AT the Rangers Review we put great store in the numbers of football and there’s no doubting they are an incredibly important part of the game in 2022. 

Elite clubs feel the same. Significant money is being spent on hiring the best people to ensure the tiniest of marginal gains across Europe’s biggest clubs. 

Nobody in life is immune to the potential and reach emerging from big data and football clubs are adapting by the minute.

From Artificial Intelligence predicting injuries by crunching billions of information points to the underlying numbers that construct the narrative around potential transfer targets, it's fast becoming a large element of the business. 

Talk to any wizened scout and they will tell you how their job has changed as the data revolution has taken hold. 

However, it’s important not to get too carried away with the intoxication of the new. The best operators always add a significant caveat to their tales of transformation – “Don’t forget the importance of the eye test!’ 

As much as it's valuable to measure every aspect of a match, and for all the insight that does bring us, football is still a game of intangibles and some elements will always be tantalisingly out of reach to the Astrophysicists top clubs are now diverting from a career in the City of London to join their data departments. 

And this was never more firmly embedded in the mind than when the numbers from the Scottish Cup semi-final dropped into our inbox last night. It was surprising, for example, to see Celtic chalk up 2.11 expected goals to Rangers’ 1.63. 

While this was a close game fought between two excellent sides on a battleground of fine margins, it still felt inescapable that Rangers were the better side.  They controlled the game for probably 100 of the 120 minutes played. 

This was achieved by bravely playing where Celtic are less comfortable (in their own half) with a suffocating press of remarkable assertiveness. The performance was stunning, but not in the traditional sense of absolute dominance. 

After 120 minutes on Thursday, here was a display of guts, determination, graft and sheer bloody-minded willpower. And yes, I’m going to use that ultimate ‘Yer Da fitba patter’ line – Rangers appeared hungrier for victory. 

Some of this can be measured of course. The intensity of Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s side’s press can be seen in their astonishing PPDA numbers which showed they harried harder in the second half and extra-time than they did the first - while Celtic fell off a cliff as the match wore on. 

READ MORE: Rangers' in-game Celtic recovery shows this team have turned a corner with character

And yet, the high wire act undertaken by young Calvin Bassey on Tom Rogic is more difficult to define accurately through numbers. 

The former Leicester City defender had clearly been instructed to step into midfield and cover Rogic. The Australian is capable of laconic brilliance when given space and had dominated the previous two derby encounters. Not yesterday. 

Bassey was all over the midfielder like a stubborn rash, preventing him time and space to weave his magic.  

And yet, one false step, one mistimed grab for the ball, one unanticipated swivel of the hips and Rogic would be turning into acres of space. 

Bassey gritted his teeth and read each situation impeccably. How do you put a numerical value on his split-second decision-making? 

And this contest was a microcosm because all over the pitch, Rangers were winning their individual battles. It wasn’t always pretty, but it was sure as hell gritty. 

At Parkhead, Celtic blew Rangers away, not because they are far superior, but because van Bronckhorst’s men didn’t do the basics. You can have complex, studied and intelligent tactics but if wingers are letting full-backs run off them or you aren’t matching physical intensity, you are likely done for against good opposition.

The same fate befell Ange Postecoglou’s outfit at Hampden.  

It’s interesting that for all the progressive aspects of play that have made the four matches between these bitter rivals this season among the most tactically sophisticated to ever be played in this country, it's the old staples of the fixture that still give the winner that final edge. 

In an era of explanation, it's important to never forget when the stands are shaking, the blood is coursing, the hairs on the back of your neck stand to attention - the more things change, the more they stay the same.