It felt like Celtic would just have to turn up against Rangers – but suddenly we now HAVE a cup final, writes Leckie

TWO weeks ago it felt like all Celtic had to do was turn up and go through the motions. But all of a sudden, we now have a cup final. Willie VassHamza Igamane struck for Rangers against Tottenham[/caption] GettyPhilippe Clement’s men appear to have turned a corner[/caption] AlamyThey’ll face Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic at Hampden on Sunday[/caption] Because if Rangers can reproduce this level of performance, of belief and of desire at Hampden on Sunday afternoon, well, it might just turn into a contest not even their own diehards saw coming. They’ll have some recovering to do before then, no question. They’ll be sweating over whether or not John Souttar makes it after limping off in the first half. Off the back of three league wins in a week with ten scored and none against, though, what they showed on a titanic European night will surely make fans and players alike spring out of bed as the first silverware of the season goes up for grabs. In my column two Mondays back, I predicted that the second Old Firm meeting of the season could get pretty horrible for Philippe Clement and his men. Normally when you write things like that, the pushback is ferocious. But not this time. Not when the light blue hordes were too damn miserable to argue. Now, though? Now, they’re seeing something different. Something they can get behind. Something to give them at least a sliver of hope. It could have been even better, of course. Only the giant frame of Fraser Forster, harnessed to the ever-so-Dessers-y lack of composure in front of goal from their hapless No 9, stopped them racking up a hugely famous victory. Even then, though, the fact they dragged themselves off the canvas after shipping an equaliser just when their tanks were looking empty must have had Brendan Rodgers thinking as hard about what comes next as his Parkhead predecessor had to pick his way through what happened in real time. All in all, it was one hell of a game. And everyone connected with Rangers can be hell of a proud of their part in it. Sure, their job was made a lot easier by Spurs being as Spurs-y as a Spurs-y thing, giving the ball away for fun, letting simple passes run under their studs and onto the track, turning up second to challenges. Four times in the first half alone, teenager Archie Gray — whose great-uncle Eddie played in front of 130,000-plus in a European Cup semi-final at Hampden 54 years ago — strode out of his box and into midfield like a world-class sweeper. Then passed straight to a blue shirt like a street-sweeper. That’s them under Ange, hell-bent on footballing harikiri. Great for the neutral, horrible for the arteries of their long-suffering supporters. If you didn’t know better, you’d have sworn they were a group just waiting for their gaffer to be put out of his misery. Still, take nothing away from Rangers, who started as they meant to go on, with a swagger and with purpose, never more so than when they almost went ahead nine minutes in with the kind of decisive football they’ve produced so rarely under Belgian boss Clement. It started with James Tavernier robbing Timo Werner, then taking his time before feeding Nedim Bajrami, who swapped passes with Vaclav Cerny and forced a flying, fingertip stop from Forster. That set the tone. That raised the roof. That move led up to the moment on 47 minutes when Tavernier fed a delicious ball across the visiting back line and Hamza Igamane produced an unerring left-footed finish to send the place tonto. From the off, through that golden goal to maybe another ten minutes on, Rangers were outstanding, end of story. They were unrecognisable from the shapeless, aimless gang booed off time and again this season. They had a plan and they had a way of playing. They had a refound connection with the crowd, fans lifting players and players psyching up fans, decibels inspiring energy. There was a moment, ten minutes after they took the lead, when Clement stood in his technical area, windmilling his arms as if to demand more, more, more. Only he knows whether the manager wanted it from the stands or from on the pitch. Whichever it was, though, it was hard to believe there was much more for any of them to give. And yet, after Dejan Kulusevski’s classy leveller, they somehow did find something extra to not only make sure a priceless point didn’t slip through their fingers, but to cobble up the move that really should have earned them all three. They would have earned them, too, had Cyriel Dessers done the job he’d been brought off the bench for. But last time out in Nice he’d come on for a knackered Igamane and missed a sitter when it was 4-1 and no one really cared. This time? Well, he could have made every miskick disappear in a flash had he just taken a breath and beaten F