Celtic gained revenge for their only domestic defeat so far of the season and in doing so remained top of the league title race with a pretty dominant 4-0 win at home against a pretty toothless Livingston.
My prematch prediction was for a 4-0 victory and so it proved to be.
Celtic started off rather sluggishly which was maybe to be expected after an international break but soon kicked it up a gear and after Rickie Lamie failed to cut out a sweeping forward ball from Tom Rogic, Odsonne Edouard found himself through on goal where he finished with aplomb dinking it over Livi keeper Matija Sarkic on 19 mins.
French Eddy had a few other decent opportunities to extend the lead and add to his 14 goals this season but passed both up, the second of which he should have done much better with when through one on one with the keeper once again in an identical position from where he opened the scoring but this time he went for power and slammed it straight at Sarkic.
In the second half, Celtic’s domination continued as the visitors offered little in the way of offence and 18-year-old Jeremie Frimpong really took the bull by the horns with relentless attacking down the West Lothian club’s right-hand side.
He set-up Tom Rogic who should have scored but put it over the bar and down the other side substitute Greg Taylor was unlucky to see his effort deflected off the post denying him his first Celtic goal in the process.
A long-overdue second came just before the hour mark when Ryan Christie cued up Scott Brown from just outside the box and the captain’s shot deflected into the net via the shin of Livi defender Jon Guthrie.
Seven minutes later the game was finally put to bed and as James Forrest finished sweetly when the ball dropped out of the sky after Sarkic had kept out the rampaging Frimpong’s effort.
Leigh Griffiths then return to the fray minutes later as a sub for Edouard and should have scored at the back post but misjudged his movement towards the ball.
Forrest made it four in injury time with a lovely finish after being fed through from Christie after the in-form Scotland international had robbed Livi captain Marvin Bartley.
That brings Forrest’s tally to 13 this season which is only four behind his record total of 17 he’s achieved in each of the last two seasons which he’s surely on course now to smash considering we’re still only in late November.
All in all a pretty resounding victory and it keeps Celtic at the top of the league despite Rangers winning 3-1 at Hamilton Accies the following day in a game where the home side passed up numerous chances to get the game back to 2-2 in the second half.
Both ourselves and the Ibrox side sit at the top of the table on 34 points though our goal difference is +3 better off.
Elsewhere in the league Hearts continue to toil as they went 3-0 down at Kilmarnock after only 16 mins and that’s the way it stayed. It looks unlikely temporary boss Austin MacPhee will be getting the job now no matter how nice his suits are.
New Hibs boss Jack Ross got off to a flyer with a comprehensive 3-1 win at home to high flying Motherwell whilst St.Mirren finally won one with a 2-1 home victory over Ross County.
And in the other Sunday match, Aberdeen could only draw 1-1 with St.Johnstone despite the Perth side having two men straight red-carded in the second half. The Dons remain third in the league though.
So anyway that’s all the domestic action out of the way until next Sunday where we travel north to Dingwall and another must-win match this time against Ross County.
Between now and then we’re on Europa League duty and we find ourselves in the pretty surreal situation of already being through with two games to spare, something that has never happened before to Celtic. Usually, with us it comes down to the final game and some last-minute drama. This time it’s akin a last-minute crammer who’s finished his essay and studied for his exam two weeks in advance.
The match, in reality, means nothing to either us or our visitors Rennes. We are through and they are out. Yes, they’ll say they don’t want to finish bottom and we will have aspirations to win a European group section for the first time and exceed our previous record points total of ten but ultimately this is a dead rubber.
The French side came into this seasons Europa League with high expectations but after drawing 1-1 with us in the group opener back on a balmy evening in mid-September have since thrown away a 1-0 lead in Rome eventually going down 2-1 to Lazio. They then lost back to back matches 1-0 against Cluj suffering two straight red cards in the first game.
So with two games remaining, they have only one point meaning any chance of progression to the Last 32 is officially over.
Domestically it hasn’t been much better.
After winning their first three league games which included a 2-1 home win over the all-conquering PSG they then went seven without a victory (three draws and four defeats) which saw them plummet down the league table.
They arrested that with back to back home wins over Toulouse and Amiens but lost 2-1 away at Dijon at the weekend and haven’t won any of their last seven away games in all competitions with five losses and two draws and currently sit 11th in the league four points away from a European spot but also only four points above the relegation places.
Goals have been hard to come back this term with only 17 in the league and two in Europe with 20 conceded across both fronts.
Their top marksman is the 24-year-old Senegalese striker M’Baye Niang who at 6’2 leads the line well and has six goals in sixteen games and notched up 14 in 44 games last term in what was his most prolific season to date and of course scored against us from the penalty spot when we last met.
Rennes’ other leading goal-scoring threat is midfielder Adrien Hunou, a product of their youth academy who played regularly between under-17 and under -20 level for France and has five in twelve games this season.
The star man though is the precocious talent of 17-year-old Eduardo Camavinga who was on the bench last time out against us only coming on for the last twenty or so minutes but has chalked up seventeen first-team appearances in total this season and is already attracting suitors from across Europe.
Indeed Manchester Utd allegedly recently registered an interest which prompted Rennes to slap down an enormous £43 million valuation on their most prized asset and the likes of Barcelona and Real Madrid have also been credited with an interest.
It’s difficult to tell what sort of a side the under pressure Rennes coach Julien Stéphan will field on Thursday night with his focus more likely to be on domestic league matters and he hinted he might go with youth but that’s a big ask when you consider that there will be a sellout crowd on Thursday and Neil Lennon has stated he plans to go with a full-strength Celtic starting line-up.
“Thrown to the wolves.” is the line that comes to mind when considering Stéphan’s planned approach and it could be a chance for Celtic to not only win the group – which will happen if we win and Cluj lose in Rome to Lazio – but for us also to register a high score something we’ve never really done in a European group stage outside of a 3-0 Champions League win against Benfica many years ago.
We have of course been free-scoring this season with 81 goals already, 29 of which have come in Europe so I think we’re right to expect goals despite the low stakes.
I’ll go for Celtic 3-1.
....Always A Tim! 