Not much to see here.
I was out for dinner with friends on Friday night and stopped into the wonderfully titled Committee Room No. 9 pub. It just rolls off the tongue that one.
Anyway to the game itself and as I opened with there isn’t really much to tell.
Celtic continue in the vein of passing the ball relentlessly about and continuously recycling it from the back whilst showing little to no creativity from middle to front.
St.Mirren did what Scottish teams generally do against Celtic and sat back and defended for their life though in fairness in the first half they created a few decent chances when they did break away up the pitch.
Olivier Ntcham was sent off for a needless second bookable offence on 37 minutes and the Buddies still sat deep and by the second half, their new manager Oran Kearney had clearly designated the Celtic half of the pitch as a no-go zone area for his players.
Tom Rogic was shackled all night and clearly didn’t like it and McGregor, fresh from his star performance against Albania for Scotland the previous Monday, wanted too much time on the ball all night and failed to make any impact.
That being said McGregor should have scored when he drove into the box in the second half only to shoot straight at Craig Samson in the St.Mirren goal and Leigh Griffiths netted in the dying seconds but was a couple of yards when he really shouldn’t have been.
Boyata actually came closest to scoring in the first half when his header was diverted off the line by a St. Mirren defender. I couldn’t ascertain which one. Either could the Sky or Radio Scotland commentators.
Of course in the fallout, there’s a load of crisis talk by the Celtic fans. After the weekend’s results, we’re now a whopping five points behind undefeated league leaders Hearts and equal with new boys Livingston.
Yes, we’re not playing well but when teams sit in, to a man completely refusing to come out like St.Mirren did for about 80% of the game then it’s always difficult. The Paisley team were also clearly benefiting from the pick me up factor offered by the arrival of new coach Oran Kearney who apparently thinks they’ll win the league next season. God loves an optimist.
No matter which way you look at it we need to be far more cutting when it comes to Rosenborg and out Europe League opener on Thursday night.
....Always A Tim! 