Saturday at Celtic Park versus Hibs is a game we could have won, and indeed we should have won. If we had left the game after winning 3-0 I don’t think anyone could have had a complaint, even from the Hibs side. I thought it was the best we have played in a first half this season, it was certainly the quickest football we have played, but if you don’t score goals, you don’t win games, that’s the simplicity of football, it’s not rocket science.
It was no surprise that Hibs defended deep, that’s what every team that comes to Celtic Park this season will do, we need to find the way to beat that deep defence, because you can be sure Motherwell will play exactly the same way on Sunday, and possibly even more defensive. We had 26 shots at goal on Saturday, the problem is less than a quarter of them were on target, I keep saying we need more shots from outside the box, but obviously there is less space to aim for with a crowded eighteen yard box, and we are not really equipped for playing high balls into the box. Let’s hope Brendan is addressing the problem all this week.
The other baffling stat from Saturday, although definitely not a surprising stat was that Hibs only had one foul given against them, and as a team that only had 23% possession, that’s a remarkable statistic, because with Celtic having 77% possession, which means we are the team that isn’t continually making tackles, how did we get sixteen fouls against us? Well there is one simple answer to that question, Don Robertson, this guy is always the same when doing Celtic games, we rarely get a fair shout from him, I think it’s past time to ask questions about his style of refereeing, I think he has it perfected now, he can actually blow for a foul against Celtic before the tackle is even made.
We made a decent start to our European Group with a point in Belgrade, and again we could have won, but the most important thing to do in these situations, is win your home games, and pick up a couple of points away from home, that should see us through to the knock-out rounds, when hopefully we will be stronger than we are now.
Glasgow’s still Green & White.
