As regulars to Ibrox Noise will know, we are not usually ones to discuss that lot from the other side of the city. Indeed, this is Ibrox Noise, not Parkhead Noise, and it’s all about the Rangers here. But this is an exception, when Celtic do raise their very ugly heads and become an important topic. Such as Celtic’s Rangers advantage.

That is to say that naturally Ibrox Noise went into last weekend with the distinct potential of Rangers offering the gauntlet to Celtic again. Rangers, playing on the Saturday, with a potential win, could have handed the pressure all over to Celtic. We could have gone top of the table and seen if they would respond.

They did manage to last weekend, but would they be able to do that two weekends in a row? Time, of course, has revealed what actually happened.

Rangers Title Race Opportunity Wasted

Rangers missed the opportunity entirely and choked on the night. The players were not up to it at all, and the manager got it all wrong. Consequently, a chance to go top was completely missed, and all that happened was that temporarily the gap was briefly closed to one point. Hardly ruthless.

Which is exactly the opposite of what happened at Parkhead, and here is where Derek McInnes’ real problem kicks in.

Celtic hosted Hearts in the huge repeat of last season’s finale. Hearts didn’t have the best match at Parkhead last season and fell short of winning the title. All they needed to do was get the draw, and the title was theirs.

But unfortunately for them, they crashed. They just didn’t have the steam left, and Celtic took advantage of it in the final match.

This was a chance for Hearts to get some small revenge. Even a point would have caused serious damage to Celtic’s title aspirations, and with Rangers having dropped two points, anything other than a win for the home side for us would have been a glorious bonus, even if there was still a stench at Ibrox of missed opportunity.

Celtic Make A Ruthless Statement

However, what Martin O’Neill’s side did in the east end of Glasgow has repainted the league significantly yet again. We know that there’s going to be twists and turns all through the season, and it is the closest league that we’ve seen in a long time, the closest title race that we’ve seen for many, many a season.

But Celtic went out there and demolished the visitors.

Yes, Hearts are down a Lawrence Shankland, a Derek McInnes and a Cammy Devlin, not to mention one or two others. But the entire difference in the ruthlessness of Celtic compared with what Hearts were able to do was night and day.

Yes, Celtic are an absolute joke in Europe. It is nothing but a burden to them. But unfortunately Rangers, while managing to get that gigantic victory at Parkhead a few weeks ago, find that it’s absolutely worthless now because Celtic are four points clear, having destroyed Hearts 7-1. No European hangover at all.

In all fairness, it wasn’t even an inaccurate reflection of the match. O’Neill’s side were ruthless, clinical and sorted this one out pretty quickly. They made a huge statement and took a huge stride towards the title this season already.

This is a worrying sign in October.

Rangers Title Race Warning Signs

Celtic are 23 goals to the good, Rangers are just 13. It is way, way below where Rangers need to be right now. We’ve conceded more, and we’ve scored considerably less than Celtic.

Rangers at the moment domestically, while they had that strong seven match victory run, nevertheless have been completely exposed by what’s happened over this weekend. Celtic’s Rangers advantage has arisen.

We did not have the right gumption to win against a hardy Dundee, while Celtic absolutely dismantled the side that are one place higher than Dundee in the league.

It’s a worrying sign, and while we know the usual happy clappers will scream, “Give them time, FFS” and “Give them a chance, FFS” and “It’s only October, FFS”. Alas October is when a league can be lost.

It doesn’t tend to get won at this point, but you can sure as heck lose it.

The simple reality is that Rangers have absolutely dropped the ball here. The season hasn’t been good enough. Even though we got those seven wins in a row, they were by low goal margins, and the performances weren’t great.

Unfortunately, Dundee were the first side that we’ve come up against that really did know what it was doing. They knew how to handle us.

Against Celtic, of course, Rangers raised their level to hysteria levels. It was a strong performance at Parkhead and a miraculous result. Two wins in a row against the side from the east was an outstanding return, but it’s starting to look at the moment like it was a bit of a false dawn.

Celtic’s Experience Gives Them The Advantage

Rangers sit four points behind in October, and while it’s maybe not an absolute mountain to climb as we suggested before, it’s certainly a very big hill.

Of course, Celtic only need to lose one match and Rangers to get back to winning ways, and it all changes again. We do expect that there will be many, many more twists in this rollercoaster before the end of the season. But then, the green and white lot have only lost once in the league, and of course, it was to us. Hence Celtic’s Rangers advantage.

Celtic also have the big advantage over Rangers that they know how to win this league. Their manager knows how to win this league, and he’s done so many, many times, and their players are experienced in doing so as well.

Rangers’ players aren’t.

Rangers do not have a single Premiership league winner in the entire squad, which is a bit of a problem to say the least. Indeed, a whole bunch of project players who are quite young and have talent, but no experience of being victors or champions.

One or two do in different leagues (Chucky for Graz, Penrice for AEK), but not for Rangers and not in Scotland.

As such, we do not know exactly where this league is going to go, but we know that unfortunately, for now, it is Celtic’s Rangers advantage.