Celtic stayed at the summit of the SPFL Premiership with a pretty comfortable 3-1 win over Kilmarnock at Rugby Park last night that should have been by a lot more.
Let’s be honest we were all pretty nervy about this one what with having lost two of our three previous visits there as well as concerns over THAT surface that masquerades as a pitch down at the Ayrshire club’s ground.
Indeed it lived up to its reputation with the players of both teams struggling to stay upright throughout the game.
In spite of it though Celtic dominated as we controlled the ball and Kilmarnock ditched any sort of press and sat deep for most of the night.
The personnel might be by and large the same but this is a very different team to the one that Steve Clarke had so well drilled and difficult to break down last season.
As pointed out in my preview they haven’t won a Premiership game in over two months and taking apart League One’s Queen’s Park 6-0 in the Scottish Cup fourth round on Saturday was really fooling no one.
We went with an unfamiliar 3-5-2 formation which raised a few pre-game eyebrows.
The Griffiths and Edouard partnership looked like it might just be on show for the cup game at struggling Championship side Partick Thistle a the weekend but Lenny showed that there might actually be some mileage to it by unleashing the pairing once again at Rugby Park.
Greg Taylor was dropped which I found a bit mystifying considering how well he performed on Saturday as well as his familiarity with the playing surface which he had played on for many years before making his move to us in the summer. He was replaced by Jonny Hayes who definitely appears to be a favourite of the manager.
Olivier Ntcham came in for Tom Rogic though that might have been to protect the injury-prone Aussie playmakers limbs from the dubious playing surface.
To the game itself and in the opening minutes a Simunovic header from an inswinging Griffiths corner was clawed off the line by the home keeper Jan Koprivec and that pretty much set the tone.
Not long after Koprivec then cleaned out Griffiths when trying to bat away a long ball from Christopher Jullien and Odsonne Edouard missed an open goal when the ball broke to him on the edge of the box.
Callum McGregor then danced into the box and appeared set to open the scoring but sidefooted wide when it looked easier to score.
Edouard then made up for his earlier miss with his 18th goal of the season after he took a Frimpong low cross in the box and turned pretty majestically before burying it into the Killie net.
In the second half, Killie started a bit livelier but Celtic increased their lead out of nothing when a Frimpong run ended in a ball to Griffiths who was standing unmarked at the back post and his unspectacular strike was deflected by Alex Bruce past the despairing Koprivec.
That’s two in two for Griffiths now and you could certainly see the confidence surge back through him thereafter. He also made a point of singling out Kris Boyd in the commentary box with his goal celebration which apparently led the former Killie striker to throw his monster munch up in the air in disgust.
The home side then did somehow get back into it as we continued to suffer from the 2-0 syndrome which plagued us throughout December – by that, I mean going 2-0 up and then getting out the cigars and brandy – and you started to worry there was a narrative conjuring itself up of blowing a game and three points which looked in the bag.
Brophy’s cross was cut out by Simunovic and Alan Power’s attempt at goal bounced off the ground before being headed in by Kilmarnock’s new striker Nicke Kabamba who was standing in between Simunovic and Kristofer Ajer.
Before that Celtic had failed to put the game to bed as Edouard was released through on goal a few times, once by Griffiths and on another occasion by a superb Ntcham pass but couldn’t capitalise.
Ntcham himself had a chance to restore the two-goal cushion but his curling finish from the edge of the box flew by the post.
But on the 73rd minute, seven minutes after conceding big Jullien popped up to meet a Griffiths corner with a bullet header into the far corner of the net and that was pretty much that.
Mikey Johnstone came on a sub and nearly scored a cracker from the edge of the box after bearing down on the Kilmarnock backline but it went just inches past.
Bayo then got a run on for a few minutes which was strange.
Kilmarnock’s Alan Power unnecessarily wiped out Jeremie Frimpong in the dying embers with a challenge which saw the young Dutchman stretchered from the pitch. The extent of his injury is not yet known but it was a cynical effort from Power which proved and achieved nothing.
Oh, and upon leaving the pitch to be replaced by the aforementioned Bayo, Leigh Griffiths threw some tape he had been using on his socks at an abusive bearded Kilmarnock fan in a bunnet who was outraged at the incident whilst the two kids sitting beside him laughed at his absurdity.
So that’s all she wrote. 3-1. Three points at a difficult venue where we’ve struggled before.
We remain top by two points as Rangers huffed and puffed to a 1-0 win at Ibrox over St.Mirren but they do of course have a game in hand.
I’m actually a little disappointed we didn’t win by more as we literally could have had another three or four though if you’d offered me 3-1 before the game I’d have bitten your hand off so no real complaints.
Lenny is certainly utilising the squad at the moment with lots of chopping and changing but the games are coming thick and fast and it’s something he was criticised for not doing when involved in a similar fixture pile-up last month which ended in us looking rather weary and jaded come the vital meeting with Rangers at Celtic Park on December 29th. And we all know how that ended.
I’ll preview the home game against Ross County tomorrow as well as have a look at the outgoings and incomings that have taken place in the January transfer window which has been pretty eventful thus far and still has over a week to run.
....Always A Tim! 