The third coming of Martin O’Neill has certainly steadied the ship after the disaster that was Wilfried Nancy, and what a disaster he was. We have to hope that the damage that caused can be rectified, and we can finish the season with the Double and progress in Europe, although more games in Europe puts extra pressure on our domestic challenges, with all the other teams in the SPL out of Europe, but having said that, top teams should be able to cope with the extra matches and the extra pressure.
Thursday night against FC Utrecht proved to a bit nervier than it should have been, to go 3-0 up and be coasting, for Utrecht to pull two goals back and make things awkward to say the least, but we managed to get the fourth goal and clinch qualification for the knock-out rounds, and that was the target in the first place. The three ties under Martin against Feyenoord, Bologna, and Utrecht, and two of them away from home was very pleasing, to take seven points was something that we haven’t done often in European Competition, unless we want to go back to our run to Seville, or even further to the Greatest Ever Celtic Team, the Lisbon Lion’s.
Yesterday against a very good Falkirk side was also very pleasing, make no mistake about it, Falkirk under John Mc Glynn are a very good team, and come the split have every chance of being in the top half of the League, there won’t be many teams in the division that have won all their games against them this season. It was a competent display by Celtic, it was great to see Big Tam (Cvancara) back in the team, and also Julian Araurjo, a few people scoffed at the arrival of Julian, I think he shown he is more capable of playing in the Celtic Team, and will certainly give AJ stiff competition. I couldn’t help but look at Big Tam and think of Chris Sutten, and saying Tam is as good as Sutty, but I definitely like his aggressive style, I’m pretty sure he will manage to get a few coloured cards from the official.
It was a good all round display by the team yesterday, including the substitutes, I thought Seb Tounekti showed a lot more commitment when he came on, especially his tracking back work. Benji Nygren has been a revelation, he’s been moved around the team on a number of occasions, mainly to fill into areas where we were struggling, but for me, he is a No 10, he finds pockets of space around the box which you can’t coach, that is just a natural ability that he has, if you looked at his goals and assist’s since he came into the team, you’d be looking at a player who cost us £25 million, instead of less than a tenth of that figure, he is not the complete player yet, but he can get there. I saw Graham Potter (Sweden Manager) at the game yesterday, Benji didn’t do his chances any harm with his very well taken goal.
So it’s onto another difficult away game at Pittodrie on Wednesday night, the Don’s have been struggling lately, and have been since they beat us on penalties in the Cup Final, I suppose you could say the same about St Mirren, who have hardly won a game since the League Cup Final, I suppose drinking champagne isn’t for every team. No matter how poor form Aberdeen are in, they always get themselves up for a game against the Champions, and I don’t see it being any different on Wednesday night. We should have at least another 2/3 players in by then, and we should have Auston Trusty available again as well. Let’s hope Martin and Shaun can continue to work the magic for the Famous Glasgow Celtic.
Glasgow’s still Green & White.
