The inside story behind Dan Neill’s Rangers Celtic derby heroics has been laid bare by the stand-in captain himself.
Neil credited Derek McInnes’s dressing room talks for back-to-back wins over Celtic: 3-0 in the Premier Sports Cup quarter-final at Ibrox, then 1-0 in the Premiership at Parkhead, cutting the gap to the league leaders to two points.
Dan Neil Lifts Lid on Rangers Derby Victories
Neil wore the armband in both matches, standing in for the injured Lawrence Shankland.
Stepping up as vice-captain, he scored twice on his derby debut in the win at Ibrox, then helped Rangers see out a tighter contest at Parkhead.
Our report on the back-to-back derby wins over Celtic covers the turnaround in full.
Neil set out his thinking in a Daily Record interview, addressing both wins in detail.
Asked whether he was surprised by Rangers’ dominance across the two derbies, he said:
“Yes and no. We’ve got an unbelievable squad and we’re starting to click. We’re starting to find the way we want to play.
“We’re finding a bit of an identity. Obviously, the games itself, they could be anything. Derbies are absolutely anything.
“Form goes out the window. But I think everything’s just kind of clicked in these last two games. And they’ve been superb performances by everyone to a man.
“Listen, the squad’s got undoubted quality in it but I think what we’ve got in abundance is a real togetherness and a real willingness to run through a brick wall for each other.”
Vice Captain Attributes Form to McInnes Dressing Room Talks
Neil singled out McInnes’s pre-match messaging as the trigger for the reset between the two games. He explained how the manager moved the squad’s focus from the cup win straight onto the league fixture.
Asked about the team talk before Parkhead, Neil said:
“Yeah, I think that was definitely part of the team talk. He is brilliant at them. Every single one has been a real kind of war cry.
“It’s been really, really good. But I think a lot of it was, ‘Forget last week. Last week’s done. It’s a completely new game. Completely new circumstances. ‘Yeah, we got through to the semi-final of the cup, which is brilliant. But if we lose this game, it’s potentially eight points. So this is probably just as important. So yeah, brilliant last week. But focus on the now. Focus on game by game. And we need to come out of here with a result.’
“And all the lads bought into it.”
That buy-in from the squad has been a consistent feature of the season, explored further in our piece on the players’ absolute trust in McInnes’s methods.
Tactical Flexibility and Penrice Inverted Role Unleash Neil
McInnes made one significant change for the derby matches, deploying James Penrice as an inverted left full-back who tucked inside to man-mark Benjamin Nygren. That switch freed Neil from his usual defensive duties.
Neil explained how the change altered his own role:
“I mean, the Penrice one, I think we were all surprised that it even on the training pitch. But it absolutely worked to perfection and Penners was absolutely brilliant in both games.
“But yeah, I’d say so because I’ve been almost given a bit of a licence with them two behind us to go and get in the box.
“I think when I first came in I was very much the number six, the one that would sit behind the ball and try and dictate it from a deeper position. But with Nico [Raskin] coming back into the team and Penners coming inside… well, to be honest, I haven’t really been given a licence.
“I kind of just thought, well, them two are behind us, I’m just going to go get in the box. So yeah, I kind of took that one upon myself. But yeah, I’ve enjoyed it.
“When I first kind of broke through in the professional football, not so much academy, that was my game, my game was box to box. It was getting in the box, it was trying to get on the ball as much as possible whether it’s deep or high.
“So yeah, I just feel like I’m doing things that I did when I was a little bit younger.”
With Penrice and Nico Raskin screening behind him, Neil pushed higher than his usual number six position. That freedom took him toward the box twice at Ibrox, where he bagged a brace on his derby debut.
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