Saturday was a reasonably comfortable win against Livingston, you know what you get when you play against Davie Martindale’s team, they are always well organised, and always of the taller variety of football players. Davie Martindale knows his team’s chances of surviving in the Premier League won’t be defined by their results at Celtic Park. But he will always at least play it tight, and if they are to be beaten, then keep the score down.
With the trip to Almaty to play the second leg versus Kairat coming up, Brendan Rodgers played a very weakened team, I think most supporters would have agreed with that decision, we had already lost AJ on Wednesday night, so that was a forced change anyway, but you take a big chance with so many changes, especially against a team like Livingston, but you have a squad of players for a reason, so have to trust the players who might not start every week, if you’re part of the Celtic first team squad, then you must be able to play at that level.
The first half was a bit of a slog trying to open up the Livi defence, but we still made a few chances without managing to take any, the keeper had a superb save from a Yang header, and Shin had a goal disallowed for offside against Arne Engels. At the back Big Dane Murray had a good game until he tired near the end, he’s certainly showing signs that he could play in our defence regularly. I thought Hayato Inamura looked composed as well, indeed the back five strolled through the game. Our middle three haven’t been playing much, so were a bit rusty. And up front Yang was a bit hit and miss, and Shin is showing signs he could also be a regular. In Benji Nygren we have a player who is very much in the Celtic mould of attacking midfielder, he looks like he will be an absolute star for Celtic.
We have to look to Tuesday night now against Kairat, we never did ourselves any favours in the first game at Celtic Park, I was one who thought we would win by at least three given their standing in the UEFA stats. I think I did them a disservice, although not great, they were very much like Livingston, big, strong, and well organised. I think they will play similarly on Tuesday night, I believe they will still play it tight at the back and hope they get some joy from their tall players at set pieces. I certainly believe we need to score first, and if we play to our capabilities we can win and go through, but it will need a far better performance than in the first game.
Its then onto Snake Mountain on Sunday, and again like last season, we go there with a decent points lead over the Newco. We always want to beat them in every game we play, but we can actually play on the counter attack, but having said that, I don’t want to give them any encouragement, let’s go there and beat them, go nine points ahead after four games, that gives us a great chance to go on and increase that lead. I fully expect at least a couple of big signings before the window closes, it’s just a pity we couldn’t get a couple in earlier, and now with AJ out for a while, we may need to add a right back to our additions.
So good luck to Brendan and the Bhoy’s on Tuesday night, let’s get the job completed.
Glasgow’s still Green & White.
