It’s been all smiles recently with an upturn in Celtic’s fortunes thanks to more positive results and some swashbuckling football to boot.
With Alkmaar seen off 2-0 at Celtic Park followed by St.Mirren being put to the sword 6-0 at Celtic Park, we entered into a crunch double-header full of optimism.
On Thursday night we just got past Alkmaar 3-2 on aggregate despite conspiring to make it difficult for ourselves.
A sweeping early move caught our Dutch hosts on the hop and Kyogo buried his seventh goal of the season and put us on a pretty unassailable 3-0 aggregate lead.
But reckless blunders by Stephen Walsh / Joe Hart followed by a howler from Carl Starfelt saw us gift a 2-1 lead to Alkmaar and give them a way back in the tie.
Thankfully we held on despite a few hairy moments and progressed to the Europa League groups stages where we face the challenging prospect of Bayer Leverkusen, Real Betis and Ferencvaros. What with the tournament being recalibrated due to the arrival of the Europa Conference League there really are no mugs in the Europa League now.
That all kicks off in Seville on the 16th of September and I’m sure we’ll have some thrilling nights ahead of us but before then we had to travel to Ibrox yesterday for Ange’s first taste of what used to be known by many and still is by some as the Old Firm derby.
We were all hoping for a big improvement on our wretched recent efforts in the fixture but alas it was a case of deja vu as Ange Ball failed to show up and Celtic went down 1-0 against a tame opposition in front of a hostile partisan crowd.
No doubt impacted by their respective efforts on the continent on Thursday night both teams looked like they were playing in treacle at times.
Celtic’s high energy approach of recent weeks was replaced by a brand of largely toothless possession-based football more akin to the latter stages of the Brendan Rodgers era as opposed to the rampant style of the past half a dozen games.
We just weren’t at it with players such as Christie, Abada and Turnbull so impressive thus far in this campaign posted missing while the decision to push Kyogo out to the left and play Edouard through the middle was somewhat disastrous as the Japanese striker struggled and French Eddy produced another embarrassing display against the Gers that saw him miss another sitter in the fixture.
There was a time when Rangers fans were petrified of the sight of big Odsonne but not anymore as he delivered his latest display bereft of clinical instincts and all-round effort.
At the back we were okay but ultimately conceded from a set-piece which now is as standard when faced against the men in light blue jerseys.
Then late on Kyogo shot when he should have passed it then passed it when he should have shot.
And that was that.
We’ve failed to win any of our last seven against Rangers with six defeats and a 12-2 aggregate.
A 6 game-winning run for Ange is also now two defeats on the bounce.
Alas, it is early days and hopefully, he and we have learned lessons.
The transfer window slams shut tomorrow at 11pm and with Liam Scales and Jospic Juranovic added in the last few days.
Croatian internationalist right-back Juranovic made an impressive debut at Ibrox yesterday especially considering he was parachuted in at left-back what with the absence of Greg Taylor and Boli Bolingoli not being trusted to even make the bench these days.
Hopefully, more players will arrive and we’ll also get some clarity on the futures of the likes of Edouard, Barkas, Boli and Griffiths none of whom appear to have a future at the club.
Ryan Christie and Albian Ajeti also appear to have uncertain immediate destinies.
It should be an exciting deadline for both incoming and outgoing reasons and it’s then followed by the dreaded international break which at the very least will allow the manager to take stock and get us ready for attempting to get more wins on the board.
....Always A Tim! 