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THE GLASGOW DERBY

Ten-man Celtic bounce back to beat Rangers once more

Celtic bounced back from twice going behind and down to 10 men to beat Rangers 3-2 at Ibrox on Sunday and take a huge step towards a seventh consecutive Scottish Premiership title.

Update:
Ten-man Celtic bounce back to beat Rangers once more
RUSSELL CHEYNEREUTERS

Celtic bounced back from twice going behind and down to 10 men to beat Rangers 3-2 at Ibrox on Sunday and take a huge step towards a seventh consecutive Scottish Premiership title.

Healthy lead

Brendan Rodgers's men now lead their Glasgow rivals by nine points and have a game in hand at the top of the table. Rangers' wait for a first league win over Celtic since 2012 continues, but they looked well set to stretch their recent fine form when they went in front through Josh Windass and Daniel Candeias in the first-half.

Both those strikes were quickly cancelled out by Tom Rogic and Moussa Dembele and despite Jozo Simunovic's red card just before the hour mark, Celtic still found the winner thanks to substitute Odsonne Edouard. Celtic were forced to hand a debut to goalkeeper Scott Bain due to a late injury picked up by Dorus de Vries, and he too was to play a big part in helping the champions seal a record fourth straight win at Ibrox.

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RUSSELL CHEYNEREUTERS

However, Bain's first involvement was to pick the ball out of his net after a terrible error by Dedryck Boyata just three minutes in. The Belgian defender gifted possession to Windass inside the Celtic half and the Rangers winger strode forward before blasting home his 17th goal of the season into the roof of the net.

Rangers' start

Rangers' early joy lasted just eight minutes as Rogic replied in spectacular fashion but curling into the top corner from 25 yards. However, they quickly restablished their lead thanks to more poor Celtic defending. Declan John's low cross evaded a host of bodies in the middle and fell for Candeias to fire home at the far post.

Again Celtic responded brightly and Wes Fotheringham was forced into brilliant saves to deny Dembele and Callum McGregor.

The visitors pressure paid off in first-half stoppage time when Dembele rounded off a frantic first period by lobbing Fotheringham for his sixth goal in eight games against Rangers.

After a brief lull in the action after the break, Rangers seemed to have been handed the upper hand once more when Simunovic was controversially shown a straight red card for what the referee's assistant deemed to be an elbow on Morelos.

Bain made his first big save to prevent Morelos's drive putting Rangers ahead for a third time after another slip by Boyata.

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RUSSELL CHEYNEREUTERS

Clinical Celtic counter-attacking

However, despite their numerical advantage, Rangers were caught cold by a clinical Celtic counter-attack. Edouard had only been on the field two minutes before he collected Dembele's layoff and then cut inside to curl high into the far corner. In contrast to their defending earlier in the game, Celtic's 10 men largely soaked up Rangers' pressure trouble free for the next 20 minutes.

But they were handed a huge let off two minutes from time when Bain saved Windass's low effort and Morelos somehow turned the rebound onto the post with the goal gaping from point-blank range before Bain collected the rebound.