Celtic star labelled 'world class' after Leipzig heroics as Rangers suffer critical transfer fail

Scottish champions Celtic boosted their hopes of Champions League progression with a 3-1 victory at home to Bundesliga title hopefuls RB Leipzig.

The Hoops went behind after a headed goal from Christoph Baymgartner in the first half but responded in emphatic fashion with a double from Nicolas Kuhn on the stroke of halftime before midfielder Reo Hatate finished the job off with a crucial third goal for the Hoops.

The result takes Celtic up to 13th in the table after four games and level on points with the likes of Manchester City, Juventus and Bayer Leverkusen. 

Celtic’s dominant performance represented huge progress after a run of 27 defeats from 28 matches in which they had gone behind - and many ex-pros were quick to praise the impact that Brendan Rodgers has had on the players in his second stint at Parkhead.

One player in particular that received great praise was captain Callum McGregor, who received an 8/10 rating by the Daily Record for his efforts.

However, Hoops legend Pat Nevin felt that even that rating did not sum up the magnitude of McGregor’s heroics and he instead stated that the skipper deserved at least a 9.5.

McGregor managed 87 touches and successfully completed 77 out of 80 passes with an impressive 96% accuracy. He was at the heart of everything that Celtic did well on what will ultimately go down as one of their best European nights in recent years.

Nevin told the Daily Record:  “You give Nicolas Kuhn his moment but every player deserves their moment. They were all eights and nines.

“Nine-and-a-half from Callum McGregor, he was extraordinary.

“I’m not mildly surprised by this. If you want to know how to do closing down high up the pitch, get a video of that. You don’t do it any better. That’s world class.”

Charlie Miller criticises Rangers transfer policy

Ex-Rangers midfielder Charlie Miller has claimed that a lack of local-knowledge is hampering Philippe Clement’s squads chances of success this season.

Rangers progressed to the Scottish League Cup final for the third consecutive season with a slender 2-1 victory over Motherwell. The line-up in what was a subdued performance featured just two Scottish footballers in John Souttar and Connor Barron.

“I think most of all, there’s not enough Scottish players in the team. Barron’s just come in as a young kid. I hope he goes on and does very well but we need the nucleus to know what the club is about.” He told the Daily Record.

Miller went on to discuss his period at Rangers from 1992 to 1999 when he was welcomed into the first team by big characters such as Richard Gough, Ally McCoist, Ian Durrant, Andy Goram, David Robertson, Stuart McCall and Gordon Durie.

“When I was there the nucleus of the team was probably six or seven Scottish players starting every week. Not just Scottish but Glaswegians as well, guys that supported the club growing up and knew exactly what the club meant. That’s a big miss. We’re not signing the best in Scotland.

We’ve missed so many of the Scottish players in the last few years – Lewis Ferguson, Josh Doig, Aaron Hickey, Andy Robertson. There’s probably more than that. I just don’t know who’s watching these guys who we’re signing.”

Rangers can look forward to an Old Firm showdown against Celtic at Hampden Park where they will look to avenge their League Cup final defeat from two years ago. 

However, Miller believes that the gap between the two teams is growing and has expressed concern about some of Clement’s recent post match comments. 

He explained:“It’s not great. From the top to the bottom it’s miles away. It’s a hard watch at the moment. Last week we’d the financial figures showing revenues up £90million but we’ve lost another £17m. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.

“And on the field we’ve not done any better. They did well against a very average Steaua Bucharest team who had their chairman pick their team. Is there light at the end of the tunnel? I was hoping it would be turned around but some of Clement’s quotes after games makes me doubt it because he’s obviously watched different games from me.

“He said that was the best they’ve played this season up at Pittodrie. Maybe for 10, 20 minutes they did OK. But a whole performance? No chance.

“We don’t play two up front. We needed to get a winning goal but in order to bring on a striker off the bench, he took off the other one. If you’re going to try and win the league you can’t do that. You have to gamble. You’re not going to win a league with Cyriel Dessers. He works his backside off but that’s the minimum you expect.”

Miller went on to discuss his concern about the club’s structure behind the scenes and whether it can lead to success.

He added: “We need to be winning leagues and cups in Scotland. Europe just gets you the money to survive and to build a team. But we’re making mistakes on every front, from top to the bottom. You had the shambles with the stadium at the start of the season. Now people are saying, ‘Sack Clement’. But there’s nobody there to sack him.”

Miller also discussed the club’s concerning away record in the aftermath of defeats to Aberdeen and Kilmarnock in October.

“We all want them to do well. But Clement has to watch the games properly because he’s not looking at the same games that I’m watching. That’s three games away from home we’ve lost already – and we’ve drawn one at Tynecastle. I think we’re bottom of the table when it comes to away games. It’s not acceptable.

“There’s been a lot of infighting at board level and for me they need to sort that out. If it’s not, we’re going to have another five years of this.”