Yesterday afternoon at Celtic Park was a bit frustrating to say the least, Derek McInnes as usual came to Celtic to defend, he succeeded in his plan in the end, ably abetted by the usual suspect Don Robertson, who was once again hopeless and very much anti-Celtic in his decision making. Robertson a few years ago was seen as the new kid on the block along with Nick Walsh, both of them have regressed in terms of their performance and ability, and more worrying they both seem to get the big games involving Celtic. Let’s see how many Scottish Officials are on duty in the USA come the World Cup.
I thought in the first half yesterday we looked as if we were in control, although we didn’t create a mountain of chances, the two that fell to Daizen within a couple of minutes of each other should have resulted in goals. In my humble opinion Daizen is an instinct striker who reacts to one touch opportunities, I think if he has more time to think about chances, it becomes a problem, simply because he is not a natural striker. Let me be clear, that isn’t down to Daizen, because in reality we have not replaced the goals of Kyogo and Khun, that is something that will have to be addressed in January as a matter of urgency.
It was a disappointing result against Hearts, but let’s not get too downbeat just yet, it was the Manager and his staff’s first match, and they had very little time to get their ideas across to the players, I think most supporters would have liked Martin to stay in charge at least until January, maybe if we wanted Wilfried it had to happen now, or maybe Martin at 73 years old had had enough with his wife and family down south. Maybe this is above my pay grade, but should we have stuck closer to Martin’s system rather than introducing a new one with little time to prepare? Every supporter will have an opinion on that.
We were doing ok until Hearts scored just before the interval, my initial reaction was that it was well offside, but when I saw the repeat, Arne Engels is too slow getting out and plays Braga onside. Braga then wins a header against Trusty who is about six inches taller than him, he then wins a tackle with Callum, so all in all we had three opportunities to clear the ball. The second goal was poor defending as well, McEntee scored with a header from about fifteen yards out, he also rose to head the ball unchallenged, and as usual nobody on the post. I was also convinced that Shankland was offside when he had the shot which resulted in the corner, so two goals that could certainly have been avoided by better defending.
Our next two matches are very important, but I believe Sunday’s cup final is the most important. We have three matches left in Europe to qualify for the knockout stages, we need at least three points to qualify, I’m confident we can achieve that. Sunday’s final against St Mirren is an opportunity to get the first trophy of season in the cabinet, and a first trophy for Wilfried and a lot of the players, victory then should give us confidence to go on and continue to win games both at home and in Europe. So let’s all get our Celtic heads on for the next six days at least, and always remember, We are Glasgow Celtic, the Champions, and Glasgow is still Green & White.
