SENTINELCELTS

Morning,all.

My oh my, we don’t make things easy for ourselves,do we? Up against the team with the worst record in this season’s group stage-the all time record is still safe at Ibrox-we huffed and puffed and nearly buggered it up.

I haven’t been so relieved since I got the all-clear from the clinic! (Ricki Fulton joke, in case yer wondering.) 

It could all have been so different too. Apart from the four needlessly dropped points in our previous two games which would have put us on Easy Street, we grabbed this game by the scruff of the neck at the first opportunity. And speaking of opportunities, Kyogo took three of them in the first half-only to see them all chalked off! I can’t recall a Celtic player scoring a first half hat trick in Europe-maybe in the old days when we would be drawn against the likes of Kokkola-but I certainly can’t recall anyone having three chalked off. 

Add to that a penalty miss just before half time by the normally reliable Engels-6/6 coming into this game-and nerves were starting to become frayed. What is worse is that our second half performance was nowhere near as good as the first 45, and frayed soon became shredded. We were still probing, still looking to hit the early ball, still keen on a shot from distance, but what was working like clockwork earlier suddenly jammed up. 

Indeed,Schmeichel repaid the value of his new contract-PAID IN FULL-with a wonderful double save about halfway through the second period plus another vital save right on the final whistle, otherwise there is little doubt to this watcher that we would have been FUBAR’d. 

It wasn’t that the players stopped performing after half time, nor that heads went down. It’s difficult to say what happened. Certainly YB upped their performance, but probably because ours had dipped so much. The passes weren’t meeting their targets. The tackles weren’t being won. The dominance had evaporated, to be replaced by apprehension. That déjà vu feeling all over again, so to speak. 

That dreaded knot in the stomach as you realise it just isn’t to be your night,even as the wee Angel on your other shoulder is telling you to have faith, that we are Celtic and winning the hard way is what we do.

Well, winning the hard way from the most unforeseen circumstances is what we did. With five minutes to go,I was praying for about the same again in added time. Any port in a storm. Idah,not long on as a sub for the oh-so-unfortunate Kyogo, ran onto another excellent pass from Hatate, beat the defender for pace only to see the outstretched foot of the keeper knock it clear. And straight into the path of another defender who could only watch in horror as it rebounded off him into the net!

I’ve always said I’ll take a last minute own goal offside penalty if that is what is needed to win a match. This was as close as you can get! The weird thing is that the goal wasn’t greeted with a noise loud enough to blow the bloody roof off, it was as though we all just let out a collective sigh of relief!!! Or maybe that was just me…

Just to really show that we don’t believe in making life easy for ourselves, Maeda got himself sent off for a kick at an opponent in the last minute-and wouldn’t you know it, I got my wish for the five minutes of added time! Oh, we were really being put through the wringer here, huh?

I don’t know about you folks, but I could do without playing teams in yellow and black any time soon. That’s Dortmund who gave us a thorough kicking that could have destroyed our confidence, and now YB who damn near derailed our season. But the important thing is that we didn’t fail. We got the three points. We got the place in the last 16, barring some unknown mathematical formula. 

And as an added bonus, I’ve still got one or two blood pressure tablets and a couple of fingernails left. I reckon I might need them for next week.

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Above article by BMCUWP