| Match Pictures | Matches: 1999 – 2000 | 1999-2000 Pictures |
Trivia
- Ian Wright’s case of bringing the game into disrepute at the Kilmarnock game of 23/1/00 was heard by the SFA. Wright appeared before the committee and had Kevin Sweeney represent him from the club. He escaped with a 1 match ban (to be served in England now that he had transferred to Burnley) and a personal apology.
- Celtic were associated with a Bulgarian left back, Ivailo Petkov, a 6ft 7” Czech striker by the name of Vratislav Lokvenc then with Sparta Prague, and a young striker from Raith Rovers, Paul Shields. Shields joined the club for £100k up front and a three year contract to June 2003.
- Jamie Smith went on a one month loan to Livingston.
- Eyal Berkovic was being linked to a move to Blackburn Rovers then managed by Graeme Souness
- In events outside Celtic, ex-Celt Frank McAvennie was seized by police and charged with being part of a drug ring following the seizure of £100k worth of Ecstacy and amphetamines in Glasgow.
- In an attempt to out-sucker the press who had been following an anti-Celtic and particularly anti-Dalglish stance for some weeks, Kenny Dalglish held the pre-match press conference in Bairds bar on the Gallowgate. The Press weren’t quite sure how to take this but made the usual stramash out of it. Some of the reports are shown here.
- The Sun: "Dalglish Staged His Press Conference In A Bar On Friday And Turned Out A Pub Team Yesterday!"
Review
A complete annihilation and a depressing result following the League Cup triumph earlier against Aberdeen the previous week. There were reasons, with injuries before and during the game, but it was very hard to take.
Teams
Rangers:
Klos, Amoruso, Numan, Ferguson, Kanchelskis, Van Bronckhorst, Wallace, Albertz (Tugay 85), Reyna, Wilson,Dodds (McCann 64).
Subs Not Used: Charbonnier, Nicholson, Penttila.
Goals: Albertz 4, Kanchelskis 41, Albertz 84,Van Bronckhorst 87.
Booked: Numan, Ferguson (Rangers)
Celtic:
Gould, Riseth, Mahe (Tebily 7), Boyd, Mjallby, McNamara, Lambert (Burchill 71), Petrov, Viduka, Moravcik, Johnson.
Subs Not Used: Kerr, Berkovic, Healy.
Booked: McNamara, Viduka, Petrov (Celtic)
Referee: Willie Young (Scotland).
Attendance: 50,039
Articles
- Match Report (see below)
Pictures
Articles
Rangers hammer it home
The Scotsman 27/03/2000
GLENN GIBBONS
Rangers 4 Celtic 0
WHATEVER advice Kenny Dalglish may have sought before making a decision on his future role at Celtic would have been rendered meaningless by this latest demonstration of his team's fatal inadequacies in the last Old Firm confrontation of the season at Ibrox.
The interim manager's only dilemma now resides in whether he is willing to accept an assignment so daunting that it would make James Bond choke on his martini. In a match which confirmed the season-long suspicion that Celtic have regressed while Rangers have moved relentlessly forward, Dalglish would see all of his troubles packed up in one old kit bag.
The 15-point gap which separates the champions from their feeble challengers at the top of the Premier League is no distortion of a difference between the sides which, in this almost ludicrously one-sided game, became incontrovertible. It is enough to cause Dalglish, having recently entered his 50th year, to examine his own motivation, to determine if he retains the will to begin what appears a monumental task.
Two days before yester-day's embarrassment, Dalglish touched on the memory of having transformed Blackburn Rovers from a Nationwide Division1 side into champions of the Premiership. That was an admirable accomplishment, but it is not quite comparing like with like. Celtic, clearly in need of a sweeping overhaul, do not have the money that was made available to him by Jack Walker, the Croesus of the English game. Even if they had, Dalglish will be aware of the difficulties of attracting players of championship material to Glasgow in sufficient numbers and quickly enough to satisfy the demands of a support now demented by the team's continuing ordinariness. The prospect of a long haul back could be discouraging enough to cause Dalglish to settle for the comparative restfulness of the director's chair.
As Celtic descended into poverty yesterday, it was hugely to Rangers' credit that, from the moment Jorg Albertz gave them the lead after only four minutes, they should impose themselves so authoritatively and so wantonly on a fixture which they could have allowed to pass almost unnoticed.
When a watchspring loses its tension, the timepiece is deprived of movement. The same might have been said even of an Old Firm match whose only significance in the run-up appeared to be as an aid to determining by how many points Rangers will retain the championship.
But the early arrival of the Ibrox side's opening goal amounted to an assurance the game would not descend into blandness, with Dick Advocaat's team coolly defending their 12-point lead and Celtic leaning on the risk-free caution that has marked their endeavours since Dalglish became the interim manager.
