Seagull provides more entertainment than teams in Old Firm derby

Russell Martins Rangers and Brendan Rodgers Celtic served up a drab draw

Half an hour after an almost offensively poor Old Firm derby had ended - a slugfest in the bearpit - a seagull swooped down from above the Sandy Jardine stand at Ibrox.

In the millisecond it took to flip a piece of bread in the air and shove it down its beak while staying airborne it provided more entertainment than the players had done for the 90 minutes that went before. It was about the only graceful thing we saw all day, a rare amount of accuracy in the wake of one of the worst Old Firm games in living memory that limped to a 0-0 conclusion.

Its not often you could say it of Russell Martin in his time as Rangers manager, but in the aftermath, he nailed it.

When talking about the strengths of his teams performance, he spoke of their fight, their aggression, their desire, their spirit and their togetherness. You couldnt disagree with any of it. This was a game to make the eyes bleed, but at least the beleaguered Rangers manager saw something different from his team - organisation, resilience, a clean sheet.

Another draw makes it the worst Rangers start to a league season since 1983, but theyve spent so long in a black hole in recent times that this must have felt better than the stuff thats gone before.

Those who predicted a shellacking on the pitch and a visceral uprising in the stands were proven wrong. A few half-hearted boos was the extent of it.

For a defence that had conceded six in Europe during the week and had given up multiple opportunities via slapstick moments in domestic football, this was welcome respite.

It will also have come as a pleasant surprise for the clubs owners to see a team with a bit of heart, if not a lot else. They might have been steeling themselves for some thunder and lightning from the fans. Instead, they would have their views on their choice as manager reinforced. Martin, it would appear, has their total backing and is going nowhere. For now.

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Martin reacts to Celtic stalemate

Whether Martin can make it last is another question. Given their respective predicaments, it was a better point for Martin than it was for Brendan Rodgers even though it took Celtic back to the top of the table and extended their run of clean sheets to four in the league.

Rodgers has not won an Old Firm game in his last five attempts now - and this was the most feeble effort of all. He said it himself afterwards, bemoaning the standard of his teams attacking game, lamenting the absence of creativity while concluding that this is "not the way Celtic play."

Well, it is now. Celtics inability to create much of anything was remarkable. In the first 45 minutes they went backwards in their passing almost more often than they went forward. They had nothing out wide and nothing through the middle. They had no shot on goal, no corner and an xG - expected goals, if such things float your boat - of 0.00 in the first half. Thats quite a feat.

It was the first time this season that a domestic team had failed to get an attempt on goal against Rangers in an opening half. In the league, Motherwell had two, Dundee had three and St Mirren had eight, In the League Cup at Ibrox, Alloa scored twice against Martins team.

So Rodgers has a whole lot of work to do in clearing out the myriad of players in his squad that are not good enough while bringing in new blood. And he doesnt have long to do it.

Things move at a glacial pace when Celtic enter the transfer realm but if this powder-puff performance doesnt light a fire under the backside of the hierarchy - major shareholder, Dermot Desmond, in other words - then nothing will.

Celtic got their first shot on target after an hour and their first corner after 71 minutes. Rangers were full of fire and brimstone - Connor Barron, Mo Diomande and Mikey Moore taking the lead with Bojan Miovski offering plenty of edge on his debut - but Celtic were so flat in trying to deal with it.

For a club that has seen the likes of Kyogo Furuhashi, Jota, Liel Abada, Nicolas Kuhn, Matt ORiley, an in-form Daizen Maeda and others light up this fixture with their pace and their class and their goals, a frontline of Benjamin Nygren (not a winger), Maeda (not a natural centre-forward and badly out of sorts) and Michel-Ange Balikwisha (not in the city a wet week) was poor.

As the game went on, Rodgers changed it. Now he had James Forrest, Shin Yamada and Maeda as his three. Still there was no penetration, no cohesion. Celtic finished with an xG of 0.17 in a game that had a combined xG of 0.32, the lowest stat for a game in the Scottish Premiership - and possibly any other league - since records began. Embarrassing.

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Rodgers says Celtic have to improve

Adam Idah, the £9m striker, is on the verge of a move and Celtic are linked with all manner of forwards and wingers. New players will be signed before the transfer window closes in Scotland at 23:00 BST on Monday, but there has to be concern among the fans about the quality of player that is signed.

Celtic lumped a relative fortune on Arne Engels, who was ineffective at Ibrox, and Idah, who they are now keen to offload, and Auston Trusty, who wouldnt be in the team even if he was fit, which he isnt.

The Parkhead club once had a bit of a Midas Touch when it came to finding rough diamonds, polishing them up and then selling them on. That touch has deserted them in the last while.

Celtic folk will be praying that Balikwisha is part of the solution on one wing, that the targeted Sebastian Tounekti is the solution on the other and that Kasper Dolberg, the Danish international they covet, is the man to solve their problems through the middle.

But they need even more than that if they want to make a success of the Europa League where success looks like a run to the latter stages. As of now, they are as threatening as a popgun. Rodgers spoke about how he has lost players who did such a good job in connecting his side and how "creativity has come out of the team."

That point was glaringly obvious in their futile attempts to score a goal against the minnows of Kairat Almaty and it was crystal clear again at Ibrox as they toiled and toiled and toiled again in the face of a Rangers defence that, up to this game, had kittens every time an attacker came near them.

Rangers deserve credit for their doggedness in a crisis - and thats pretty much all you can say about a game that will scarcely see out the night in the memory bank. The seagull with the bread in his gob was the best of it.