A night when the record books are lifted from dusty shelves in search of information about Rangers’ biggest ever European hidings.
There’s been some whoppers. Some fours, some fives, a few sixes. Never in all their time has there been a seven, but here it was, started by Roberto Firmino and finished with a surgeon’s precision by Mohamed Salah.
The great man came off the bench and in six minutes and 12 seconds he scored a hat-trick. Don’t bother trying to find a speedier treble in the history of this competition – there hasn’t been one. Salah tormented Rangers.
Long before the end, the home side were sitting ducks – no offence to sitting ducks – in the face of a Liverpool team who were taking immense joy in taking the frustrations of their league season out on Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s beleaguered crew.
As if losing 7-1 wasn’t bad enough, there was the pitiful sight at the end of a pocket of their fans running to the away corner and firing missiles at Liverpool supporters who were being held behind. Cowardly doesn’t even come close. If you thought the action on the field was cringe-making from a Rangers perspective, those moments were even worse.
The reality of life in the Champions League has been hard on Rangers, existing as they are in the group of certain death for a club of their lightweight financial muscle. Underdogs can occasionally roar, though. The problem is that the big dogs roar louder, more often than not.
Rangers hadn’t scored in three Champions League games. They’d only had six shots on target. They didn’t have a sniff at Anfield until it was 2-0 and too late. But here, in front of their own people, they found something, if only for a little while.
In that opening half, Rangers were everything they weren’t at Anfield a week ago – aggressive, ambitious and accurate.
They took the lead because James Tavernier jumped all over Fabio Carvalho and robbed him of possession, because Antonio Colak was decisive with his lay-off, and because Ryan Jack played a pin-sharp pass through the visitors’ defence. Scott Arfield had a bit to do, but his finish was perfect. Ibrox erupted in that moment.
Liverpool find their spark to run amok
The question for Liverpool was clear – would they feel sorry for themselves or, amid the maelstrom, would they rouse themselves? Jurgen Klopp had made six changes – resting some of his heavy hitters for Manchester City at the weekend – but the concession of the first goal was wearily familiar.
Mid-table after their worst start in a decade. Fourteen points behind Arsenal and 13 behind Manchester City. A battery of injuries and a leaky defence. And now trailing against a side with the bit between their teeth and 50,000 fans lustily roaring their approval. What could they find? Quite a lot as it turned out. A goal mountain.
The equaliser was a moment to make Rangers wince, a corner to the front post and a simple header for Firmino. James Tavernier might have been beside him, but the Rangers captain wasn’t exactly making his presence be known. It was beyond soft.
From then on, it was the Liverpool show. The Firmino show, the Darwin Nunez show, but above all the Salah show.
Firmino scored Liverpool’s second, then Nunez made it three. There was a back story to that one. Allan McGregor had repeatedly denied the big striker last week, but the goalkeeper was at fault for once here. His poor kick-out was seized on, Firmino beautifully set up Nunez, and Liverpool had three.
We were just beyond the hour and Salah was entering the fray. The noise that could be heard around Ibrox was the sound of tens of thousands of people gulping hard.
He moved with a menace and a class the like of which Rangers have not seen in this place for a very long time. What started as a solid performance soon became a record-busting embarrassment. Salah, with the fastest hat-trick in Champions League history, ran amok. Seven minutes and three goals. It was almost obscene.
Salah has not been his world class best of late. Before this thunderous return to form, his goals tally was a third of his number at this stage of last season. You can bank on death and taxes in this world. You can also add Salah finding his mojo to that list of certainties.
Seventy-five minutes: brilliant control, a movement away from Borna Barisic and a finish past McGregor. Eighty minutes: one-touch passes bamboozling a bewildered defence and a time-stands-still moment as Salah stopped, measured the goal for size and put his shot away. Eighty-two minutes: Salah hypnotising Barisic before making it six for his team. Mesmeric.
Harvey Elliott made it seven and thereby put this one into the annals of Ibrox history – the bad history, that is. The dark stuff.
We don’t know what this will do to Rangers’ season or what it will do for Liverpool, but there was a jaw-dropping aspect to that six-goal second half. Every Rangers fan exited in a daze, in silence and with blank expressions. Every Liverpool fan won’t get carried away, but it was an important night, a night when the feelgood returned. Who knows where it might take them.
For Liverpool, it’s all about City on Sunday and a chance to land a blow. For Rangers, the recriminations are coming. In Glasgow, the post-mortems tend to be brutal and lengthy. This one will last awhile.