Left with no option but to go off in pursuit of an equaliser, the Parkhead side for a short time re-acquainted themselves with the adventurous spirit that has been central to their history, but for most of the time they lacked the deadliness of those alumni who had brought the club so much success up to and including 1988.
It was during a first half that was – Rangers' goals apart -fairly even that the essential difference between these great rivals was in evidence. It is that, when Rangers take control of the play, they make it count. Celtic supporters had to cast their memories back only 18 days to recall their team's virtually unchallenged authority for 80 minutes of the last meeting and the pain of defeat when that superiority was not translated into goals.
Despite their industriousness and their determination to shrug off the early setback of Albertz's goal, Celtic managed to reach the interval without having forced Stefan Klos to make a solitary save. The closest they came to having a shot on target was when Lubomir Moravcik was blocked by Claudio Reyna after the Slovakian had received Tommy Johnson's cut-back from the right side of the penalty area.
Given the merest hint of an opening, Rangers were contrastingly ruthless. That first goal may have been partly attributable to appalling marking by the visiting defenders, but there was no mistaking the will behind it. Giovanni van Bronckhorst's corner kick from the right found Lorenzo Amoruso -utterly without challenge – at the back post and the Italian's header across goal was headed over the line by the marauding Albertz from two yards.
Rangers have such an impressive record in these collisions, too, because they tend to maintain a more efficient shape than Celtic. Players such as Albertz, Arthur Numan, Van Bronckhorst, Reyna and Barry Ferguson are blessed with composure and an appreciation of the geometry of the game that seems to ensure there will be moments in any match when they will be able to engineer scoring opportunities.
There is also a decisiveness about the Ibrox side which seemed yesterday to have by-passed most of the Celtic midfielders and defenders. Too often, they appeared slow to see or react to the quickly-executed through passing of Albertz or Van Bronckhorst, allowing Rod Wallace, Billy Dodds, Andrei Kanchelskis or whoever else was the intended target to make untracked runs into the reception area and keep Jonathan Gould in full-time work.
In these matches, the concession of a second goal tends to bring on an understandable fear of a humiliation that can pull the victims towards disintegration; Celtic were afflicted by the condition from the earliest moments of the second half and it became a small miracle that they had not conceded the third and fourth goals long before Albertz and van Bronckhorst completed the scoring.
The second had been typical of Rangers' alertness to the main chance and of Celtic's sluggishness. Olivier Tebily, who had replaced the injured Stephane Mahe after only five minutes, was fatally nonchalant with a pass inside the centre circle, allowing van Bronckhorst to steal the ball. A quick flick to Kanchelskis allowed the former Russian international to run unchallenged towards Gould and clip the ball low to the goalkeeper's left.
With their morale as low as a sunken ship, Celtic were not helped by the continued deterioration of the form of Mark Viduka and Moravcik. Recent matches have indicated a loss of touch by the two players who have consistently been the Parkhead side's most valuable since the injury-enforced absence of Henrik Larsson. Even when, during the second half, Rangers began to coast and Celtic were allowed the occasional visit to Klos's vicinity, Viduka looked uncharacteristically cumbersome and slow of thought. At one point, with the score at 2-0, the big Australian ran clear of Amoruso, but delayed the shot long enough to allow Klos to make the block .
It was not long after that Albertz scored the third. Neil McCann, who had replaced Dodds, was sent clear on the left and drew Gould off his line before cutting back to the German, who knocked the ball home with his left foot from close range. One minute later, precisely the time Tugay had been on the field in place of Albertz, the Turk supplied Kanchelskis on the right, the centre was relayed by Wallace on to van Bronckhorst and the Dutchman rattled in the fourth with a fine left-foot shot from 18 yards.
- Manager Interview
Kenny Dalglish post match:
"If we could put out our best team on the pitch against their best team, I don't think there would be very much in it, but when it comes down to suspensions and injuries, they have got a greater strength in depth than we have, but none of my players lacked commitment.
"I do not feel today's result is acceptable, nor was the performance and the gap we are now behind Rangers. All of us, everybody at the club, those of us who prepare the team for games and the players, have a responsibility to improve on that. We should all feel we have let the club down."
“With Alan Stubbs suffering a knee injury in training and Morten Wieghorst not making it, we were a bit pushed.
"We had to put on Olivier Tebily who has not played since the African Nations' Cup and we should never really have played Paul Lambert. We had to go to him and ask him to go on but we didn't do him any favours. We have to admire him for taking the chance."
"I have not said I would want the job and I have not said I wouldn't want the job. We have said we would sit down and discuss the options at the end of March and then, hopefully, pick the best one in the best interests of the club and that means the supporters, the players, and everyone connected with the club.
"Whoever is in the frame will remain private and confidential. We want to inform the fans as best we can but will want to treat conversations we have with as much confidentiality as we can. "We will decide what is best for the club. There will be a lot of speculation but we have said all along quality is more important than time."