Celtic 0-1 Rangers: Ryan Naderi settles the Old Firm derby and Martin O'Neill says he will reflect on his future

Rangers won the Old Firm derby 1-0 at Celtic Park on Sunday. Ryan Naderi scored the goal on 33 minutes, from the rebound after Viljami Sinisalo had saved from Kim Min-su. It is Derek McInnes's second win over Celtic in a week, after the 3-0 in the League Cup quarter-final at Ibrox, and it came with no away supporters in the ground.

For Martin O'Neill it is a third defeat in eight days. Celtic are still top of the Scottish Premiership on their own with 18 points, but the lead over Rangers is down from five points to two. Afterwards O'Neill said he would spend the coming days reflecting on whether he can still help the team. Our own call on the derby was wrong too: we explain why further down.

Three defeats in eight days

The run started at Ibrox on Sunday 13 September, with Rangers winning the League Cup quarter-final 3-0. On Thursday 17 September Celtic lost 3-1 at home to Ferencváros on the opening matchday of the Europa League. Our call on that game was at least two goals, confidence 6 out of 10: correct. The full story is in our report on Celtic v Ferencváros. Then came the derby.

It is Celtic's first league defeat of the season. They had won all six league games before Sunday, scoring 14 and conceding 3, and the loss ends a run of 13 straight league wins that began on 5 April last season.

How the game went

Celtic had the ball in the net after six minutes, Auston Trusty finishing with his right foot from Liam Scales's headed pass, but Scales was offside and the goal was ruled out. On the half-hour Kieran Tierney hit the crossbar. Three minutes later Rangers scored from a corner: the ball was cleared to Kim Min-su, Sinisalo saved his shot from the edge of the box and Naderi put the rebound in. On 36 minutes Djeidi Gassama lobbed against the post, and Cameron Carter-Vickers blocked Kevin Kelsy's follow-up.

O'Neill had switched to a back three of Carter-Vickers, Trusty and Scales, with Colby Donovan and Tierney as wing-backs, Tierney pushed further forward, and no out-and-out winger. Kasper Høgh replaced Luke McCowan at half-time. Straight after the restart Donovan headed Mika Baur's cross at Ivor Pandur, and that was Celtic's only shot on target of the match. On 74 minutes Olwethu Makhanya volleyed in what would have been 2-0, but VAR ruled it out because the ball had struck his arm first.

Rangers had 15 shots to 5. Celtic went off to boos from their own supporters at the end.

O'Neill: “I genuinely will reflect and see”

O'Neill, who is 74, was asked about his future at his press conference. “I genuinely will reflect and see. It's a matter of whether I can help the team”, he said. He will speak to the board, he added, and the board may well want to speak to him. He also joked about his age: in two years he will be 110, he said, so it might be time to call it a day.

He said supporters had every right to criticise him: “And I'm not immune from criticism. Far from it.” He also pointed to the table: “We are, as I said, two points clear, so I have to kind of look at the bigger picture at this minute.”

On television straight after the game, he said there was not much between the sides but that Celtic should have created more, and that when the players are back from international duty “we'll have a rethink”. The numbers tell a less even story: one shot on target for Celtic, eight for Rangers.

Last season O'Neill stepped in twice as interim manager, in October after Brendan Rodgers resigned and in January in place of Wilfried Nancy, and won the league on the final day as well as the Scottish Cup. Since 11 June he has been manager full-time, on a one-year contract with the option of a second.

McInnes: two derbies, two wins

Derek McInnes has been Rangers manager since 17 June, on a three-year contract. He came from Hearts, whom he took to second place last season with Rangers third, and replaced Danny Röhl, who left for Salzburg. His first two Old Firm games in charge have finished 3-0 and 1-0, and Rangers have won their last five league games after a draw and a defeat in the first two. “Really pleased. We had to deliver a big performance and we did exactly that”, he said on television.

He kept the title talk down, “In the context of the season it's just three points and it gets us three closer to Celtic”, and admitted his side should have put the game away: “At 1-0 we deservedly went in front and I thought we were just guilty of passing up so many opportunities.”

No away fans at Celtic Park, or at Ibrox

There were no Rangers supporters at Celtic Park. On 4 September the SPFL, after reaching an agreement with both clubs, announced that “there will be no away supporters for matches involving Rangers and Celtic in SPFL competitions for the remainder of the 2026/27 season”, which covers the league and the League Cup. The decision followed the clashes between fans on the pitch after the Scottish Cup quarter-final of 8 March, and an independent review.

