Last throw of dice puts Celtic on a roll as Rangers rue luck

ANYONE examining the events of the past two weeks, culminating in Celtic's second successive victory over Rangers on Sunday, would find it impossible to avoid the impression that, in the hands of Gordon Strachan's side at the moment, the dice are red hot.

All the elements of a gambler's lucky streak are contained in the four straight successes against Motherwell, Aberdeen and Rangers that have catapulted them into a five-point lead in the Premier League, at the same time halving the bookmakers' odds against their retaining the title and extending the Ibrox team's from a prohibitive 4-1 on to a more backable 1-2.

Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink's impossibly late winner in the fourth minute of stoppage time in the first of the Old Firm fixtures after Scott McDonald had missed a penalty, Aberdeen's disallowed, but perfectly legitimate, equaliser three days later and McDonald's offside opening goal the other day suggest that a higher power may be looking after Celtic's interests.

The little Australian striker was so narrowly offside when Vennegoor of Hesselink headed the ball into his path that it was easy to understand how the linesman, Tom Murphy, could be fooled. Nobody in the pressbox, for example, could be sure until a review of the slow-motion television replay at half-time.

Nor could it be argued, from an overview of the entire 90 minutes, that Celtic's triumph was unwarranted. Indeed, through a second half in which they were comfortably in control, it was slightly surprising that they did not win by a wider margin. Even so, the McDonald goal would have to be considered a break.

Strachan will be well aware of Frank Loesser's observation in Guys And Dolls that Lady Luck has "a very unlady-like way of running out" and, as anyone would expect, he has no intention of tempting providence by talking up his team's chances of remaining in front all the way to the finish.

The Celtic manager, in any case, has abundant experience of the vicissitudes of a fickle game. Memories of the unproductive five-week period that immediately preceded the present rewarding run – during which his team were eliminated from the Champions League by Barcelona, from the Scottish Cup by Aberdeen, and dropped eight league points to Dundee United, Rangers and Motherwell – are too painful and too recent to tease him into believing that adversity is suddenly all behind him.

Strachan, however, has good reason to expect that this latest victory in the Old Firm match should encourage his players to believe that they can maintain a 100 per cent success rate in their three remaining fixtures – away to Motherwell, at home to Hibernian and away to Dundee United – thereby maximising the pressure on Rangers, whose last six matches will be crammed into a short, demanding period that begins with their visit to Easter Road on Sunday.

If there was such a thing as a curse on Celtic through the month of March and the first week of April, they seem not only to have shrugged it off, but to have transferred it to Ibrox. The onset of an epidemic of injuries and suspensions in the Rangers squad in the past few weeks is surely at least partly responsible for the startling discovery that they have won only two of their last eight matches.

That is a strange statistic for a team for whom success in four major tournaments remains a distinct possibility, but, even more curiously, the failures have not inflicted irreparable damage. One of the drawn games – against St Johnstone in the Scottish Cup semi-final – was decided in their favour in the penalty shoot-out, another, with Sporting Lisbon in the Uefa Cup quarter-final, was retrieved with victory in the second leg in Portugal, while a third, in the European semi-final with Fiorentina, could once again be nullified by a score draw or better in Italy on Thursday.

Remarkably, only three of those eight outings have been in the Premier League and even the eight points dropped in the two defeats by Celtic and a draw with Dundee United have not been ruinous in terms of their prospects of regaining the championship.

They may have been sufficiently hurtful, though, to have caused uncertainty in a squad whose morale will not have been helped by the seemingly endless series of misadventures that have denied them the services of a number of influential players and seriously reduced Smith's selection options.

The ordering-off of Steven Whittaker against Celtic on Sunday renders him ineligible for the weekend collision with Hibs, but the groin injuries sustained by central defender David Weir and midfielder Steven Davis – both significant contributors to Rangers' extraordinary progress this season – threatens to leave them unavailable for Europe and beyond, along with such other regular first choices as goalkeeper Allan McGregor, midfielder Lee McCulloch, midfielder Charlie Adam and supporting cast members Steven Naismith and Chris Burke.

That Smith's side should have become the first in six years to lose an Old Firm match after leading – the previous occasion was the 2002 Scottish Cup final, when Rangers, like Celtic two days ago, came from behind to win 3-2 – seems merely to underline their present difficulties.

Considering the resilience they have demonstrated at home and abroad throughout an exciting but rigorous campaign, Rangers are entitled to be considered sound favourites to win the league championship. But they may have to find a way of getting hold of the dice.