CELTIC fans remain at war with their club for not splashing out enough in the transfer window.
But there are 30-odd million reasons why they should be careful what they wish for.
We’re talking the cash their rivals across the city have chucked around like sweeties to try to buy success — an outlay they haven’t got enough value out of for the bus fare home.
We’re talking Nasser Djiga, a £10m defender who can’t defend.
We’re talking Youssef Chermiti, £22m of striker who missed two sitters and was shown up by a pair of Hoops rookies who cost tuppence ha’penny between them.
We’re talking Thelo Aasgaard, whose £3.95m summer fee is worthless when he’s up the tunnel for the kind of brainless tackle that left his mates a man short for well over an hour.
Chuck in the £5m gambled on Danilo, £4m on the bit-part Oliver Antman, £4m on the lesser-spotted Oscar Cortes plus the wages they’re paying Jayden Meghoma, Max Aarons, Joe Rothwell and more and suddenly the Parkhead board are looking like recruitment geniuses.
Don’t get me wrong, Rangers were brave as lions here, especially after the red card.
Their young coach Danny Rohl made a real game of it by getting in Celtic’s faces rather than sitting back and hoping for a lucky break.
They can also quite rightly complain about ref Nick Walsh not making it ten v ten when Auston Trusty flicked a toe into the diving Jack Butland’s face just before half-time then tried to kid on he hadn’t meant it.
When the dust settles along with their anger, though, they’ll know exactly the same as Rohl will know and what sporting director Kevin Thelwell should be totally affronted about.
The fact they’ve wasted fortunes on players who simply aren’t good enough.
Once again, it was down to 34-year-old skipper James Tavernier to hold things together, playing three different positions across two hours, covering every blade of the Hampden turf and smashing the unstoppable penalty that hauled them back into it against the odds.
Once again, you were left to wonder where they’d be without a guy some fans would’ve had out the doors years ago.
Once again, as so often on Old Firm days, he was left looking around in vain for handers when the chips were down.
Tavernier started on the right of midfield after Rohl decided three at the back would be the way to plug the kind of leaks that have dogged them all season.
Trouble is, you can play three at the back or ten at the back, but if you have a guy in there who spreads panic through the ranks the way Djiga did from his first touch, you’re always going to be up against it.
Celtic targeted him from the off, a no-brainer given that a guy Wolves signed for eight figures nine months ago is a bag of jaggies whenever the ball comes within swiping distance.
Witness the moment 19 minutes in when he took an almighty a***-winder at a loose ball, smashed it off Nico Raskin and watched it loop over Jack Butland and in.
His blushes were only spared by Daizen Maeda being an oxter- hair offside in the build-up.
Within moments of that let-off, we saw one of the German gaffer’s other big calls start to go pear-shaped, when Chermiti was played clean in behind a snoozing defence only to poke timidly beyond Kasper Schmeichel and wide.
Just after the half-hour, with Celtic ahead through a Johnny Kenny header that was as flashing as the efforts of four blue shirts to stop it were pitiful, the former Everton frontman was unmarked at the far post as Tavernier whipped in a lethal free-kick.
Predictably, he shinned it horribly wide, which came as a surprise to exactly no one in the stadium. Beside him, Danilo was back in his shell after Wednesday night’s matchwinning heroics at Easter Road, barely getting himself involved before behind hooked at the break.
As for Aasgaard?
Call it a rush of blood, shrug that there was no malice in it, excuse it all you like.
But his lunge into Tony Ralston’s thigh was a red all day long — literally, when you saw the weals it left — and it put Rangers in all sort of bother.
It’s to the massive credit of Rohl and those he was left to shuffle around that they stayed in the match for as long as they did.
But as so often in a sorry campaign, they simply had too many glaring issues in terms of personnel and decision-making to come away anything but on the losing side.
The window surely can’t open quickly enough for a gaffer who must already be tearing his hair out so fast he’ll look like Philippe Clement by Christmas.
THERE are so many things about a wonderfully chaotic Saturday evening at Hampden that I’ll never forget.
Dan Nlundulu’s searing hit for the second goal. Killian Phillips playing keepy-uppy and smashing a volley off the bar in the lead-up to the fourth.
The colour and noise both sets of fans created despite the stadium being less than half full. The sheer joy on the faces of everyone in black and white when it was all over.
But most memorable of all, maybe — through a St Mirren fan’s eyes, at least — was the sight of the magnificent Alex Gogic charging off the pitch at full-time, running up the Main Stand stairs, kissing his wife and grabbing his kids to let them share in a joyous lap of honour.
Phillips followed, then two-goal Mika Mandron and more. Good guys, knackered guys, so aware of what mattered in their own moment of glory — the people who love them most.
That spoke volumes about what Stephen Robinson looks for in his signings.
Yes, it’s a given they need to be able to play, but for them to punch as far above their weight as they do, they need character, decency, togetherness, all the stuff that can’t be coached.
There’s a lot of sneery nonsense spoken about this Saints team, veiled insults about physicality and directness.
But look at those goals on Saturday night and tell me they can’t play, look at the way they carried out their gaffer’s tactical masterclass to perfection and tell me they’re all kick-and-rush.
Yes, Well were a disappointment to their big, noisy support. They were too open, too tippy-tappy and at times utterly naive as they fell into the traps Robinson set.
There’s also no doubt, though, that they were well beaten by an opposition who didn’t have a failure, but who in Gogic, Phillips, Miguel Freckleton and Mandron had an unbreakable spine and who never looked like losing.
I’m delighted for Robinson, a man with the knack of taking birds with broken wings and making them fly again.
So many of his squad had lost their way before arriving in Paisley, but have found a home there, maybe even a second family.
Of the squad he led to Europe last season, nearly a team’s worth have moved on.
Now, those he’s replaced them with so seamlessly are in a cup final. One where they’ll fear nothing and no one.
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