How Rangers beat Celtic: Corner edits, a new press, third-man midfield

Barry Ferguson's side had played 120 minutes to progress in the Europa League on Thursday night but still found a way to win.

Goals from Nico Raskin, Mohamed Diomande and Hamza Igamane sealed the points - here's how Rangers won away at Celtic for the first time since 2020.

Set-piece 'editing' 

While a small sample size, Rangers have scored two corner goals in three league games under Ferguson. Infamously it took them until December to manage one in the league this season under Philippe Clement. 

It’s important to state that Raskin was developing a tendency to threaten from set-play before a change in the dugout, but the routine delivered to open the scoring yesterday - and what followed - showed the fresh ideas in this element of Rangers’ game. The best set-piece teams ‘edit’ approaches mid-game, mixing up their routines to keep their set-plays unpredictable and that detail gave the visitors the edge yesterday.

Notice in the lead-up to Raskin’s opener the four players grouped at the edge of the box. Although the Belgian is the smallest his leap can deceive. Three bigger teammates (Balogun, Dessers, Souttar) take the attention of Celtic’s remaining back four as Raskin gets the run on Schlupp. 

The distance created by starting at the edge of the box affords space to attack the ball, with Diomande blocking Engels in front of Kasper Schmeichel. 

This corner is only made possible by the standard of delivery from James Tavernier, meaning Raskin only has to touch the trajectory having outjumped Schlupp and McCowan. The fall-back of this routine is that if the initial header doesn’t find the net the attacking team can score via the second phase at the back post.

Although Rangers wouldn’t score again from a corner the way they mixed up their attacks for the rest of the half shows how Celtic were kept guessing. Vaclav Cerny took the first two corners from the right as inswingers before Tavernier was handed the final two. Look at this attempt after 26 minutes, this time the visitors are attempting an outswinger - to try and isolate the strongest header of the ball Leon Balogun - attacking with just three men at the edge of the box this time as Cyriel Dessers marshalls the front post.

Celtic’s man-for-man approach is manipulated because Rangers are lining up together, not allowing their direct markers contact. This split second of reaction time means the attacking team are on their toes and the defenders on their heels.

This means Raskin and Souttar can act as a decoy, blocking the two Celtic centre-backs Carter-Vickers and Nawrocki. Balogun can therefore create a mismatch against the smaller and unsuspecting Schlupp. Look at Souttar and Raskin, blocking their men instead of trying to attack the ball to give Balogun free rein of the box.

If Diomande had been able to get ahead of Engels at the back post, who defended this moment well, he could’ve had his goal earlier.

Finally, consider the movement after 34 minutes as Balogun again gets his head to the ball. This time Souttar makes a run around the front as a decoy and Raskin acts as a ‘protector’ in front of Balogun. Stopping Carter-Vickers from being able to jump with Balogun who makes a good connection, almost using Raskin's back as a platform to jump, but his header it too straight.

At their worst this season Rangers’ set-plays have been predictable and too similar in-game but yesterday, they were anything but.

‘Allowing first pass’ in the press

An early goal undoubtedly helped Ferguson’s off-ball approach in the first-half, as was the case in Istanbul. This Rangers team are at their best attacking into space, where situations can make the decisions that their in-possession play lacks. Rangers were at their most comfortable off the ball when able to press Celtic back to Schmeichel, who had a poor game. The away side relied on their pressing to get them forward more than their own passages with the ball. 

Rangers’ off-ball approach had two important categories; splitting the pitch in half and ‘pressing upwards’. Allowing the first pass before trying to rush Celtic and push them backwards.

Their rough shape looked something like this. Diomande marked Engels - who lacked the authority of McGregor to improve Celtic’s build-up - while Cerny and Dessers stopped passes into either centre-back. While this left a Celtic full-back free, Rangers were happy to afford this pass before either James Tavernier or Ridvan Yilmaz ‘jumped up’ and the rest of the team split the pitch in half, locking on man-for-man.

Look at Dessers in this example. He puts pressure on the Celtic keeper while blocking passes out to the left-hand side. Although, in theory, Celtic have two extra men in their half the pressing approach cuts off one side of the pitch.

And as Schmeichel tries to find the 'free man' Schlupp at left-back, Tavernier jumps forward.

The visitors lacked the composure to fully exploit the excellent moments their off-ball approach fashioned. Here are three examples below that don’t such up as high xG moments (because there was no shot at the end) but qualify as big chances.

However, the origin point of Diomande’s goal was a pressing moment on the left. Rangers couldn’t ‘build’ their way into the final third often but made the most of the moments they did get there, as seen similarly for the winner. 

After his side has given up the ball cheaply Dessers doesn’t let up. The Nigerian ran these hard yards well, chasing down the goalkeeper to make his next pass obvious and, therefore, showing his teammates behind where to press.

Although Alasdair Johnson is ‘free’ at right-back, this is a trap the away team have set and Ridvan makes up a lot of ground quickly to intercept and win a throw.

From here followed a cohesive pattern of play that revealed Rangers’ attacking intent. As mentioned this team against settled defences lacks the tools to break down from wide areas as Celtic constantly demonstrates. However, like in Istanbul, a back five offering width and cover enabled Diomande and Raskin to run forward making unpredictable third-man movements to crash the box.

Indeed, look where Raskin is under eight seconds on from assisting this goal, deep in the pitch circulating the ball before getting on the end of a Tavernier cross.

Raskin's run off the back of Engels is so effective because the No.6 is watching the ball. It’s as the Celtic team squeezes up and the back four shifts to their left that Tavernier can play against pressure, with Raskin’s run creating a four-vs-three in Rangers’ favour against the hosts' backline.

While there was more here to be had with fresher legs and sharper minds the formation selected by Ferguson for these big games merits real credit. 

Issues after break

Rangers were poor at playing out from the back and that must be said. Too often their rushed clearances lacked composure and surrendered control and while Jack Butland made some big saves, his inability to build up under pressure remains an issue. 

Look at how Celtic regained the ball and attacked an unorganised defence to score just after half-time. Butland kicked right into the path of Hatate and forced his team to recover before conceding to a well-worked, but from Rangers' point of view soft, goal. 

On the day 24 of Butland’s 29 kicks were long and only five were short with a 35% completion rate. Albeit Rangers would benefit from the variables introduced by this second-ball approach to win the game it was their frailties in possession that saw them surrender a two-goal lead.

Too quickly the visitors’ back five was pushed back with one of Cerny or Dessers often dropping back to ensure that Celtic could not create a four-vs-three across the midfield as a full-back inverted infield. This approach lacked an outball and saw the hosts fashion an xG of 0.82 in the second-half to the visitors’ 0.26.

Still, Ferguson could point to that tally as understandable in a half Celtic dominated the ball and it was poor defending collectively for the equalising goal that let him down.

The origin point was Ianis Hagi rushing out towards the ball rather than staying on Luke McCowan and as Robin Propper was caught in no man’s land, while Souttar and Sterling failed to shift over quickly, the home side scored a well-worked finish.

If bringing on Propper and Hagi lowered the physical floor of Rangers’ approach, then bringing on Igamane provided some much-needed legs. Ferguson, to his credit, went 5-3-2 over 5-4-1, recognising that leaving Dessers on his own up top was inviting pressure and restricting the pressure his own team could apply to push Celtic deeper. 

In the final moments playing with two forwards would ultimately give Rangers and Igamane a chance to win the game which the Moroccan emphatically grabbed.