PEDRO Caixinha’s suit must have been in a hell of a state by the end of what looked to be the most energetic workout in the history of fitness.

Even the finest silks stitched together on Saville Row could not withstand the stones of sweat which poured from the Rangers manager as he covered every inch of his technical area during what eventually was a difficult afternoon for the man.

The Portuguese kicked every ball, played every pass, appealed every decision made by referee Craig Thomson, got in a vocal fight with Mikael Lustig and Scott Brown and was downed in the first minute by his own player, Josh Windass.

He had an eventuful day.

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Caixinha is many things, foolish he is not. He knew his team, and himself, could not afford a repeat of the two inspid previous performances against Celtic in which he was on the touchline.

A win would have been lovely, of course, but if his Rangers team were to go down, and they did 2-0, then at least the supporters had to see some fight.

And that they did. To an extent. Rangers got through a slow start when it was all Celtic, dragged themselves into the game, played some decent stuff at times but there was just one problem.

Celtic are miles better than them. Not one Rangers player would make even Brendan Rodgers’s substitute’s bench. That will be hard to accept for all bluenoses, It is, however, nonetheless true.

And that is not good enough for Rangers.

Let’s put it this way, Caixinha’s team weren’t poor, not at all, but they would have needed Celtic to go a man down early one to have had a proper chance of avoiding defeat.

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That can’t be put entirely the head of the current manager, although it is now his team.

An accusation which can be thrown his way is that he did not start with Kenny Miller and instead trusted Carlos Pena who was worse than a man down.

So where does this leave Caixinha? They won’t sack him. Talk to anyone in and around the corridors of power inside Ibrox and they all whisper the same thing.

“We’ve got to stand by him.” But how long can this stand last?

Unless things change, and for my money they won’t. Rangers will do well to finish third having spent, for this club, a an awful lot of money in the summer.

Rangers haven’t yet played Aberdeen or St Johnstone. They have to still to visit Easter Road, Tynecastle and Celtic Park for that matter. Think over that.

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There were seven derby debutants in the Rangers side.

Ross McCrorie, the young defender had nothing to feel ashamed about, Fabio Cardoso, Daniel Candeias, Graham Dorrans, Ryan Jack, Pena and Alfredo Morelos who could do with reacquainting himself with the offside rule.

Once Celtic scored, through Tom Rogic a few minutes after the break, there was only going to be one outcome. Leigh Griffiths finished a superb Celtic move not long after. The only surprise was a third opportunity wasn’t taken.

All the best players wore green and white hoops. Scott Brown, Griffiths, Rogic and Stuart Armstrong. To nobody’s real surprise.

The job of Rangers as a club was to close the gap on Celtic, win an Old Firm game, have a shout in one of the cups, which they do, and give their supporters some much-needed hope.

So far, so failure goes.

The board could blink. They may remove Caixinha, who always seemed to be an unnecessary risk, and go for, say, Derek McInnes. But the fact of the matter is that Celtic are on a different planet and show no signs of being caught.