Remember the David Murray (the man who killed the old Rangers) saying aimed at Celtic FC, “If you spend a fiver, I’ll spend a tenner” well Sevco have amended the saying to “If you drop two points, we’ll drop three points” that was the comfort that came to us Celtic supporters after disappointingly dropping two points at home to Aberdeen on at a packed Celtic Park on Saturday. We actually dropped two points and increased our lead over the Deid Club to six points, although we should be eight ahead of them and three ahead of Aberdeen, so we have to be happy with that.
The game itself is one that we should have won, we were very comfortably 2-0 ahead at half-time, and should have been further ahead, but we should never lose a 2-0 lead to any team at Celtic Park, no matter who the opposition are. I said last week about International breaks, and how it effects Celtic, we have almost all our first choice players away, and it becomes worse when they are travelling vast distances, that seemed to be the case with Daizen on Saturday, he looked short on energy, and cost us the second goal, but we can’t complain, he’s been outstanding this season.
There was a lot of talk with pundits about how good it was to see Aberdeen having a go at Celtic Park, that’s not the way I saw it, sure they had a go at 2-0 down, what else can you do? But they came here to defend, and hope they could get away with a point, so job done in that sense. Let’s be honest here, Nilsen and Shinnie booted everyone that came near them, Nilsen had about 4/5 tackles before he was booked, and Shinnie clattered a Valle right from the kick-off. Nilsen was down about three times with cramp, as was the left back Mc Kenzie. These are all tactics applied to stop Celtic playing with speed, and of course as usual Nick Walsh was an able ally for Aberdeen, I don’t think he called one 50/50 in our favour. The way the match finished was bizarre, I didn’t have a clear view of the goal-line clearance by Duk, but it looked like it was cleared by his hand/arm.
I suppose for Scottish Football it’s good to see Aberdeen challenging again, they have been in the doldrums for quite a while now. They also for the first time in many years, actually sold out their ticket allocation, but I still think come the end of the season, they will be about fifteen points behind us. In a couple of weeks, we play the Don’s again in the cup semi-final, it will be interesting to see what tactics they employ at Hampden. As I said previously we have increased our lead over Sevco, so it turned out not a bad week-end after all. On a sad note on Saturday I found out that former player Big Tommy Callaghan is very unwell in the hospital, Big Tid is a smashing guy, and a great ambassador for Celtic Football Club, please keep Tommy in your thoughts and prayers.
It was bad news last week that UEFA have fined Celtic once again for the use of pyrotechnics at Champions League matches, it needs to stop now. I get that is what Ultra Fan Groups do throughout Europe, but the sake of the team and the club, and more importantly the supporters, it needs to stop now. We saw the impact of no supporters when we had empty stadiums during the pandemic, we are battling to try to compete with the best teams in Europe, doing so without our own supporters will make the job even more difficult. And finally, from a health point of view, we have a lot of elderly supporters, some with breathing problems, that is made dramatically worse with the smoke given off by pyro’s. I’m not trying to police our support, I’m appealing to whoever is thinking of using pyro’s to please consider the health of your fellow supporters, and of the team and the club in general.
Glasgow’s still Green & White.
