Let's recap where things stood three weeks ago, with Timo Werner torturing Kyle Walker and Rangers dropping points against a Dundee United side trapped in their bus for four hours by Storm Bert.
Funny old game, football. Minutes after Vaclav Cerny's equalizer failed to silence the boos around Ibrox, James Maddison celebrated his 28th birthday by firing into Tottenham Hotspur's opening match against Pep Guardiola's all-conquering Manchester City.
The fourth goal came when Werner raced past Walker – once the fastest defender in English football – as if he were rounding a retired Chelsea player in the local Waitrose, crossing low for Brennan Johnson to complete the rout.
Google maps will tell you that the distance between Ibrox and the Etihad Stadium is 220 miles. At half past seven on November 23, Rangers and Spurs seemed light years apart.
Philippe Clement looked like one of those tortured Dickens characters in a story where Ange Postecoglou – the ghost of the Celtic past – threatened to team up with Brendan Rodgers – the ghost of the Celtic present – to snatch away any hope of redemption at Christmas .
A Europa League match with Spurs exuded more danger than an evening on the tiles with David Coote. A cup final against Celtic had the appeal of a tooth extraction with rusty pliers dipped in Domestos. The Belgian looked like a walking dead man.
Now here we are – just three weeks later – with Postecoglou enduring cries of 'sacked in the morning' as he hands Werner both barrels after using the big hook to clear the hopeless German off the Ibrox pitch at half-time. to tow.
If Werner feels deeply affected, you can hardly blame him. All over the pitch, Spurs dived out of the tackles, gave the ball away and performed like a team determined to kick the manager out the door faster than Walker can reach his Zimmer. Big Ange might as well have picked Maddison or Son Heung-Min or Destiny Udogie. The only player to come away with enough points was goalkeeper Fraser Forster.
While it is only right to take into account crippling injuries in central defence, Daniel Levy's Spurs remain the fourth biggest net spenders in English football over the past five years. This is a club that spent £64 million on Dominic Solanke, for crying out loud.
Despite everything, a Rangers team without a pot to plant in made one of English football's more moneyed than sensible brigades look poor and ordinary.
Unrecognizable from the shapeless pack that trailed Aberdeen by nine points after a shaky start to the domestic season, Clement's team really deserved to win by a few goals. Nico Raskin was a revelation, beating Rodrigo Bentancur and Yves Bissouma in midfield. Cerny played like a man who knew there were clubs with more money than the Rangers watching in the stands.
Meanwhile, it is probably no coincidence that the team has improved endlessly since Hamza Igamane replaced Cyriel Dessers in the front three.
With five goals in five games and a few nutmegs in the vault, the Moroccan newcomer is a revelation. If he had run for that chance in the closing minutes instead of Dessers, Ibrox would have felt like Leeds '92 all over again.
All this gives Brendan Rodgers unexpected food for thought ahead of a Premier Sports Cup final that is unlikely to be as one-sided as Celtic supporters expected. Or Rangers fans feared.
When the Old Firm meet in Hampden the matches are always exciting. Last season's Scottish Cup final was settled by Adam Idah's late Celtic goal and this should be another sticking point affair. That's a scenario Rangers would have discovered three weeks ago. If Clement now completes the turnaround by claiming his first win over Celtic in six attempts, he will command a mea culpa from fans and commentators – including this one – who have labeled him a sacker of the post.
None of this guarantees a Rangers victory. How is that possible in a match where they haven't won a meaningful match since the Scottish Cup semi-final of April 2022? How much confidence can they really project when Brendan Rodgers has lost just one of his 19 derbies in two spells as Celtic manager?
The physical and emotional demands of a Thursday night ding dong with Tottenham could take a heavy toll. For that reason alone, the exclusion of Ianis Hagi and Danilo from the Europa League squad has gone from a management ploy to a clever piece of resource management in the space of 24 hours.
Both will be ready for a cup final in which Clement desperately needs to get the monkey off his back. And while the lack of recovery and the loss of John Souttar – their best defender in recent weeks – won't help, the Rangers boss must know that excuses and waffles won't help if he fails to beat Celtic again.
If you lose tomorrow, all that celebratory cheer after Spurs would quickly wither and fade away. The players would again duck out of a side door at Ibrox with blankets over their heads.
That said, Celtic haven't been quite at their best over the past week.
Cameron Carter-Vickers may not be the best player at Parkhead, but he is the most important. As long as he plays, Rangers will find Celtic a tougher nut to penetrate than Hibs did last weekend.
In a strange affair, a Champions League point in Zagreb should have felt like a great result for the Scottish champions. And that might have been the case if they weren't enjoying the kind of dominance they would normally expect at Easter Road or McDiarmid Park. Not winning the match felt like a missed opportunity. A source of regret.
The bedwetting has since become exaggerated. Opta puts Celtic's chances of missing the Champions League play-offs at just three per cent and, blessed by a decent draw, there is a good chance they beat a pointless Young Boys at home to seal the deal.
Turn up, fit and shoot, as Daizen Maeda chases James Tavernier to distraction, and there's a good chance they win the Scottish League Cup too.
But for the first time this season, Rangers and their supporters will head to the national stadium, infused with an emotion they haven't felt for an Old Firm match for some time. Heap.
Favorable draw gives Scots a chance to fight
All in all, a decent World Cup draw for Scotland. As a bare minimum, a play-off place to finish second in a four-team group is not out of their reach.
They gave Cristiano Ronaldo's Portugal a run for their money in the Nations League, both home and away.
The 2-0 win over Denmark at Hampden last campaign was one of the best performances of Steve Clarke's time in charge.
Ivan Jovanovic's team, already playing against Greece in the Nations League play-offs, will soon feel like the new Israel.
And while Hellas fans might be valuing their chances of winning the group, almost none of them wanted Scotland as their pot three team.
The only question surrounding Belarus, the group's cannon fodder, is where on earth they will play it after UEFA ordered all their matches to take place at a neutral venue.
Could the draw have been better? Probably. Could it have been worse? Absolutely no question.
Comments