All good things come to an end and after a breathtaking start to the season they did just that in Paisley on Sunday.
Having won all six of our opening league games which included a 9-0 record-breaking scoreline away to Dundee Utd and a 4-0 slaughter of Rangers not to mention a 4-1 League Cup win over Ross County and strong showings in the Champions League against Real Madrid and Shakthar we’ve been on cloud nine all season.
Quite literally against Dundee Utd.
Ange Postecoglou hasn’t gotten much wrong since walking through the doors at Celtic Park 14 months ago but his decision to ring the changes with the starting eleven for the game at New St. Mirren Park seemed unnecessary and in the end, didn’t work.
Ralston, Welsh, Mooy, Turnbull and Maeda all made rare starts but struggled to find any rhythm or prove that they deserve more starting opportunities any time soon.
With that goes not only our unbeaten domestic start to this season but an undefeated 38 league game run stretching back to the early part of the last campaign.
Celtic struggled in the tight confines of the pitch and their host’s high-energy combative nature.
We dominated the ball but couldn’t do much with it and even when the cavalry arrived in the second half via substitutes Jota, Hatate, O’Riley, Haksabanovic and Giakoumakis you got the feeling we could play to midnight and not score.
Close range headed goals from Mark O’Hara (43’minutes) and Jonah Ayunga (53’minutes) delivered the killer strikes and on both occasions, the physical frailties of Stephen Welsh and Moritz Jenz were exposed.
There’s no way Cameron Carter Vickers is getting bullied like that but unfortunately, he wasn’t on the pitch and they were.
It was a rare miss-step from Ange in terms of both team selection and tactics but better now than after the international break for this kick up the backside.
Bigger and stronger opponents await especially abroad and if the Celtic players had fallen under the illusion they were the finished article then this showing and result will have brought them down to earth with a thudding bump.
Lessons learned all round, it’s fair to say.
....Always A Tim! 