Rangers ignited by title race inspiration from CELTIC as Ibrox believers lean on five years of evidence

It's one of the universal laws of football: you don't get away with it for ever.

For a while it was looking like Celtic were meandering along to another relatively comfortable title win, but even the most confident in green and white now would admit that it is well and truly on now. After weeks of stumbles and threats to let their rivals back into it, it all finally came home to roost for Brendan Rodgers at Rugby Park on Sunday, and just as we approach the point of the season where the league table really begins to matter, it's anyone's game once again.

We're just shy of the halfway point and the team top at this stage usually goes onto win it; over the last five years, the leaders after 17 games played have done that on four occasions. But the momentum is beginning to swing in the other direction and, provided Rangers win their game in hand against St Johnstone, we could be set for one of the best title races we've seen in Scottish football for years.

So as things really threaten to heat up, Record Sport have taken a look back at how things have shaped up at this exact junction seasons gone by...and what we can learn from history about the months that lie ahead.

Celtic P17 GD39 Pts 48

Rangers P17 GD22 Pts 39

Winners: Celtic

This time last season, it was all but done. Ange Postecoglou's team were hitting their peak, winning all but one of their league games, while Rangers were just starting to show some signs of life in the conceptual stages of the Michael Beale era. Celtic fans long for where they were 12 months ago - they'd just won their ninth league game on the spin, downing Livingston at home to retake a nine-point advantage.

There wasn't much drama to follow; 15 wins out of their next 16, the only blotch