With Philippe Clement under serious pressure, the Rangers boss certainly needed a few career-best performances from his charges when Celtic came to town.
And boy didn’t he get them.
Robin Propper not only opened his Rangers account but also kept the Old Firm specialist Kyogo Furuhashi quiet alongside the faultless Dujon Sterling in a makeshift backline. Ridvan Yilmaz and Jefte largely dominated Celtic’s fearsome wing duo of Nicolas Kuhn and Daizen Maeda.
Nico Raskin has never played better in a Rangers shirt. You could possibly say the same about Nedim Bajrami too.
As for Ianis Hagi, well let’s just say all is forgiven between he and Philippe Clement.
The Romania international had to wait until October to make his first Premiership appearance of 2024/25 after a contract situation left him in the reserves and stripped of his number ten shirt. Talk about making up for lost time.
Ianis Hagi was ‘sensational’ from the very first whistle, opening the scoring with a laser-guided finish past Kasper Schmeichel before delivering a masterclass in how to bamboozle an opposition defence while slaloming this way and that and pulling various rabbits out of a multitude of hats.
Ianis Hagi’s Rangers display leaves Ross McCormack in disbelief
Ross McCormack, the former Scotland striker who started his career at Ibrox, found himself rubbing his eyes in disbelief after one particularly mesmerising piece of play.
“Hagi, for sure,” McCormack says when asked to pick his standout performers. “There was one [moment] in the first-half where he sort of chopped a couple of times and he’s looking up the line and everybody thinks he’s maybe going to bend a ball in behind for [Hamza] Igamane.
“[Instead], he’s whipped it inside the pitch and I thought ‘wow’.
“That’s the difference for me. It’s alright having these players who can, you know, keep the ball and pass it side to side. You’ve got to have something different. And, for me, he opens up the game for Rangers.”
It’s telling really that, despite missing the first few months of the campaign, only James Tavernier has more Premiership assists this season than Hagi. Three in six starts, and now a goal too. His first in a Rangers shirt for 16 months.
“He had a sensational match,” Ilie Dumitrescu, the former Tottenham, West Ham United and Romania attacker, tells Digi Sport. “He shoots very well. A well-placed shot, he surprised the goalkeeper. I think he’s an excellent goalkeeper, Schmeichel. [Hagi] did very well.”
“Mentally, he seemed to me to be at the highest level. To get through the terrible moments, to have no chance to play…”
Hagi has gone from outcast to talisman in double-quick time.
Hagi delighted to put difficult spell behind him at Ibrox
On current form, it is hard to envisage a scenario in which Clement leaves him out of his starting XI, not just because of what he provides in terms of creativity but also because his presence on the left allows Bajrami to start in his favoured number ten role.
“It’s definitely special,” Hagi smiles, clearly holding no grudges following a summer of uncertainty. “It just shows, it’s not just in my case, just in general, football players around the world, young kids coming out from academies, football is not just all fun and it will all go perfect.
“It’s part of a football player’s career and as long as they respect football, they love what they do and they train 100 per cent no matter the situation, things will will sort [themselves] out. I’m obviously an example of that recently.
“I’ve been through a lot and, thankfully, I’m mature enough to understand certain situations in football and how the business part of it [works]. This is football and you have to respect it and love it.”
