Well, we now know we have the Scottish Cup Final against Neil Lennon’s Dunfermline on May 23rd to look forward to, two Great Celtic Men leading out two Great Clubs for the final game of the season, a season that has been difficult on too many occasions for Celtic Football Club. There are few better days than Scottish Cup Final day, with Hampden Park awash with the Green & White hopefully bathed in brilliant sunshine.
Once again yesterday we made it difficult for ourselves, going in at the interval two goals ahead should have been the perfect opportunity to go out in the second half and push forward for the third goal, instead we did what we have done too many times this season, we sat off St Mirren and let them play long balls into our defence, we played far too many passes backwards instead of forwards, and continually gave away possession with bad passes. I was actually a bit surprised that Martin hadn’t made any substitutes at half time, St Mirren were playing with a seventeen-year-old in goal, and we never put him under any pressure, instead it was the Saint’s putting our goalkeeper under pressure, but no more pressure than we put him under ourselves by passing the ball back to him with opposing players ready to close him down, and they almost succeeded twice.
Martin O’Neill certainly knows more about football and tactics than me, but a couple of things baffled me, I thought Arne Engels was playing well when he was substituted, although he may have been tiring, and I certainly thought Kelechi Iheanacho would have made an appearance sooner than he did, and we should be grateful that he did, Kelechi is the best striker at the club by a country mile, if only he could avoid injury, we certainly would be in a better place if he had been fit enough to play more, and I believe we would have won the League Cup if he had stayed on the pitch that day. At the end of the day the four great goals in six minutes was enough to get us into the Final, and that’s all that counts in a cup tie, now we have to go and win it, and I don’t expect that to be an easy task, but we should have at least a couple of our injured players back playing by then which should help the cause.
Once again the Celtic Support played their part at the Semi-Final, there were a few moans when we lost the second goal in added on time, and that was understandable, but the supporters stuck with it, and kept backing the team, and we were rewarded by our display in the first period of extra-time. I think we need to be more positive in our remaining six games, the players need to show more aggression in the tackle, and we need to be braver when on the ball, we need to look for the forward pass rather than taking the safe option of a back pass, that just encourages the opposition to press us higher up the park, and put our defence under needless pressure. There is a perfect example in our own team, look at the pressure Daizen Maeda puts on defenders by his continuous running and harrying.
We’re on the home straight now, there are two big prizes still to play for, starting next Saturday against Falkirk, none of these games will be easy, but they certainly are winnable. We need to focus all our energies on the six games, the season could still be a Double Winning season, or it could turn out to be a disaster, it’s up to all of us to play our part, so long as every person gives 100% to the cause, there is every chance we will be Double Winner again.
Glasgow’s still Green & White.
