So that’s the international week come and gone again.
For once it actually worked out well for Scotland.
Mostly anyway.
Helped along by a goal from Celtic’s Ryan Christie as well as successful penalties during the deciding shootout from Leigh Griffiths and Callum McGregor the nation’s national team saw off a fancied Serbia and are heading to a major international tournament for the first time since 1998.
It’s quite an achievement and gives most folk something to look forward to next summer as no doubt the pubs will be jam-packed.
Indeed it’s something I’ve never experienced before in my adult life and I’m looking forward to it.
Though it was tempered by their subsequent inability to get a win from their remaining two Nations League games away to Slovakia and Israel as Scotland went down 1-0 in both games despite creating plenty of chances and generally playing pretty well.
I guess that’s what happens when you play Ollie McBurnie upfront.
Honestly what an imposter he is and the sooner he signs for his beloved Rangers the better.
Anyway, that’s all in the past now and it’s back to club action or the ‘real thing’ as I like to call it.
Celtic of course had a plethora of their players away on international duty with five alone involved in Wednesday nights Israel vs Scotland game.
The word so far is that no one suffered any injuries or has been affected by Covid so that’s a relief.
There was some doubt over Kristofer Ajer and Mohamed Elyounoussi’s availability after they were told to quarantine for ten days in the aftermath of Norway’s game vs Romania being called off due to a positive test in the squad but they have since been cleared.
The break also gave time for players like Christopher Jullien, Mikey Johnstone and Albian Ajeti to work on their fitness and whilst the big French defender is still not match fit he should be getting closer.
The international games also saw a return to form for Odsonne Edouard who has been struggling for form of late as he bagged two goals for the French under-21s vs Switzerland.
Hopefully, he can carry that form back into the Scottish Premiership.
And there’s no better place to start than Easter Road tomorrow.
Simply put this is a must-win game.
Let’s be honest they all are from here on out as we sit nine points behind league leaders Rangers albeit with two games in hand.
Our opponents tomorrow have by and large had a good season thus far with seven wins from thirteen league games along with three draws and three wins which puts them fourth in the table, two points behind third-placed Aberdeen and five points behind ourselves.
They’ve also won all four of their League Cup regional section matches which saw them sail smoothly into the Last 16 where they will face Dundee next weekend.
But they did come unstuck in the Scottish Cup semi-final recently as they suffered a surprise 2-1 loss to relegated city rival Hearts.
Manager Jack Ross has assembled a strong squad with the dangermen being wide player Martin Boyle and the recently acquired frontman Kevin Nisbett who has hit nine goals in 14 games already.
We played them back in late September and cuffed them 3-0 at Celtic Park producing one of our best displays of the season but they’ve only lost one of their seven home encounters this campaign in all competitions and held Rangers to a 2-2 draw at Easter Road two months ago.
We haven’t actually won there in our last five league encounters with the last two ending in draws and suffering three consecutive defeats before that.
That added to the fact they spent three seasons languishing in the second tier recently means our last league win at their ground came in Neil Lennon’s first tenure as Celtic manager back in January of 2014.
Though we did record a 2-0 Scottish Cup win in Leith in March of last year.
So it’s by no means a gimme at a ground where we don’t have much form.
It’ll be interesting to see who the manager goes with and what formation he decides to deploy.
All of our strikers now should be up to speed and this really will set the marker for an intense period that will see the Bhoys play eleven games in 41 days leading up the New Year’s encounter with Rangers on January 2nd.
Six of those games will be league matches and all of them are must-win.
If we can get those 18 points on the board then we can sit back and see what’s happened elsewhere but it has to start tomorrow, 3pm at Easter Road.
....Always A Tim! 