Football Daily | Rangers, Hearts and Celtic set up a Scottish title race for the ages

. UK edition

Youssef Chermiti of Rangers celebrates
Youssef Chermiti gets his celebrations on. Photograph: Kirk O’Rourke/Rangers FC/Shutterstock

In today’s Football Daily: Fitba Daily

HEARTS IN MOUTHS

Back in September, when the Rangers website revealed the club “were thrilled to announce” the signing of a Portuguese striker from Everton for £8m, the reaction from fans could only have been more downbeat if the player in question had been Beto. On Reddit, one overwrought supporter described the deal to bring Youssef Chermiti to Ibrox as being “everything that is wrong with football”, noting that the 21-year-old had “rocked up” in Glasgow with nothing to show for his short time in the game except a £5,000 Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet and “teeth straight out of a designer dentist”. (At this point it is probably also worth noting that Football Daily has been knocking around since before Youssef was even a mischievous gleam in his father’s eye and has achieved so little that we’d never even heard of the high-end jewellers until we read the disparaging post in question.)

Before Sunday, apart from scoring twice in a win over Celtic in January, Chermiti had done little to justify what, by fitba standards, is an enormous price tag and has recently underwhelmed to such an extent that many Rangers fans felt he shouldn’t have been let within an ass’s roar of the pitch for the visit of Scottish Premiership leaders Hearts. Luckily for them, head coach Danny Röhl knew better and Chermiti left the field threatening to blind his many detractors with the glare from his pearly whites after scoring a crucial hat-trick to help Rangers come from behind to beat the Jambos 4-2. “Let’s not speak until the end of the season about the mentality of this group,” roared Röhl, before speaking about his group’s mentality. “Because we have a lot of mentality. We fully deserved over 90 minutes to win, we gave them two presents today.”

Rangers could ill-afford to be in overly generous mood during this top-of-the-table clash, as defeat would have left them eight points behind Hearts, instead of the two that now separate the sides. Before kick-off, third-placed Celtic had further ramped up the pressure on both their title rivals by coming from two goals down (the first scored and the second created by the nephew of Cat from Red Dwarf) at Kilmarnock to win courtesy of a late, late strike from Julián Araujo in the eighth minute of added time. The Mexican international celebrated his goal by making the – some would say – ill-advised decision to hurdle the advertising hoarding and join the delirious Celtic fans enjoying the full “limbs” experience behind the goal. Mercifully, Araujo lived to tell the tale and was doing so in an interview with Celtic TV when his head coach Martin O’Neill interrupted to disabuse him of any notions he might be getting above his station by pointing out how rubbish he’d been in the first half.

While the FA Cup south of the border served up a menu of pure meat-and-potatoes, the much-maligned Premiership was busy mainlining pure drama. Sunday’s various nerve-shredders mean we are officially staring down the barrel of a genuine three-way title race – the likes of which hasn’t been seen for 40 years. Back then, Celtic, Hearts, and Dundee United all hurtled toward a final-day shootout that ended with Celtic hoisting the trophy on goal difference. Because, as several traumatised Jambos will tell you, when it comes to Scotland, the scriptwriters usually suffer a failure of imagination and give the trophy to one of the usual Glaswegian suspects. Of course, having already taken 11 points from the three teams above them in the table, Motherwell could yet crash the party and give an already fascinating tale of the unexpected a late and even more surreal twist.

LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE

Join Niall McVeigh from 6.30pm GMT for FA Cup fifth-round draw updates, before Xaymaca Awoyungbo takes the reins for minute-by-minute news from Macclesfield 0-3 Brentford at 7.30pm.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Now my life is quite simple. I’m a dad of five. In this moment, I’m more of a taxi driver than a football player, but it’s OK” – Eden Hazard gets his entertaining chat on with Emanuele Giulianelli, talking family, retirement, wine and some famous spats with José Mourinho.

FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS

Along with 1,057 others, I was somewhat nonplussed at the appointment of Igor Tudor as Spurs’ newest ex-manager. Bearing in mind Chelsea’s success raiding the Steve Bruce coaching tree at Hull City with Liam Rosenior, I had thought Spurs may exploit their shared DNA, and have a punt on Tom Huddlestone (formerly coaching at Wigan and England U-21s, currently with Birmingham). Although knowing the board, they’d probably sign Tom Hiddleston instead … who I’m sure would be great, but sadly only available for night games” – Adrian Harper (and no others).

It was fascinating to read Nicky Bandini’s piece on the new interim coach of Spurs, entitled ‘Ferryman Igor Tudor has the record to steer Tottenham to safety’. I am reminded of a tale from the Greek myths of another ferryman. He was Charon, who transported the souls of the dead across the River Styx to the underworld. Given Tottenham’s likeness for changing managers and coaches, I wonder if Tudor will stay the course or end up in Hades before the end of his tenure” – Desmond Wheway.

How disappointing that Kilmarnock’s Tyreece John-Jules is a striker and not a keeper, with the nickname ‘Cat’ his for the taking” – Petersen Todhunter.

If you have any, please send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day winner is … Desmond Wheway. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, are here.

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