In my preview for Saturday’s noon kick-off against Hibs I predicted we’d win 3-0 against Paul Heckingbottom’s Leith strugglers.
I expected Hibs to maintain their languid and stuttering form under a manager on who’s shoulders pressure is steadily building.
But clearly emboldened by their mid-week League Cup quarter-final penalties victory over Kilmarnock – which of course sets up a semi-final with us – the Hibees came out with a sense of purpose and actually put up a very credible showing.
They got a huge slice of luck on eight mins when pretty much a nothing cross by Christian Doidge was deflected past Fraser Forster via the heel of Kristofer Ajer.
But Ryan Christie equalised with a fabulous header on the 25 mins mark courtesy of a fantastic delivery by Moritz Bauer and from that point on Celtic pretty much dominated.
Hibs were determined and fought for everything and it’s actually quite hard to begrudge them a point considering how little chance I gave them pre-kickoff. But Celtic’s 20 shots to their three pretty much tells its own story, oh and also the small matter of the fact we had two stonewall penalty shouts denied in the second half.
The first saw Lewis Stevenson take out Ryan Christie down by the byline and then later on in the half at the exact same spot Daryl Horgan clattered into Bauer without getting anywhere near the ball but the referee Kevin Clancy was once again having none of it.
Before all that Paul Heckingbottom was sent to the stand after he volleyed a water bottle apparently frustrated that Celtic had to temerity to take a quick free-kick which eventually led to the Christie equaliser.
He also wanted Olivier Ntcham red-carded for a handbags incident with Josh Vela. I guess it looked much worse up in the director’s box.
In the end Celtic huffed and puffed looking for a late winner with Odsonne Edouard – who had an uncharacteristic poor day – coming off for Bayo but despite a few scrambles in the home sides box it wasn’t to be.
So two points dropped but it’s difficult to be too critical as Celtic will play worse than this and win games.
Rangers took advantage by crushing Aberdeen 5-0 at Ibrox and that really reinforces the sense that every point will be a prisoner this season.
We now move onto Thursday night and our much-anticipated rematch with Romanian Champions Cluj who, of course, eliminated us from the Champions League qualifiers at the 3rd round stage back in August via rollercoaster 4-3 win which remains our only defeat of the season.
Our record on the whole in Europe has been pretty excellent this season with six wins, two draws and a loss whilst scoring 23 goals to seven conceded.
Since that topsy turvy night back on August 13th Celtic have gone ten games unbeaten with nine wins, which has also seen 23 goals netted with only six goals conceded so safe to say we’re in good form.
For Cluj it’s been more of a mixed bag.
They were eliminated in the Champions League play-off round against Slavia Prague suffering 1-0 losses home and away for a 2-0 aggregate defeat which saw them end up in the Europa League groups alongside us.
In their league, they are top with 24 points from eleven games though in the six league games since playing us they’ve won three, drawn two and lost one.
All the dropped points came away from home with the three victories pretty resounding home wins which saw them score twelve goals with only one conceded but in the three away ties they’ve only scored three and conceded four.
They were also knocked out of their national cup at the round of 32 stage last midweek via a 2-2 draw away at FC Botoșani which eventually led to a 4-2 defeat on penalties.
All of that though has been overshadowed by their surprise win over Seria A side and group favourites Lazio in their Europa League opener where they came from behind to win 2-1.
That’s really blown the group wide open and genuinely any two of the four teams involved appear to have the capability of reaching the Last 32 stage now.
Having beaten us before at Celtic Park they’ll be confident and their danger man remains striker Billel Omrani who scored two last time out against us and has eleven for the season including the winner over Lazio eleven days ago. Indeed seven of those eleven goals have come in Europe so far so clearly this is the stage where he’s most effective.
But we will be a very different animal.
Christopher Jullien is now an ever-present at the back and with Greg Taylor signed Boli-Bolingoli has genuine competition for the left-back space that was bizarrely occupied by Callum McGregor on August 13th.
Going by team selections since Neil Lennon has clearly learned from his errors that night and will be looking to his men to prove a point.
I’ll also take into the account the atmosphere which is usually pretty raucous on European night anyway but will have that extra bit of spice injected by our recent history with our visitors.
Last time out it really wasn’t until the second half before we hurt Cluj and when we did we did it often albeit were also very vulnerable ourselves though that was just down to individual errors and poor game management.
With an electric atmosphere, I’ll expect us to go for the throat early and based on Cluj’s away form this season I think they’ll be set-up to contain so hopefully we can overcome that and take pole position in the group.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23geSSwt30Y&t=20s
....Always A Tim! 