They were serenaded off at the break. O’Neill made changes, as he had to. On came Reo Hatate and Sebastian Tounekti and off went the new men to this fixture, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Junior Adamu. O’Neill could have pulled the trigger on many more, but he left it at two. And it worked. He got his team very badly wrong to begin with, but he righted the wrongs thereafter.
The mentality of sport. You could spend 100 years studying it and still not understand it. Yes, it was about new blood and new tactical thinking, but it was more than that. A team with all the belief suddenly started running out of it. A team with zero belief were suddenly reborn. Confidence is a fickle beast. From nothing, Celtic lorded the second half.
Hatate, a player who has looked a poor version of his best self this season, had a huge impact. He forced the first save out of Jack Butland after 55 minutes. Celtic were now on top. Rangers were in full retreat.
When Kieran Tierney pulled one back with a header it was just reward, Rangers were idling and Celtic were desperate. Where was this urgency earlier on? Daizen Maeda and Luke McCowan could and should have scored.
The thought occurred that after getting out of jail so often in recent times, maybe time was going to catch up with them again. Maybe all of this pressure was too little, too late. There was no act of escapology against Hibernian last week – and with a few minutes to go, you struggled to see one coming here.
It did, of course. The way this season is going – drama at every turn – a late, late penalty was never going to cut it in terms of theatre. No, no. There had to be more.
Hatate’s penalty was saved by Butland, as was his shot on the rebound. Ibrox contorted itself as the goalkeeper performed heroics and then the place let out a guttural groan as Hatate made it third time lucky. The visiting Celtic fans away in the distance went berserk. Sanity plucked from the jaws of madness.
Celtic had their draw. Not what they came for, not what they needed, but it was more than they thought they were getting at the break. And a lot less than what Rangers thought they were getting.