Celtic missed a huge opportunity to give themselves a healthy lead in the Scottish Premiership title race against their closest rivals on Sunday.
Brendan Rodgers' side went across Glasgow to take to the field at Ibrox and enjoy the perfect start as Daizen Maeda opened the scoring with his block tackle on James Tavernier that found the back of the net in the opening minute.
Matt O'Riley then doubled the lead from the penalty spot before half time but James Tavernier and Abdallah Sima's second half goals brought the score back to 2-2.
Substitute Adam Idah may have thought that he had won the game in the 87th minute with his crisp finish past Jack Butland, only for Rabbi Matondo to make it 3-3 with a screamer from distance.
There were some good, and not so good, performers on the day for Celtic, and one player may have just made himself droppable after his display in the Old Firm clash – Liam Scales, who was even worse than Alistair Johnston.
Alistair Johnston's Rangers performance in numbers
The Canada international was playing with fire at times after being booked by the referee for palming Fabio Silva's face, who made sure the official knew about it.
He, of course, then gave away the penalty that Rangers made it 1-2 from in controversial style. His challenge on Silva, which was initially deemed to be an act of simulation from the Portuguese forward, was punished as the full-back caught the attacker on the bottom of the thigh with a rash challenge in the box.
Whilst it could have been viewed as a harsh decision, given the manner in which the Gers man fell to the ground, it was an unneeded swipe from Johnston.
Sofascore rating
6.7
Duels won
8/12
Tackles
5
Interceptions
2
Dribbled past
0
Clearances
6
However, as you can see in the table above, the defender also did plenty of things right throughout the game and made up for that slip-up with some terrific defending.
Liam Scales is now droppable
Whilst Johnston's largely dominant work out of possession made up for the penalty he gave away, Scales did not have as much joy with his performance.
The Ireland international had a shaky start to the match as Cyriel Dessers and Scott Wright both caused him problems with their pressing, which led to turnovers as the centre-back failed to find the target with his passing on occasions.
He only completed 76% of his attempted passes – compared to his season average of 88% in the league – and completed 0% (0/4) of his attempted long passes.
The £5k-per-week dud also struggled defensively as he lost three of his five duels on the ground and only made two tackles, four clearances, and zero interceptions – a combined seven fewer than Johnston.
Maik Nawrocki, who has won a staggering 70% of his ground duels in the Premiership this season, is back from injury and was on the bench at Ibrox, which means that Rodgers does have a good option to replace Scales should he decide to drop the Irishman.
The Polish titan is comfortable with both feet and can play on the left of the centre-back pairing next to Cameron Carter-Vickers, and that is a duo Celtic could turn to after the former Aberdeen loanee's Old Firm display.
His work in and out of possession left a lot to be desired and it earned him his lowest Sofascore rating of the Premiership season so far with a score of 6.3.
Therefore, Scales has now made himself droppable – having started all 29 of the games he has been available for in the league – after this shaky performance, and Nawrocki is on hand to take his place if called upon.
