It was meant to be a routine night with Celtic entertaining a struggling Hamilton Accies side who haven’t won a game in over two months whilst we awaited word of Rangers likely routine visit to Pittodrie.
Instead, it turned out to be a titanic struggle that went down to the wire with ramifications that could still be felt in May when the title race is finally decided.
With both us and our Govan rivals neck and neck at the top and only a solitary goal keeping us above them, I like most hoped for a resounding victory against Brian Rice’s team but with the likes of Boli Bolingoli, Elhamed, Mohamed Elyounoussi and most pertinently Odsonne Edouard all ongoing absentees from the side our starting eleven is really being stretched and means we have the ongoing situation of Lewis Morgan being played upfront.
Of course, we dominated possession and created plenty of chances in the first half and when Ryan Christie took advantage of Accies keeper Luke Southwood spilling Morgan’s drive on 13 mins to give us an early lead the prematch predictions of a big score to boost the goal advantage looked spot on.
But outside of that most other efforts ended up being high, wide and handsome with the only real clear cut chance seeing Ntcham missing a certainty from point-blank range late in the half.
In the second half, Celtic continued to pepper the Accies goal whilst up the other end, the visitors gave a glimpse of what was to come as Fraser Forster dramatically scooped a Sam Stubbs header off the goal line.
Substitutes Mikey Johnston and Leigh Griffiths were unlucky not to score with the former seeing an effort inside the box came off the base of the post and the latter having an effort backheeled off the goal line by Aaron McGowan.
Then everyone’s jaw dropped as slap bang on the 90th minute a speculative long throw into the box eventually fell at the feet of Accies substitute Marios Ogboe who turned and finished well past Forster and to all intents and purposes it looked like Celtic had well and truly blown it.
But history tells us it’s never over until it’s over when Celtic are involved and within a minute captain fantastic Scott Brown strode into the box leaving numerous defenders in his wake before cutting the ball across the face of the goal past Southwood and into the far corner of the net for a dramatic last gasp winner.
If that wasn’t enough drama up the road at Pittodrie Rangers blew a two-goal lead in a game they completely dominated for the first 40 mins and the match ended 2-2. Indeed it could have been even better for the Dons with goal machine Sam Cosgrove missing a second-half header at point-blank range that would have been goal bound.
This all means that we stay top but goal difference is no longer required with a two-point margin doing the job for us instead.
Rangers now have tough visits to Motherwell and Hibs before entertaining Kilmarnock in the coming weeks whilst we have a home game against Hibs, an away game against Hearts, entertain Aberdeen then go to Paisley to play St Mirren on Boxing Day.
But before all that, of course, there’s a certain League Cup final on Sunday to deal with as we go to Hampden to play our bitter rivals from Ibrox.
The national stadium has been a happy hunting ground for us recently having won our last 12 games and six finals there.
In that time we’ve beaten Rangers in three semi-finals by scores of 1-0, 2-0 and 4-0.
This is Rangers first visit there for a major cup final since their dramatic 3-2 injury time capitulation to Hibs back in the 2016 Scottish Cup final and they haven’t won a major trophy at the venue since an extra-time 2-1 win over us in the 2011 League Cup.
Our record in finals against Rangers isn’t great with them 16-12 ahead and indeed we’ve won only two of the last nine finals we’ve played against them with five losses in the last six League Cup finals.
But all of that counts for nothing of course so let’s look a the current form.
This season we’ve won 16 of 18 domestic games thus far with one draw and a single defeat.
Including Europe, it’s 26 wins from 31 games with three draws and two defeats.
For Rangers, it’s 15 wins, two draws and one loss from 18 domestic matches with the overall record of 23 wins, six draws and two losses from 31 games.
Domestically we’ve scored 58 goals with another 32 coming in Europe for a total of 90 whilst they have scored 52 goals on the home front with 79 goals overall when you factor in Europe.
In total, we’ve conceded 24 goals, in all competitions, this season (split evenly between domestic and European football) whilst Rangers have let in 18 in total (ten domestically and eight in Europe).
Their star men are of course midfielder Ryan Jack, £7 million winger Ryan Kent, the improving left-back Borna Barisic, veteran midfielder Steven Davis, goalkeeper Allan McGregor and striker Alfredo Morelos who has 25 goals in 30 games already this season.
In other areas of the pitch, their fans rave about midfielder Glen Kamara though he has blown hot and cold this season as has his fellow midfielders Scott Arfield, Joe Aribo and Sheyi Ojo.
Their captain and right-back James Tavernier offers a threat down the right side but is also vulnerable defensively whilst the central defensive pairing of Connor Goldson and Filip Helander have plenty of size and strength but are both slow and vulnerable on the back foot.
We last played them in early September at their patch and pretty much took them to the cleaners with a resounding 2-0 victory as they struggled to make any real impact on our backline and were often out hustled in the midfield.
But there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then and Elhamed will definitely be missing from our starting line-up with big question marks over Boli Bolingoli, Mohamed Elyounoussi and most worrying of all our star striker Odsonne Edouard who already has five goals in fixtures against them but has been absent for our last three games.
If we show up then I’ m confident of victory but shorn of talent like French Eddy and Elyounoussi then others will have to step up to the plate big time and their absences would definitely level the playing field.
It goes without saying we’ll need to shackle Morelos whilst Brown and McGregor will have to win the midfield battle and Christie and Forrest will need to keep up their regular goal scoring form. And if played Jeremie Frimpong will need to get the balance right between his attacking prowess and defensive duties as he’ll be matched up with one of their biggest threats in Kent.
One thing’s for sure it will be interesting and played in a white-hot atmosphere. Let’s keep the heads and put them back in their place.
....Always A Tim! 