Celtic took a giant stride towards capturing an eight consecutive league title yesterday with a last gasp victory over lowly Dundee at Dens Park.
To say the least this was not vintage Celtic – indeed it’s difficult to remember the last time we saw anything I’d call vintage Celtic – and we were seconds away from recording one of our results in years but in the end we prevailed with a last gasp winner which is something we’ve made a habit of recently.
For 90 minute we toiled against a Dundee team who were very blatantly set-up to defend, absorb pressure and try and hit us on the break when they could.
Our passing was slow, our build-up play unimaginative and we seemed to lack any real hunger or energy for the game. Considering that we’d had an eight-day rest since the last match and had only played two games in 15 days there really is no excuse for this.
Dundee posed little to no threat and were happy to sit in which we should have expected considering we are 8-0 up against them over our last two encounters and their precarious position at the foot of the table.
They actually had a few decent opportunities in injury time which was a mammoth six minutes. However, both of their breaks led to nothing via poor final balls and indeed with literally seconds remaining it was the men in hoops who prevailed as record singing Odsonne Edouard played a one-two with James Forrest who had rampaged to the byline before cutting it back to the big Frencham to place it home with side foot finish from close range.
I celebrated wildly with my customary St.Paddy’s Day pint of Guinness in hand as we extended our lead at the top to an almost unassailable 10 points with only eight games to go but that acute moment of joy covered up 90 minutes of sheer frustration. We just weren’t at it and that’s been pretty much the case since Lenny’s arrival. The performance mirrored our displays away against Hearts and at home to Aberdeen last week. Insipid and uninspired are just two of the words that come to mind when describing it.
We had actually won our previous 35 straight meetings with Dundee and hadn’t recorded two back to back 0-0 results in a decade so if French Eddy hadn’t slammed home late then it would have been safe to put the result in the disaster category.
But it’s done now and we won. There isn’t much more you can say about it.
The international break now looms this weekend and with the Old Firm game taking place the following Saturday fingers crossed we get through the Euro qualifiers with our squad largely intact.
Good news is Callum McGregor was back and for the first 20 mins of the game at least he certainly seemed to make us tick again. He really is a vital player for us now and of that, there is no denying. Big Filip Benkovic also appeared off the bench and he’s a class act and easily our best defender so hopefully, he’s raring to go in a fortnight. Word is that Tom Rogic could also be returning too and all that married to Kieran Tierney’s recent return to regular first team action we should be in far better fettle than we were for the last encounter with the light blues at Ibrox back in December.
Of course, we gained the opportunity to go 10 points clear due to Rangers’ latest slip-up as they made it no wins in three via a 1-1 home draw with Kilmarnock. Literally, in the space of eight days, their season has imploded thanks to draws at Easter Road, a cup exit at home to Aberdeen and yesterdays result. Steven Gerrard continues to try and deflect via claims that his players need more protection – as do the Killie players also it would seem going by Connor Goldson’s scything late challenge on goalscorer Conor McAleny – and a hammering against us at Celtic Park in 12 days would really turn the screw.
That aside the likes of Aberdeen and Hearts continued to slip up throwing away the chance to close the gap on the Ibrox men and improve their chances of European football next year in the process.
Anyway, the first Euro match for Scotland comes at 3pm on Thursday in the footballing hotbed that is Kazakhstan and in the surroundings of Astana a ground we are pretty familiar with having played the local team there a few times in Champions League qualifiers in the past few years. Fingers crossed the national team transfer their Nations League form into the qualifiers and that our Bhoys get out unscathed.
....Always A Tim! 