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Micheal Beale was brutally honest in his assessment as he took his seat in the Rangers press room last night. It's clear the 42-year-old was far from happy with what he saw, conceding his message to the players might "sting".

Sloppy and lackadaisical in their passing,  the 3-0 win masked an uneven performance that contained more than a few of the red flags that have previously worried the Londoner. 

It's one thing allowing standards to drop against a club in the thick of a relegation battle and another entirely against Ange Postecoglou's well-oiled attack on Monday.

Beale now has a few days to gather his men around and put together a plan to beat the champions and begin the process of grasping back the mantle of Scotland's best team. 

His task will be difficult but far from impossible. The capitulation of earlier in the season provided a false narrative of the difference between these two groups of players. It was only a few months ago after all that Giovanni van Bronckhorst's side dumped their great rivals from the Scottish Cup with a display of genuine power.

A repeat is far from impossible. We all know how Celtic play, with their relentless offensive forays in the opening 30 minutes and they undoubtedly have flair and goal threat in attack - but weather the storm and you have a good chance of inflicting serious damage. Those at the back will have to be switched on from the start with Jota, Kyogo and co. sure to cause problems with their off-the-ball movement. Set-pieces, Rangers Achillies' heel this term, will be crucial.

The scale of the task can be measured by Beale's own admission last night that Celtic remain the stronger side, at least for the time being.

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"I think at this moment in time they are playing at a higher level than us. I think everybody can see that," he admitted. "They are in a good rhythm. This time last year we were six points in front of them so things can turn around with time, with good recruitment, with training, with a feel-good factor around the club. That's the aim."

And yet time waits for no man at Rangers, a home defeat, and a 12-point gap at this stage of the season is unthinkable regardless of circumstance. As unpalatable as it sounds for fans in the here and now, a draw would allow Beale more time to combine his work on the training pitch with returning players from the treatment table and a couple of surgical raids in the winter window. The manager would likely be satisfied, if not happy, with this outcome - although he's far too canny a media operator to ever say it publicly.

A win though would surely transform this stuttering, painful season, giving sudden life to a title race. Six points are far from insurmountable with so many games left to play after all. More crucially, it would provide hope that the Ibrox board, in appointing Beale, have secured better times in the years ahead.  That's already been the hot-take opinion formed by this writer in the opening weeks of his reign. 

Having seen Beale operate at close quarters, it's fair to say he's impressed in myriad ways. Four wins on the bounce, including a dramatic turnaround that was sparked by smart substitutions against Aberdeen speak volumes about his potential on the grass. Off it, he doesn't carry the aura of a 'rookie' head coach that's for sure. A superb communicator clearly imbued with a high level of self-confidence, he's been superb value for the media, bringing a lot of information to light that the previous regime seemingly preferred to remain opaque. 

All that will mean little if things go badly wrong but you'd suspect the players and not Beale would take the brunt of it. The eleven that take the field will banish such thoughts, instead focusing on what they can achieve if they find their levels. Malik Tillman, a player already transformed under the new manager, said that when Rangers hit their top gear, they can win any game this country throws in front of them. He's right to have such confidence, Rangers have beaten far better sides than Postecoglou's Celtic in the last calendar year including Dortmund, RB Leipzig and PSV.

Do it again, and the Beale era will truly have started with a big bang - and one that will kickstart a title race thought long dead.