Take your medicine.
The Scottish Sun
3rd January 2011
Bill Leckie
GEORGIOS SAMARAS spent Christmas in his sickbed.
Freddie Ljungberg missed his debut with the sniffles.
And their fans even took a coughing fit during the minute's silence.
No wonder Neil Lennon looked like he needed a Lemsip and a lie down as time ticked down to the game many reckoned could make or break him.
But there's no tonic on earth like a win.
No medicine like seeing your team sweat it out to get their job done.
No hangover cure for the punters like seeing the league table this morning.
If they're honest, they must have feared the worst. Injuries, illness and international call-ups had left them nine men short.
The team Lennon picked seemed as thin as a one-ply tissue.
Yet in the end, it was Rangers who caught a cold. It was Gers who went home spluttering.
They ran out of ideas faster than a sneeze escapes your hooter.
The longer it went on, the more mistakes spread through their ranks like a virus.
Twice they had possession in dangerous areas deep in Celtic territory. Twice they ended up picking the ball out of their own net.
Long before the end, they looked around themselves and wondered where the draught was coming from.
Then they realised it was the doors being booted open as fed-up punters decided they'd had enough.
There's surely no worse feeling on these days of tit-for-tat gloating than seeing the other lot celebrate on your patch.
Back in October, it was the Celtic hordes who had to put up with it after their players were run out of it in a one-sided second half.
Now, the tables were turned.
And the Bluenoses masses weren't hanging about to see the Broomloan Stand party.
They could be waking up this morning two points clear the top with two games in hand. Instead, you doubt if they fancy emerging from under the duvet.
It was a strange afternoon, one where the usual poison mingled in the chill air with the raw emotion of remembrance. Where Celtic had made a big show of keeping out a rabble-rousing element of their support but when the cops let others smuggle in smoke bombs and one guy even got through the turnstiles in a Pope costume.
And where the ultra-moronic found a surreal way to try and screw up a tribute to the 66 lives lost in the 1971 Ibrox Disaster.
As the stadium fell still on ref Craig Thomson's whistle, a cough came from the Celtic End. Then another. Then another and another and lots more anothers until it was as clear as the red nose on a flu-ridden reindeer's face that this was an orchestrated effort to make a point.
What that point was, we'll never know. But it seems some lame-brains just don't have the civility to shut the hell up for 60 seconds in memory of others.
As the seconds ticked painfully slowly, someone in the middle of the away support started to applaud.To the credit of others around him, he was quickly and quietly shut up.
So, with the minute's silence at an end, we settled down for 90 minutes of tedium.
Because, boy, it was a duff game.
There were times when you couldn't have trusted either side to pass the salt at the dinner table, never mind move a ball ten yards to a team-mate.
Here were 50,000 fans, paying fortunes for the privilege of a seat, waiting in vain for someone to have even a quarter-decent effort on goal.
Worst of all, here were two teams taking part in what's meant to be the most passionate derby on the planet, laying less of a glove on each other than Audrey Harrison had on the boy David Haye.
I've said it many times and it's worth repeating. Take away the insanity and Old Firm games have become some of most mind-numbing of the season.
Though 'who cares?' chorus Celtic men in loud unison.
What they saw was a patchwork side repelling whatever Rangers could throw at them - however little that was - before slowly but surely imposing themselves on the game.
Young winger James Forrest should have scored from Paddy McCourt's cunning reverse pass in the first half, but hesitated and was ploughed by Lee McCulloch.
McCourt himself then ran clear 56 seconds after the break, but dragged his shot across the goal and wide.
By the hour, it was becoming hard to see where a home goal was coming from. Though that didn't make it any less surprising to see an away one.
Ricky Foster had any number of options to choose from as he cut inside from right-back, 20 yards inside the opposition half.
Passing straight to Joe Ledley shouldn't have been one of them - and in an instant, the Welshman released Samaras, who skipped past Allan McGregor as the keeper needlessly raced 30 yards from goal and rolled the ball into an empty net.
Ledley ran and leapt into his manager's arms. Samaras went into the crowd behind the goal. Some of the crowd behind the goal tried to get on the park.
Rangers stood like statues, frozen by their own stupidity.
They never defrosted again.
Eight minutes later, with 20 to go, they had options again when Celtic only half-cleared a corner - yet once again they lost the ball and once again Samaras was away.
This time, he was wide on the right. He looked up and saw no support, so held and held until he saw a chink of light between young midfielder Jamie Ness and defender Madjid Bougherra.
The Algerian hung out a leg. The Greek went over it.
The whistler pointed to the spot.
Done and dusted.A Celtic team who had come with hope rather than expectation were swaggering like champions. A striker left to graft away on his own had found an endless supply of pals.
From the away end, up went chorus after chorus of the 80s classic Just Can't Get Enough.
But the rest of Ibrox had already seen way too much.