There were no Celtic fans at Ibrox on 13 September either. McInnes had a thought for his own supporters on Sunday: “The fans weren't here but we know they're watching and we want them to enjoy their Sunday.”

Our call on the derby was wrong

On Celtic v Rangers our call was Celtic to score, confidence 7 out of 10: wrong. Celtic finished with no goals.

The call leaned mainly on the league: 13 straight wins, so 13 games in a row with at least one goal, and 14 goals in the first six rounds. It gave less weight to the only meeting with Rangers this season, the 3-0 at Ibrox a week earlier, in which Celtic failed to score. With hindsight, that was the evidence that mattered: in the derby Celtic managed one shot on target. Against this Rangers side they have now played 180 minutes without a goal this season.

The derby has not yet been settled in our results history, but the score has already decided it. Confidence is our measure of how solid the picture looked before kick-off, not a promise.

Scottish Premiership results: matchday seven

The other five games were all played on Saturday. Hearts, third, were held 1-1 at Kilmarnock: an own goal by their defender Jamie McCart on 16 minutes, then Stephen Kingsley's equaliser on 86. St Johnstone, down to ten men from the 53rd minute, equalised against Falkirk in the sixth minute of stoppage time. Across the six games 5 of our 6 calls were correct: the only one wrong was the derby.

Saturday 19 September

• St Johnstone 1-1 Falkirk — St Johnstone: Enes Alić 90+6'. Falkirk: Ethan Ross 60'. Cheick Diabate (St Johnstone) sent off on 53' for a second yellow. Here our call was under 4.5 goals, confidence 6 out of 10: correct.

• St Mirren 0-3 Dundee United — Dundee United: Jesse Randall 6', Lyall Cameron 12', Kevin Ciubotaru 45'. Here our call was at least two goals, confidence 6 out of 10: correct.

• Dundee 2-1 Motherwell — Dundee: Joe Westley 23' (pen.), Bradley Fink 40'. Motherwell: Alex Lowry 44'. Here our call was Motherwell to score, confidence 6 out of 10: correct.

• Hibernian 1-1 Aberdeen — Hibernian: Martin Boyle 62' (pen.). Aberdeen: Kevin Nisbet 17'. Here our call was under 4.5 goals, confidence 7 out of 10: correct.

• Kilmarnock 1-1 Hearts — Kilmarnock: Jamie McCart 16' (o.g.). Hearts: Stephen Kingsley 86'. Here our call was Hearts to score, confidence 7 out of 10: correct.

Sunday 20 September

• Celtic 0-1 Rangers — Rangers: Ryan Naderi 33'. Here our call was Celtic to score, confidence 7 out of 10: wrong.

Scottish Premiership table

The standings after seven rounds: Celtic top on their own with 18 points, Rangers second on 16 and Hearts third on 13, each of them alone on their total. Below that it bunches up. Dundee and St Mirren have 10 points, while St Johnstone, Aberdeen, Motherwell and Dundee United are level on 8. Hibernian are tenth on 7, Falkirk eleventh on 6 and Kilmarnock bottom on 5.

Our player calls: three from four settled

We published six calls on individual players for the round, and three were correct. On Cláudio Braga of Hearts our call was two shots or more, confidence 6 out of 10: he had four attempts in 59 minutes at Kilmarnock. On Alexandros Gogić of St Mirren and Dylan Tait of Dundee United, opponents in the same game, our call for both was at least one foul committed, confidence 6 out of 10: Gogić committed one, Tait four.

One was wrong: on Joe Hugill of Kilmarnock our call was at least one shot on target, confidence 5 out of 10, and he played the full 90 minutes against Hearts without a shot. One was cancelled: Jacob Devaney of Hibernian stayed on the bench against Aberdeen, so our call of at least one foul committed, confidence 7 out of 10, is left out of the count.

The sixth is still open. On Yang Hyun-Jun of Celtic our call was at least one foul committed, confidence 7 out of 10, but Yang did not play in the derby: South Korea called him up as an over-age player for the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, and he joined the squad's camp in Shizuoka on 8 September. It has not been settled on the site yet, and we count it as neither correct nor wrong.

So the count is three correct from the four settled, valid calls, plus one cancelled and one still open, out of six published.

What comes next

The Scottish Premiership now stops for the international break and returns on 10 and 11 October. Our Europa League matchday one round-up has every result and the single league table.

Every game with our calls is on the Scottish Premiership page and on the Europa League page. The record of settled calls is in the results history, and the individual ones are in player predictions.