Coming into the first Old Firm derby of the 2018/19 season there was a real sense that if the balance of power in Glasgow was not turning it was at least shifting more into the centre. Celtic under Brendan Rodgers had already dropped out of the Champions League to AEK Athens and they had enjoyed a difficult transfer window with their talented French forward Moussa Dembele departing for Lyon right at the end of the window. Rangers, on the other hand, looked revitalised under Steven Gerrard with impressive performances seeing them reach the group stage of the Europa League and making the team from the blue half of Glasgow extremely hard to break down domestically.
There was a sense though that to this point Gerrard had not been truly tested tactically. All of that would certainly change when he came up against Rodgers, a coach who has impressed with his tactical ability since moving to Glasgow to take charge of Celtic.
In the end, despite losing the match 1-0 this will be 90 minutes that will have taught Gerrard a lot about how to manage the game and how to make adjustments to counter specific tactical threats from the opposition.
What was most interesting about the match, in general, was the way in which Celtic were able to play through their opponents defensive structure using some clever movement and mechanisms.
Team News
The team news from Celtic Park was nothing out of the ordinary, at least in terms of the team that Steven Gerrard sent out for Rangers. Gerrard opted again for the 4-3-3 that has served him well so far this season with the veteran Alan McGregor in goal and a back four of James Tavernier, Connor Goldson and Nikola Katic centrally and Borna Barisic on the right. The midfield three saw Ryan Jack as the deeper controlling midfielder. Ahead of Jack were Ovie Ejaria and Scott Arfield. The front three consisted of Ryan Kent and Kyle Lafferty in the wide areas with Alfredo Morelos as the lone forward.
The starting structure for Celtic under Brendan Rodgers was notionally a 4-4-1-1 but as the game progressed this structure quickly evolved, as we will see below. The goalkeeper was Craig Gordon behind an apparent back four of Mikael Lustig, Dedrick Boyata, Kristoffer Ajer and Kieran Tierney. In midfield, James Forrest was selected on the right with Scott Brown and Olivier Ntcham centrally with Callum McGregor on the left. Tom Rogic was selected just behind Odsonne Edouard.
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