Has Celtic's Idah won over his doubters?

In some senses, Sunday's Old Firm derby was a tale of two number nines.

In the blue corner, Cyriel Dessers, the much-denigrated Rangers hitman who spurns chances with maddening regularity but sticks plenty away too.

In the green, Adam Idah, who arrived with a reported £9.5m price tag and, so far, failed to convince sections of the Celtic support he is worth the cash.

Idah was feted during his loan spell from Norwich City across the second half of last season, plundering nine goals, the last and most memorable of them sinking Celtic's city rivals to win the Scottish Cup at the death.

Since moving north on a permanent basis this summer, the 24-year-old's performances have been roundly criticised, particularly since the mid-season departure of striking fulcrum Kyogo Furuhashi.

Fuel was added to the fire when footage emerged of Idah appearing to be sick in a taxi on a night off from training last month.

Idah is cast in a very different mould to Kyogo, or fellow Japanese rapier Daizen Maeda, who has netted an eye-watering 33 times this term.

He offers size, muscularity and gives Celtic a focal point should they switch up their possession-based blueprint for a more direct approach.

And his output is hardly meagre.

Between the end of November and late January, the Republic of Ireland international went 14 games without scoring but was started in only five of those matches.

He has still mustered 18 goals this term, three of them in the Champions League.

That equates to an impressive tally of just better than a goal every 120 minutes on the pitch.

A minute of raging, end-to-end fare felt like the Old Firm striker saga in microcosm.

With half-time looming, Idah was sent clean through on goal. Having snatched at a couple of earlier chances, he shot meekly at goalkeeper Liam Kelly. Ibrox roared.

Rangers went up the other end, Vaclav Cerny's clever dummy set up Dessers, who bustled past Liam Scales and rolled calmly into the Celtic net.

Idah, though, was undeterred. He combined well with Maeda down the left, linked the play with accuracy and was rewarded with the equalising goal.

His instinctive swivel on the edge of the Rangers box and powerful finish, with the aid of a John Souttar deflection, ultimately prevented the home team winning a third derby on the spin.

Former Celtic goalkeeper Pat Bonner believes his old club must recruit another striker for next season and also questioned whether his countryman would be more effective in a front two.

"They have spent about £9m on Adam Idah," he said on BBC Radio Scotland.

"They could go that high again, just to get that out-and-out striker who is going to bag goals.

"They have to get somebody in there. They can't rely just on putting Maeda in there and Adam.

"Adam is young enough and scored today, but I don't know whether he needs something alongside him to help him."

Brendan Rodgers has spoken often about Idah's attributes and the Celtic manager was once again effusive in his praise at full-time.

"Adam doesn't get criticism from us, we know his qualities," he said.

"This is his first full season here, he's only going to get better. He's a player for the big moments. He scores big goals, in big games. He will get better all the time.

"People are judging him on his price tag, but he doesn't set that.

"He's a real handful for us and has shown that at every level, he gets goals."

Idah's leveller delivered a satisfactory outcome for manager Brendan Rodgers as it prevented a third straight loss to Rangers and maintained the 17-point gap over their second-top city rivals.

"At half-time, I still felt we were at a good place in the game," Rodgers explained.

"Second half, we controlled the game. When you come to Ibrox, you sometimes have 10-15 minutes where you're under real pressure, backs to the wall, but I never really felt that.

"If I was to criticise, maybe our final-third play didn't lend us to creating opportunities. But our build-up was composed. We got the goal, we deserved it."