What better time to begin your new blog on all things Celtic than in the aftermath of an Old Firm victory and during the international break?!
I’ve always found the break pretty frustrating usually because Scotland are generally so underwhelming and international friendly matches seem as pointless as a helicopter with an ejection seat.
This time around it was will be marginally different as the new Nations League begins meaning technically it’s a competitive game against Albania next Monday. It does beg the question of when the qualifiers for the Euros are scheduled to begin though? I mean aren’t they meant to start about now?
What it does do though is it always us to bask in the glory of Sunday’s victory.
Let’s be honest going in the air of negativity around Celtic was tangible. The club has been pretty persistently run over the coals throughout August as the transfer window wound to a halt with most of it our own doing.
One way of looking at it was that finally secured a decent calibre centre back (Filip Benkovic) – for the season at least – along with one of the standout midfielders from the SPFL Premiership last season (Youssouf Mulumbu), an exciting young winger (Daniel Arzani) from Man City, a proven left-back (Emilio Izaguirre) and blew our transfer record out of the water on a top 20-year-old striker from PSG (Odsonne Edouard).
But the alternative to that is that we lost out on John McGinn – by all accounts grasping defeat from the jaws of victory on that one – as well as failing to secure the services of Sporting Lisbon right-back Cristiano Piccini who ended up at Valencia instead and then at the 13th hour surrendering to the transfer demands of wantaway striker Moussa Dembele, who left us for Lyon after we’d previously stated he was going nowhere. There was also a certain situation involving our centre back Dedryk Boyata refusing to play for us in a Champions League qualifier as he himself wanted away on the back of interest from English Premiership side Fulham.
All that combined with our beloved manager’s constant railing against the board – who by all accounts were not best pleased with his decision to use the assorted press in order to communicate with them – added to the ongoing love in between the MSM and new Rangers manager, draw specialist Steven Gerard meant that the heat was all on the Hoops for this latest Old Firm encounter.
Alas Celtic delivered and reminded us in the process that the gap between ourselves and our city rivals is still as wide as the Clyde and that if we look even remotely interested there is a pretty good chance we are going to win.
Boosted by an electric atmosphere – which was in no way impacted by the fact that for the first time in the fixture’s history at Celtic Park the opposition support was only allocated the equivalent of ten men and a union jack clad dog – Celtic dominated proceedings from the get-go and only a sturdier than normal Rangers backline, upgraded keeper and lady luck in abundance prevented it from being an all-out hammering.
The first half ending 0-0 was frustrating but the game had an air of inevitability about it and as expected the Rangers striking due of Lafferty and Morelos looked about as clinical as Davie Dodds on a nightclub dance floor.
As the second half played out Rangers showed a bit more ambition – kinda- and actually dared venture into our half on occasion but all this ultimately achieved was giving us space to finally score. In super-super-super slow-mo, Tom Rogic appeared to make some contact with Ryan Jack’s ankle but play raged on and Celtic tore through Rangers with a breathtaking counter-attack resulting in N’tcham sweeping it home. Gerrard later commented that “If we’d lost the game with a moment of class or brilliance from Celtic I’d have held my hands up, but the referee’s cost us for sure.” Clearly, he went to hide behind the dugout then after Jack hit the deck.
On the whole it was as one-sided an Old Firm game as there’s been in recent years – and there’s been a few – with Rangers keeper Allan McGregor seemingly making a pre-match pact with the crossbar and post to keep the scoreline down.
Indeed Rangers played far better against us in some of the games where either Mark Warburton and Graeme Murty were in charge than they did on Sunday. The use of those names alone should bring most Rangers fans back down to earth with a bump.
In the aftermath, some from over Govan way have held their hands up to our ongoing dominance in the fixture whilst others remain defiant. The SPFL have also decided that McGregor’s petulant kick out at Ajer in the first half should also go without any retrospective punishment – despite the fact his own manager knows he go away with it – leaving most perplexed but big Lee McCulloch on BBC Sportsound satisfied as apparently, it was a yellow card at the most. Why do I get the impression that Jig’s take on this would have been different if McGregor has been Craig Gordon and Ajer has been wearing a blue jersey? Maybe it’s just the cynic in me.
So normal service resumed then – in more ways than one – and a tad under £20 million in the bank from selling a striker who clearly didn’t want to be there. It turned out to be not a bad couple of days after all.
As for Scotland, I’ve just realised they play Belgium in an actual friendly on Friday in advance of the Albania game. Maybe that helicopter’s ejector seat could come in handy after all.
....Always A Tim! 