SENTINELCELTS

Morning,all.


Undoubtedly an angst-filled noon slot on Sunday as we toiled in terrible conditions against a Dundee United side which, despite their home advantage, played the entire match like a team in a relegation battle and desperate for a point. To any watching neutrals, it would be difficult to convince them that this was actually a side looking to consolidate their already tenuous hold on a European place. They added nothing whatsoever to the “occasion” but let’s be honest.

Neither did Celtic.

We went into the game on a high after winning the first trophy of the season, a trophy which removed any lingering claim of our opponents to be the most successful club in the world. Yes,we all know that the claim is a load of nonsense, and that is why we certainly won’t be claiming it, but it’s nice to take it off them anyway! We also had an entire week between games, our first (with the exception of international breaks) since the beginning of September over three months ago. We had, in other words, a pretty good time of it in midweek-except for the fact that some of our players succumbed to illness!

This led to a shake-up in the team,with five changes. We’ve seen earlier in the season, as BR took the chance to give some game time to otherwise underused members of the squad, that we struggle to adapt to having so many changes at once. And with gale-force winds and driving rain softening the pitch as well, it is little wonder that we struggled to impose ourselves on even the most supine of opponents.

Supine, that is, until we went anywhere near their goal! And there were precious few times when we did. Idah set up a glorious chance for Kyogo late on, and that was really just about that. The wee fella confounds me still when I watch replays of his goal against Hibs; his miss on Sunday will probably confound us all for a lot longer than that!

But it isn’t fair to highlight that moment as the one where we dropped two points. (And for most of us,it was two points lost, rather than a point gained.) The two points were lost all over the pitch. That chance aside, the service to the strikers was appalling. The midfield weren’t doing it, and neither were the wide players. Nobody came out of that day smelling of roses, frantically calling their agent to add a few minutes to their highlights reel.

We can all look back to performances since our double header of delight with Aberdeen in the semi and Leipzig in Europe, but we have won them all regardless! Our worst performances in that time have probably been against Aberdeen and Dundee United, both away from home, and last weekend’s cup final victory. But all have had one thing in common-utterly dreadful conditions.

We won the first two, and while I am disappointed with Sunday, I cannot deny the facts. That we have a nine point lead in the league, a trophy in the bag, and a very good chance of progress in Europe. We have also only lost one game domestically in this calendar year, along with one in Europe.

So I’ll bite back my post-match frustration, and point out that I’d have settled for all of the above if you had asked me in August. That Sunday was an aberration caused more by the conditions and the enforced changes, rather than the inevitable outcome of so many under-par performances recently.

Because I might be a tinsel-free fella at Christmas, but I’m buggered if I’m gonna let it ruin a great family day! I hope you all have a great family day too, even if that only includes a phone call to faraway family and friends. Enjoy it, folks. Life’s too short, and the fitba’s back on Thursday anyway!!!

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Above article by BMCUWP