Celtic produced their best 45 mins of the season as they swept aside fourth-placed Aberdeen with ease at noon yesterday.
Right from the get-go, Celtic showed no ill effects from the pulsating 2-1 win over Lazio in the Europa League on Thursday night.
On ten mins Odsonne Edouard scored a fine individual goal after he played a one-two with James Forrest and drove at the Aberdeen backline eventually finishing in the bottom right-hand corner of Joe Lewis’s goal.
Only five minutes later the French under-21 international then turned provider as he played the ball across the face of goal where it was bundled home by the precocious Jeremie Frimpong.
The scoring then dried up for 22 mins before James Forrest ended a wonderful give and go thirteen pass move by side-footing home from within the Aberdeen box as the home side looked on dumbstruck. Fabulous football.
And then on the stroke of half time, Mohamed Elyounoussi kept up his rich recent vein of form with an acrobatic volley into the net high past Joe Lewis after the ball was intelligently scooped in by Tom Rogic from the edge of the box.
In the second half, you wondered if Celtic might come close to repeating Leicester City’s incredible 9-0 away drubbing of Southampton in EPL on Friday night but alas as it was not to be as the chances dried up and the Dons sat in obviously determined to make it damage limitation.
Frimpong was again impressive in the progressive right-back role and Tom Rogic, who was once more in for the suspended Ryan Christie, also had a pretty majestic first half spraying the ball around with ease.
With Rangers pulling a 2-1 home win over Motherwell out of the fire later on in the day after being a goal down we remain top on goal difference though that goal advantage is now stretched to three.
We now go into another mid-week encounter this time in the league on Wednesday night at home to struggling St. Mirren.
They sit third-bottom with a meagre eight points, only one more than bottom-placed St.Johnstone.
Under new coach, Jim Goodwin goals have been hard to come by this term and they’ve drawn a blank six times in ten league games not to mention the fact they failed to score in two of their four league cup group section games back in the summer.
They’ve won only twice on league duty this season with two draws and six losses and have scored a paltry five goals though have conceded only nine and no more than two in any league match.
Hard to break down and compact would probably be the best description with little firepower.
Three points is always a must and you’d expect St.Mirren to come and really sit-in offering little in the way of an offence outside of the odd long ball over the top or punt from the goalie. Celtic will have plenty of the ball and have to find a way to break the Buddies down.
But considering we’ve scored 32 in only ten league games thus far and 59 from 22 games overall it’s safe to say we have the firepower to unlock the Paisley side no matter how resolute they are and I’m hoping for a another goal bonanza with a prediction of 4-0.
Then we move onto Saturday and Hibs in the League Cup with the struggling Leith side also on only eight league points but with a far inferior goal difference seeing them sitting second bottom.
They threw away a 2-0 lead at home to Ross County on Saturday and have still only recorded one league win all season.
With manager Paul Heckingbottom on the brink it seems, it mustn’t be forgotten that they were able to hold us 1-1 at Easter Road only last month.
They have a vital home game against Livingston on Wednesday and defeat there could see Heckingbottom not even in the dugout for the 5pm Saturday kick-off.
Watch this space and a more in-depth preview to come after the results are in 48hrs but on the expansive pitch at the national stadium you’d expect Celtic to really turn them over and reach our fouth consecutive League Cup final.
....Always A Tim! 