Rangers captain Dan Neil reveals Celtic scoring dream after derby double

Dan Neil revealed he was dreaming of scoring against Celtic before firing in a double at Ibrox.

The Rangers captain, signed in the summer from Sunderland, scored twice in Sunday’s Premier Sports Cup quarter-final as Derek McInnes’ side eased to a 3-0 win over their Old Firm rivals.

The midfielder opened the scoring, before Kevin Kelsy gave Rangers a commanding 2-0 lead with his first goal for the club.

The skipper then completed his brace to ensure the home side booked their spot in the competition’s semi-finals with a 3-0 win.

Speaking after the emphatic victory over Celtic, he said: “Two goals for me in any fixture is pretty good. I haven’t scored many braces, if any, in my career, so it’s unbelievable.

“I was putting my head on the pillow last night, thinking of scoring one, never mind two. Coming away with a brace is immense, but I have to give big credit to the whole team as well.

“I thought it was a real team performance out there and everyone deserves massive, massive plaudits for it.”

Rangers came under fire for their early-season displays after being knocked out of both the Europa League and the Conference League at the qualifier stage, as well as failing to win either of their first two league games.

The team has seen a recent resurgence under Derek McInnes with league wins over Aberdeen, Falkirk, Motherwell and St Mirren before yesterday’s dominant display against Celtic.

The Rangers skipper insisted the recent run of form is giving the squad confidence after some early-season pressure, saying: “If you go back to the start of the season when it wasn’t going great, you think of all the new signings and all the change at the club, I think you’ve seen after a few weeks now that the team cohesion and togetherness is there, there’s no doubt about that.

“And the things we’ve been working on in training are starting to come out on match day. We all wanted it to happen at the click of a finger, but football is not like that.

“We’ve worked very, very hard on the training pitch to rectify what we’ve been doing wrong, and there are still things we can improve on, but the fact that we are churning out results and things are starting to look more positive is really good and gives the group confidence.”

The two sides will meet again on Sunday in the Scottish Premiership at Celtic Park.

Rangers have been drawn against Aberdeen in the Premier Sports Cup semi-final, with the games set to be played on the weekend of October 31 and November 1.