SENTINELCELTS

Morning,all.

Great day on Saturday,with time well spent chez SOLKITTS. Grateful thanks as ever for your hospitality,folks! Pity I forgot to pack the Highland Park 12yo that I’d bought for the evening,but it won’t go off. Plus of course,there was a match of some import to deal with first.

This was really a bit of a stroll in the park for most of the evening,though we contrived to make it harder for us than it should have been after we went 4-1 up. The game isn’t won until the final whistle goes,and we might do well to remember that.

Nevertheless,it would be churlish to criticise too much. After all,five goals in a semi-final is good going by any standard. That’s us on 73 for the season already,and we still have a dozen matches to play before the winter break. Including the League Cup Final,our first ever against the south side zombies.

We lined up as follows

Forster

Frimpong,Jullien,Ajer,Boli

Forrest,Brown,McGregor,Rogic,Elyounoussi

Edouard

We started well enough,with James Forrest really looking like he was in for a good day. Sadly it wasn’t to be for him as his game petered out before being substituted half way through the second half. By then,he had hit the post,come close another couple of times. Oh,and laid on the first with a delightful chip to the back post for Elyounoussi to header into the far corner. A few minutes later,I Wanna put on the afterburners with a mazy run inside the area before sidefooting it across goal for the onrushing CalMac to make it two,with barely twenty minutes on the clock.

Even at this early stage,we looked like running riot against a Hibs side which were offering very little bar hard graft. We peppered their goal relentlessly but to no avail and it was a surprise to us all when the next goal went the way of the opposition. The ball was ricocheting around the edge of our area when Boli got an unfortunate toe on it to send Hallberg one on one with Forster,and suddenly we had a game on our hands! Shocked out of our lethargy,Eddy darted deep into the left of their box and in a near-carbon copy of our second,stroked the ball across goal for CalMac to finish it off virtually on the stroke of half time.

With Jonny Hayes on for the ineffective Boli,we started the second half as we had ended the first. Inside the first dozen minutes,we saw a shot from Elyounoussi bounce back off the post and into the arms of the prone keeper and another effort,this time by Forrest from the edge of the box beat the keeper but not the woodwork.

In the old days of the square Hampden goalposts,there’s little doubt that Elyounoussi would have got his second,but them’s the breaks!

Twelve minutes into the second half saw us finally get the goal that our play deserved,and it came from a corner! Elyounoussi swung one in and the keeper tried to catch it at the same time as Jullien got his head on it. Gravity did the rest,as the ball dropped to Broonie who couldn’t really miss from two yards out. 4-1 and the Hibs fans began to stream out of the ground,yet the next thirty minutes was very much their best spell of the game.

For starters,they kicked off again and had their second of the game within a minute of the restart. Great goal it was,too. A cross whipped in to around the penalty spot and an excellent header into the bottom corner,with Forster rooted. Nothing he could have done about it,just a terrific goal.

They clearly hadn’t given up,even if their cause looked hopeless. Having said that,for all their effort,it was Celtic who were creating the best opportunities,with Eddy and Elyounoussi each seeing a couple of efforts blocked or just off target.

With five minutes to go,Elyounoussi picked up a loose ball in the middle of our half and fed it to Broonie. He ran the length of the pitch,defenders trailing behind him or standing off,before releasing it back to Mo at the edge of the box. His first touch wasn’t the best for once,but he returned it to Broonie who couldn’t really miss from 12 yards out. The keeper saved his first effort,but he still had the energy left to fire the rebound into the net. Finally we could relax,and celebrate our passage through to our tenth successive final.

If you think I’m going to let this review pass without comment on a blatant piece of cheating by Bobby Madden,you’re wrong. With the scores still tied at 0-0,he decided to ignore the most blatant of handballs by a Hibs defender as the ball came in from a corner. This type of officiating is costing us our due reward far too often and it’s time we made an official complaint. Sucking it up never changed anything,Celtic.

In a game where we scored five goals,it may seem strange to give the MOTM award to a striker who failed to register one of our goals. But while Elyounoussi and Broonie pushed him close,I thought I Wanna was at his unplayable best. Laying on two goals and generally scaring defenders to death,he just shades it for me. Now all roads lead to Rome on Thursday. We can only hope that he takes out his frustration-he got into some great positions on Saturday,but didn’t get the ball,and boy was he pissed!-on Lazio as his general play deserves greater reward.

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Above article by BMCUWP. Give us your thoughts on anything you like and we will gladly publish as Article of the Day. Mail it to Mahe

sentinelcelts@gmail.com