Celtic greeted by crunching Rangers tackles at fiery Ibrox rather than guard of honour

After Celtic won the Scottish Premiership last week with a 2-0 win over Hearts, plenty of the pre-match amble centred on whether Rangers would greet them with a guard of honour.

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It is the first league match since the Hoops won the title, the second in a row under Ange Postecoglou.

But with the tradition already being confirmed not to happen, an Ibrox full of Rangers fans made sure to give their rivals an appropriate welcome.

And the players followed suit, with an electric start that saw them score in the opening five minutes.

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John Lundstram lashed one from outside the box that was saved into the path of Todd Cantwell, who smashed the ball through Joe Hart's legs that saw the stadium erupt.

It had already begun with Gers coming out of the traps fast, flying into tackles and playing with fire in their bellies.

The two Glasgow outfits have a long and brutal history with neither side liking each other one bit.

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Commonly a tradition on both sides of the border, the champions of the league are usually greeted onto the pitch by the other team forming a tunnel and applauding them.

Celtic received a guard of honour from Hearts in 2018 and 2019.

But Gers boss Michael Beale already insisted that they would not be following suit after a similar refusal from the Hoops in 2021.

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When asked if his side would go ahead with the guard of honour earlier this week, he told SkySports: "No, it doesn't become tricky here.

"Because in the past it has been turned down and hasn't been done.

"So I don't think they would want us to. And in a stadium of our fans I don't think it would be the right thing to do either.

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"We have a lot of respect for them in terms of winning the league.

"They have been clearly the best team - the league table doesn't lie.

"But that has been dealt with in the past so that has been taken out of my hands thankfully."

There is history here with Rangers refusing to give Celtic a guard of honour in 2019 when Neil Lennon was in charge of the Hoops.

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While Celtic also did not go ahead with the tradition when Rangers lifted the title under Steven Gerrard in 2021, stopping the Bhoys from winning 10 titles in a row.

Postecoglou has already downplayed the row, saying: "It's no big deal for me.

"These kind of things are symbolic rather than anything real.

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"I think there is respect is shown in different ways, you don't need aguard of honour to know that."