Euphoric Ally McCoist insists he wouldn’t have missed Rangers thumping Celtic for the world – and believes Callum McGregor’s ‘card is marked’ after going missing in the derby.
The Ibrox hero wasn’t on media duties for the game, but he was in the house as a punter as Philippe Clement‘s team ran riot and earned the Belgian his first win over Celtic. He was speaking with Hoops-daft talkSPORT host Alan Brazil on his morning show, who teased McCoist for previously saying he wasn’t sure he was going to make it.
McCoist laughed: “I was always going, boys, don’t you worry about that! I wasn’t missing that for anything. What about that for a performance?!”
He then went on to single out McGregor, whose usual high standards for big games were nowhere to be seen at Ibrox where Celtic lost the midfield battle convincingly. McCoist went on: “The one thing I would say is Callum McGregor’s been really, really quiet. Certainly in the last couple of games, he’s had his card marked a little bit. They’ve just put someone right on him and he’s finding it a lot more difficult to get on the ball.”
As for the game itself, McCoist was delighted for Clement getting his first Old Firm win under his belt. He admitted he was surprised at how much better Rangers were than their city rivals – but challenged them to keep it up with a similar performance against Hibs this weekend.
“I was delighted for Clement. His first victory against Celtic in seven attempts. As you correctly pointed out yesterday, Brendan’s record in Old Firms is absolutely remarkable. It was a big result for Rangers but particularly for the manager, you could actually feel it and see it in his interviews after the game.
“The surprising thing, really, was the margin of the victory and the gap between the two teams. I know it’s only one game, I’m not going to get carried away, because Celtic are going to win the league. But even that performance surprised me, the levels from both teams.
“Celtic, I don’t know if you’re giving any of them a pass mark. I genuinely don’t know if you’d give any of them. They were (second best all over the pitch). I can’t remember them having a shot at goal in the second half. The question now to ask of Rangers, rightly so, is can they go to Easter Road and deliver the same performance.”