SENTINELCELTS

Sack The Kitman!
An important game on a Saturday night and he only went and forgot the scoring boots for the whole team!

It was one hell of a game to watch with a little bit of everything thrown in, an action packed spectacle to behold, for better and for worse.
Opening at a frantic pace, being paused, re-opening at a frantic pace, after Celtic scored the opener the first 13 minutes alone was worth the admission money, and now the early goal was achieved, now the Bhoys were clearly in attack mode, the game had statement victory written all over it. There was a statement made alright, but not the expected one. What transpired was as infuriating as it was mesmerizing.

We walked off at halftime drawing, leaving many thousands in disbelief.
A team that had stupendous amounts of possession. carved opening after opening, played and passed their best in weeks maybe months,,,heard a smattering of boo’s heading down the tunnel.
Whilst that might sound harsh, it only occurred because there’s no noise invented yet for ‘what the actual f#$k is going on here?’

By the 60th minute I was thinking to myself I’m glad MacInnes walked away from R2ngers because his tactics can cause us real problems and with a better standard of player he could have our number. They had man-marked Engles out of the game, Reo generally had two quickly around him, and after they pushed up the field around 35 minutes they were a thorn in our side. But not the main thorn.

As for their equalizer I’ll return to an old footballing cliche,,you can tell by the players (collective) reaction. Our players seen the handball, and instinctively stopped and raised hands as a unit. They were fully convinced, wholeheartedly, no argument.
Two weeks ago Ange was the victim of the same situation, I wrote about it. The Aussie wasn’t impressed, now we all know how he felt.
Incredibly a handball in the box is allowed in certain circumstances, phase of play etc.
The clear problem is that players (ours on Saturday) instinct kicks in, and they see a handball and automatically envisage a free kick, because it’s been that way from time immortal, until this season. Some things get done away with and the players can consciously change their game and mentality, things like the keeper picking up a backpass or two footed tackles,,easy enough to phase out. Having players ignore handball is a completely different kettle of fish. It goes against their nature, all they’ve learnt and experienced. It’s a ridiculous rule that needs scrapped ASAP!

When the subs rocked up I thought here we go, these bhoys will fix this. Incredibly, the same ‘disease’ infected them upon entering the field of play, typified by an Adam lead 4 on 2 attack fizzling out.

Murphys Law said ‘can’t miss ‘em all’ and sure enough on the 70th minute Daizen stuck away the winner.
We held on, we progress.
But my goodness,,,,
I don’t think I shall ever witness such a game again.
On another day it would have been 7-0, and that would have flattered the opposition. I firmly believe I’ll never again see any Celtic team squander chance after chance after chance after chance,,I could go on.
It was ridiculous verging on laughable. From good to bad, over and over again. Good play and build-up, bad finishing to say the least.
It was our season in a nutshell, ultimately emerge on top but showing a big flaw.

With all that in mind, the fact we created soo many chances is a real positive, I thought we were excellent at times, crisp and zippy, really dangerous. Young Boys may laugh, but Celtic actually played well which is a bonus heading into Wednesday, as is staying in the Cup. It was only an off-day upfront, of epic proportions which won’t be repeated, couldn’t be repeated. It came in The Scottish Cup not in Europe or the SPL, but we won.
Where’s Harry Kewell, we miss him.
Call Harry Potter too, we need a potion to cancel that spell that infected us.

I called for Reo, I was granted my wish and watched him closely. He should have had a goal and an assist, pulled out a few lovely passes and justified his selection in these eyes.
Kuhn and Kyogo should have bagged a hat-trick each, but it was telling that Brendan turned to Liam to make the left back area more secure. Greg was fine on the day, very attack natured, if anything AJ was quiet.
Kudos to both ‘Keepers for some excellent saves.

But Brendan, from all of us to you, can you please hire a striking coach, because we’ve all lost our voice after yelling “PUT IT IN THE BLOODY NET MAN!” for 90 plus minutes.

By Mahe