It’s not often that a team in Scotland come to Celtic Park and play good attacking football, but that’s exactly what Motherwell did on Saturday, and that made for a great game of attacking football from both teams, and that was recognised by the Celtic Support, the backing they gave our time was outstanding from start to finish, we need to keep that same level of support until the last game of the season, the double is still on, we have eight massive League games to play, and hopefully two Scottish Cup ties.
There has been a lot of talk about the Motherwell Manager, Jens Berthel Askou becoming the next Celtic Manager, I’m not sure about that, there is a different type of pressure on the Manager of Celtic, at Celtic the demands are really high, you must win every week, draws are permitted in certain circumstances, but not often, in our “Invincible Season” we had four draws, it’s very doubtful that will ever be repeated, no other team in World Football Professional Football has achieved that feat. One thing is true, his brand of fast attacking football would suit Celtic.
One thing is certain, Motherwell have a few players who are performing at a level which make them targets for recruitment by Celtic. I’m talking primarily about a couple of players that impressed on Saturday. Elijah Just, is an outstanding player, and I thought Elliot Watt played very well also, Tawanda Maswanhise had a quiet game, he didn’t get a lot of service on Saturday, but his performances so far this season have been very good, and well worth consideration.
Celtic played their part in making the game competitive, and although we were maybe not at our best, I liked the commitment and workrate of the players. It was noticeable at time up when Reo, Daizen, and Yang all fell to the ground in pure exhaustion. Apart from the slip up between Vil and Reo which led to the Motherwell goal, I thought we defended well, Ben Arthur is looking like a player with lots of confidence, he will improve more with getting more minutes on the pitch. Yang scored two very well taken goals, and Daizen looked back to his best, I’ve never seen a player with as much energy, and he was denied a certain goal when he was brought down for our penalty.
We eventually got the penalty award thanks to an intervention by Keven Clancy on VAR, maybe that’s where Clancy should be every week, because he’s hopeless on the pitch. It begs the question, why did John Beaton not award the penalty in real time? he had an unobstructed view of the incident from about ten yards away, it reminds me of the old saying “There are none so blind, as those that won’t see”. I read some stats yesterday about Beaton, I’m not sure how accurate they are, but if accurate, then it’s not impartial treatment of Celtic. Apparently since the introduction of VAR, Beaton has awarded Celtic six penalties, but five of those penalties were awarded after the intervention of VAR, and pre-VAR, he awarded Celtic one penalty, so without VAR, Beaton has awarded Celtic two penalties in fourteen years. Another strange occurrence, why Did Beaton do two Celtic league games in a row? I know he didn’t do our game at Aberdeen, but that was a rescheduled game. I think Willie Collum has a lot of questions to answer.
Finally, a big shout-out to Jackie Dow from Port Glasgow, Jackie was a guest of the club on Saturday along with his Grandson Paul, he had just celebrated his 101st Birthday. Jackie still has his season ticket, and goes to every home game, and many games at Hampden as well. His day got made even better when he was presented with a signed Celtic jersey by Martin O’Neill, one Celtic Legend to another Celtic Legend, the jersey was also signed by Shaun Maloney, Tom Boyd, and Paul Lambert, who were all present at the presentation. Hopefully many more years for Jackie to celebrate. Amazingly, Jackie has seen Celtic play under every Manager, from Willie Maley to Martin O’Neill.
Glasgow’s still Green & White.
