On Sunday 30 April, Celtic and Rangers will face off in the Scottish Cup semi-final at Hampden Park in Glasgow. Recent history between the two teams has shown some curious trends. Carl Starfelt, the Celtic centre-half, has scored as many goals against Celtic in the past two seasons as Alfredo Morelos and Ryan Kent. In the Ange Postecoglou seasons, Rangers defender Filip Helander – who hasn’t played for the club in more than a year – still has as many goals against Celtic than any Rangers midfielder or striker. Kyogo Furuhashi has scored five goals in his past three games against Rangers, which is more than Morelos has scored in six seasons of games against Celtic. Across the span of the past two seasons, no Rangers player has scored more than once from open play in the derby, while four Celtic players have done so.
Celtic’s speed of thought and speed of movement has been mostly too much for Rangers. Kyogo’s goals in the League Cup final and late equaliser at Ibrox originated with a cross from the right-hand side of Rangers’ defence. Celtic’s 3-2 win in Glasgow’s east end was two years of games in microcosm. Kyogo’s first began with a move down the right, his second happened with an error on the left of goal from Ben Davies, and Celtic’s third was the kind of calamity we’ve seen much of.
Rangers have had more shots, more open play crosses and more touches in the opposition box, but Celtic have been more ruthless with their chances. They’ve scored 18 goals in nine Old Firm matches in two seasons with a shot conversion rate that’s more or less double that of Rangers’. Kyogo isn’t just a physical being on the pitch in front of Rangers defenders, he’s a demon in their heads.
Rangers have big decisions to make on multiple players who are out of contract in the coming months. Kent is one of them, but his influence and goals return is nowhere near where it needs to be – a mere 28 goals in more than 160 domestic games. Morelos has scored 12 goals in domestic competition this season, which is the same as Heart of Midlothian’s Lawrence Shankland minus his penalties and still five fewer than Kevin van Veen when you take away the Motherwell striker’s penalties.
Rangers have nothing else to comfort them if it goes wrong on Sunday. No soft landing. No upbeat finale to the season. Just a weary post-mortem and summer surgery with tens of thousands of fans in the operating theatre with them, studying their every move. This is their last crack for the season. That rage for victory will make them dangerous, but sometimes in this fixture the danger that Rangers pose is to themselves as much as to Celtic. The whirling dervish that is Kyogo has been the difference of late. Any Rangers weakness on the day and they’ll know who’ll be there to hurt them – again.