Rangers boss Gio van Bronckhorst tasted defeat for the first time in charge of the Ibrox giants on Wednesday night.

The Gers were hammered 3-0 by rivals Celtic at Parkhead to lose their place at the top of the Premiership table, moving one point behind the Hoops.

Reo Hatate scored two goals from outside the box in the first half to put the home side into a two-goal lead, with Allan McGregor caught off guard by both efforts as they crept into the bottom corner.

Liel Abada then completed the opening 45-minute rout as he snuck in ahead of a sleeping Borna Barisic to prod the ball in from close range, with the Gers unable to pull one back

Forget Barisic

The Croatian left-back had five yards on Abada when the cross came in and failed to switch on as the winger sprinted past him to finish unmarked in the six-yard box. He was then substituted, along with Glen Kamara and Amad Diallo, at half-time as he struggled throughout the entire first half.

Forget Barisic, though, as a player who must have started his last Premiership game under van Bronckhorst this season is centre-forward Kemar Roofe.

Offensively, the Gers nightmare was virtually invisible. As per SofaScore, he failed to register a single shot, on or off target, in the entire match. He was also unsuccessful with his one attempt at dribbling past an opponent and had 35 touches of the ball, fewer than goalkeeper Allan McGregor despite playing the full 90 minutes.

Off the ball, he was a lightweight. As per SofaScore, he lost 70% of his duels (7/10) and completed two tackles, whilst being dribbled past once. This shows that he was far from good enough in his individual battles as he was unable to provide Rangers with the focal point they needed to alleviate pressure when clearing the ball from Celtic's high press early on.

He has scored six goals in the Premiership this season and only two of them have come from him being in the starting line-up, both of which came from the penalty spot. This means that he has failed to score from open play in his seven starts this term, whilst scoring four in nine appearances off the bench.

Roofe has been far more effective coming on as a substitute and this latest poor performance against the Hoops must have told van Bronckhorst that he should use him exclusively from the bench. With Alfredo Morelos due to return from international duty, the Dutchman will have an alternative option to Cedric Itten to start in place of him - with Roofe then being an impact substitute.

Put it simply; he mustn't start again this term if the Gers have any desires of winning the Premiership in a few months time.

AND in other news, Decision made: GVB set for Rangers transfer boost after £5.8m bid, fans will be elated...