There is no missed opportunity quite as frustrating as an unfulfilled opportunity.

And that sums up Sunday at Ibrox. It’s been a stop-start first month to the 23/24 season for Rangers and Michael Beale with both sides of the first round of fixtures ending in a 1-0 defeat, the opening day against Kilmarnock and yesterday’s Old Firm loss against Celtic. Every step forward has been followed up with a tread backwards and yesterday was the toughest result of Beale’s tenure yet. No game has led to more questions or attracted a greater degree of criticism.

Beyond the legitimate discussions about personnel, decisions and failure to win a big game as of yet, it was the inability to test Celtic's resolve and place down a marker applying pressure on Brendan Rodgers after two damaging results that caused the most frustration. Fresh from two poor results themselves, this was a chance to flip Celtic’s script from their superiority held in May and approach the first international break with foot pressed down on the throttle, leaving the other side of the city to do the soul searching. Instead, it’s Rodgers and his team who escape their spell of form unpunished while Beale and his pay their dues.

“Today’s game was in our hands, we let it slip through our own faults,” the manager conceded sitting in the Ibrox press room at full-time, not long after an angry Ibrox had its full-time say.

This wasn’t a game won by an opponent out of reach, Rangers have faced far better Celtic teams in recent memory. Instead, it was the Ibrox side's lack of proactivity, a failure to set the tone and inability to recover from the one bit of incision this game mustered up that cost them in the end. Even if their chance creation, although slow starting, was superior by the final whistle. 

In the first few minutes, the home side were aggressive and intentional but after that, until the break, their press appeared disjointed. Rangers were content sitting off in their shape and waiting to coax Celtic into a trap, as materialised for Roofe’s wrongly disallowed goal, but that was a rare moment where this makeshift, shaky Celtic defence were made to feel truly uncomfortable.

With Rangers pressing in a 4-3-3, rather than a variation of the more aggressive 4-3-1-2, this Celtic team did not have to earn their platform in possession. When the front two did engage, Rangers' midfield rarely jumped up behind them. Often during breaks in play teammates conversed about the pressing angles that were playing out unsuccessfully. An out-of-form Callum McGregor had the freedom of the pitch to pick his passes and set the game’s tempo.

Beale’s tried different pressing approaches against Celtic since November and undoubtedly, the game in which his side looked the worst was a League Cup Final defeat, when they pressed in a 4-3-3 and never got close to really disrupting the build-up. The first half felt too reminiscent of that approach.

Yes, teams can be in control out of possession and we should’ve been talking about a goal earned by this patient approach. In hindsight, it’s hard to not feel that with a buoyant home crowd greater intensity was not only wise but required for this particular game state. Celtic still made errors but Rangers weren’t really primed to exploit them. 50,000 can work for and against you and yesterday's Rangers performance did not maximise that power.

“You can’t have the front guys trying to press and the back four sitting deep. We spoke about it at half time and I thought the defence came up 15, 20 yards in the second half,” Beale said afterwards. The trouble was by the time that particular dressing room conversation had been had, the damage was done.

What about on the ball? Rangers’ direct approach in the first half felt circumstantial, given Celtic’s direct running at the front and high line, but Kemar Roofe and Cyriel Dessers didn’t possess the pace to truly threaten the high line posed by the visitors. On numerous occasions before the break, the latter raced beyond but couldn’t catch a ball before Joe Hart could. It wasn’t until the second half that possessional, and positional, control was achieved after Kyogo’s goal had split the sides and handed the visitors something to protect.

Yesterday was Rangers’ ninth game of the season and they haven’t named the same team in any one of those fixtures. Rotation is not necessarily a point of criticism because such a heavy load of fixtures in the space of a month merits turnover and depth is important, but the lack of a clear strongest 11 cannot of helped yesterday's disjointed nature.

“You look for a balance against what you are playing against and I thought that was the right balance today,” Beale said on that topic of his front three.

“Barring maybe one or two things going against us in the first half we might have sat here saying that it was.”

Much has been made of the alterations up top, but the lack of consistency in selection has also extended to the midfield. In response to another question during his press conference, Beale said, “Is the connection between the midfield and the front players where it was in the past? Not right now, no. That is what we need to work on”. Has the degree of alteration harmed the flow and fluidity that was lacking in yesterday’s fixture?

When Beale arrived at Ibrox last year he very quickly established a strongest starting 11 and following the arrival of Todd Cantwell and Nico Raskin, added quality to that mix. That compliment featured variation, with Cantwell and Raskin fulfilling a number of different roles within the team, but when big matches arose, a strongest 11 proved relatively clear.

All throughout Beale’s tenure he’s tried to introduce variation in-game and game to game. That’s a strength, of course, and alongside other elements of the gameplan evidenced last year produces unpredictability. However, in the same breath, you can’t help but feel that Rangers don’t yet have the spine of a side to become an alternative to and offer unpredictability from. Those relationships and that connection is not “where it was in the past” as shown when the chips were down yesterday.

Given the emphasis Beale places on players building relationships and the positional autonomy his system grants, surely it is partnerships on the pitch that haven’t yet formed which leads to a lack of fluency on the ball? How many of the best teams, whether at Ibrox down the years or in world football right now, don’t have a clear strongest 11, bar one or two positions?

Of course, after nine summer signings, rhythm will take time to build. Perhaps it's unrealistic to suggest a best 11 should be picked yet, would the clamour not be for form players if Beale had started Sam Lammers over Rabbi Matondo yesterday, for example? The trouble is at Ibrox, time to build is so difficult to ascertain. Constant improvement is required to earn leeway, and so the tradeoff goes on until success or the alternative arrives.

Beale garnered real excitement going into this summer for a reason - building blocks were obvious last season even if some revisionism suggests otherwise. After his arrival, a playing identity was quickly restored mid-season and domestic fixtures navigated impressively. Beale won his first eight league matches away from home in a row after taking over a team who'd picked up one from six in Paisley and Perth.

Admittedly, the manager couldn’t get over the hill in big moments, for which was justifiably given grace and why yesterday doesn't help his cause. The squad inherited was far from thriving and that was generally considered the difference, or fine margins, that went against Rangers in Old Firms after last November. As the manager will well know, that arrangement of time without wins in this fixture can only go on so long and with the summer window now over, the time to deliver has come. Hence why yesterday’s full-time reaction proved so visceral. As Beale himself admitted after the game, “I think the team can win the fans back by winning games of football and that is what they have to do.”

This international break must not only set up a serious run of results between now and Christmas but it must also be used as an opportunity to find a core starting 11 that can provide consistency. Beale needs continuity, connection and inspiration on the pitch to rebuild the momentum that this month has lost, because only big wins can ever truly earn back trust after big defeats.