George Overhill

Wed 21 December 2022 10:10, UK

Celtic were virtually within touching distance of winning the title before Rangers turned the game on its head at Aberdeen, according to Tom English.

Heading into added time at Pittodrie on Tuesday night (20 December) the Bears were trailing 2-1 before two late, late Scott Arfield goals took all three points, to keep the SPFL race theoretically alive.

It wasn’t a sparkling performance, and it almost threw away any hope of reeling in Ange Postecoglou’s side, but in dramatic fashion the win was secured leaving English declaring the events “just wonderful”.

In his BBC Sport column on the game the journalist wrote: “We were all ready to declare this league as a done deal. No points for Rangers and another three for Celtic on Wednesday would stretch their lead to an Everestian 12 points.

“Short of a bubonic plague descending on Lennoxtown and taking out Callum McGregor and half his team-mates, it would have been impossible to see how Celtic wouldn’t win it comfortably from there.”

Referencing a match report that belatedly needed rewriting he went on: “‘A Celtic win on Wednesday and this league is done.’ Enter Arfield. Delete, delete, delete.”

He later added: “[Michael] Beale was a happy man, but not ecstatically happy. In the wake of the bedlam he saluted his players for their spirit but chastised them for their lack of quality.

“They survived, just. The title is still alive, just. The thrill of the night? Just wonderful.”

Fine margins

The gap to Celtic getting larger rather than smaller in the next few weeks is surely going to put the title out of reach, so the turnaround to bring it down to six points until the Bhoys host Livingston at least keeps the situation from getting any worse.

Maximum points need to be taken before the 2 January Old Firm derby, with a view to win that game and strike a psychological blow.

If the Hoops drop any before then it will be a bonus but focusing on his own side’s results is all Beale can do for now.

Having survived a scare in just his second game in charge, after needing to come from behind to win his first, the manager will be under no illusions of the size of his task.

He may ultimately have no real chance to truly threaten Postecoglou’s chances of retaining the title, but for the sake of lifting the atmosphere around Ibrox he needs to do all he can to avoid negative results for as long as possible.

But he is going to need to work out a way to get some better performances out of his squad in order to do so because things are looking unsustainable at the moment.

On a positive note, it looked like Rangers were liable to drop points every time they went out in the final days of the Giovanni van Bronckhorst era, so finding a way to dig out a win when it looked lost is an improvement.

There will have been hastily edited match reports across Scotland on Tuesday, and while English might be excited by the late turnaround it will have been a relief more than anything for Beale.

In other Rangers news, the manager has been warned by an official sponsor that the current squad will get him sacked.