a twelfth man out there. But I think we had to almost turn the psychology of it. It was us against everybody, literally, in there. The confidence is a massive thing. Getting that result the week previous, the confidence was through the roof with everyone.
"But it was still important that we instilled in the dressing room that it was going to be a tough match, it was going to be a completely different match to the week before. Not even just the different circumstances, the different venue and no fans for us, we knew they were going to change something. We didn't know what, but you had to be prepared that we might have needed to fix things during the game.”
Dominant in the opening stages of the game, Rangers went close to doubling their lead when Djeidi Gassama chipped Celtic goalkeeper Viljami Sinisalo, only to see the ball cannon back off the inside of the post. With Rangers on top, the Light Blues’ skipper says he and his teammates could feel the home supporters' exasperation on the pitch, and admits it gave them further encouragement to go on and try to double their lead.
"In terms of the atmosphere, we could use it to our advantage as well,” said Neil. “Try and frustrate the Celtic fans. Listen, I think out of possession, whether it was us going man for man or closing the block and closing the middle of the pitch, I thought we did it fantastically. You feel a sense of frustration in the stadium and we had to just keep playing off that.”
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