Glasgow Rangers vs. Glasgow Celtic: Scottish Cup Ends With 2 Red Cards, 4 Goals

Oh me, oh my, the Old Firm seem to be back to their battling best.

Two red cards, four goals and a penalty don't tell the full story of this match, no, no, no. This was a battle royale, Glasgow style!

In a season that will see these two meet no less than an incredible seven times, this match will be hard to beat for the neutral watching. Both sets of fans may disagree in entertainment value and who deserved to win, but in the end, despite Celtic's possessional percentage being twice that of Rangers, a draw seemed a fair result.

It got off to a cracking start with young Jamie Ness hitting an unstoppable shot from over 20 yards out into the top right-hand corner of the net giving his side a 1-0 lead in the second minute.

Things looked ominous for the Parkhead team as less than two minutes later, Rangers Steve Davis rattled the crossbar with another effort that looked like signalling an onslaught, but as the match progressed, Celtic were to pass their way back into the match with some elegant and delightful football.

Celtic's Kayal was the first to trouble Alan McGregor, but the keeper was more than a match for his well struck shot. Mark Wilson was next up, but his header drifted over.

Rangers still pushed forward, trying to get the ball up to attackers Jelavic and Naismith and had a legitimate penalty claim waved away on nine minutes, but that wasn't to end the penalty controversy for the day as more was to come later in the game.

El Hadji Diouf, who was getting a torrid time from the Celtic fans, moved up and down the line with some grace it has to be said, and with staggering frequency, was twisting and turning Celtic's midfielders into knots.

It was Celtic who would get the next breakthrough though as new signing Kris Commons met a Hooper cutback eight yards from goal and fired into the back of the net.

It was turning into a classic—if you blinked, you would miss something.

Thirty-three minutes had passed, the scoreline sat at one goal apiece and Celtic keeper Forster tried his best to gift his opponents a goal. With a back pass being chased in furiously by striker Jelavic, Forster decided to take his time clearing the ball and it deflected off the big ex-Austria Vienna player and headed towards the goal.

It was like a YouTube moment, but fortunately for the keeper he managed to jump, slide and stop the ball on the line much to the relief of his mad-looking manager, Neil Lennon.

The English goalie was to be involved in the next bit of controversy as he appeared to pull Steven Naismith down in the box when running in on goal. It looked like a clear penalty at first glance, but with the help of TV replays, it looks more like Naismith was clever and left his trailing leg in as he was going down.

The ref, though, doesn't have that technology at his disposal and promptly sent Forster off and gave Rangers a penalty that Whittaker stepped up to fire home past the substitute keeper Zaluska.

That was it for the first half, but more was to come in the second.

It took 12 minutes of the second period before a chance was created and it was started by veteran defender Davie Weir who fired a long ball to Jelavic who turned not one, not two, but three defenders inside-out before trying to lob the keeper, but his shot drifted over the bar.

Scott Brown was to have the next laugh as he spun in a simply sublime shot that curled its way into the far top corner of the net, postage stamp style. His celebration of facing up to Diouf of Rangers could have ended differently though, and his yellow card for this was well deserved.

With the score at 2-2, the game was finely balanced and with Rangers having a player advantage, you would think they would go forward with that advantage, but it was Celtic who were playing the better football, but without any more rewards to come.

Rangers were playing deeper and deeper looking like they were playing for a draw at this point but things were to drastically alter when Naismith was to receive a second yellow card for a dive in the box, leaving his side with 15 minutes to play with 10 men.

Walter Smith made and immediate change at this junction with Lafferty and Weiss coming on the field for Diouf and Jelavic.

Weiss was nearly to make a start that would have immortalized him in the eyes of the Gers fans with a turn inside the box that opened up space, leaving him to shoot on goal that could only be parried away by the stumbling keeper only for the ball to be cleared by a defender.

With time running out, tempers were starting to fray and a major handbag moment erupted that ended with Weir and Weiss being booked for Rangers, Ledley for Celtic. Time was not on either teams side and any goal scored from this moment would end this cup match for either team, but time was to run out on the goalscoring with the tie now going to a replay on March 2.

Final Score: Rangers 2, Celtic 2

Watch highlights here.