‘Real Rangers stand up in Old Firm win, but can they keep standing?’

So much for the narrative of Philippe Clement’s Judgement Day morphing into Doomsday.

So much for a Rangers team stripped of their goalkeeper, their right-back and two of their best centre-backs becoming another notch on Brendan Rodgers’ belt.

From a few minutes past three on Thursday, the Celtic manager looked antsy. He gesticulated his frustration in a way we rarely see from him on days like this.

Normally, it’s plain sailing. Here, it was the choppiest of waters, blue waves crashing.

His main men, rumbled. Players who have lorded it over this fixture, hassled and harried and ransacked of possession.

For a little while, none of this was huge cause for alarm for Celtic – they’d seen it before – until Rangers scored, then scored again.

You rubbed your eyes at points at the physical mismatch. Rangers’ hunger, workrate, creativity, ambition.

Most of these players in blue were culpable in different ways and in varying degrees in dropping points in seven different league games so far this season, but this was a different story.

A combined XI on the day would have had 11 Rangers men and none from Celtic.

With no away fans allowed, Rangers also had the monopoly on wanton idiocy when Arne Engels was hit by a coin, the missile hitting him a few centimetres from his eye.

Your team is 3-0 ahead in a fixture you haven’t won in an age, your bitter rivals have been beaten at last, your players have delivered a thunderous performance – and your instinct is to throw coins.

Whoever was responsible – find them, charge them, sentence them and ban them.