A full house awaits Celtic as they entertain Ross County in today’s 3 o’clock kick off at Celtic Park. The game and a huge home support to back them gives this Celtic team an opportunity to turn the screw again on ‘the’ Rangers. A win this afternoon would see Celtic go 5 points clear at the top of the Scottish Premiership as the Ibrox club don’t play until 24 hours later when they travel to Tynecastle to face Hearts.
Given the Edinburgh clubs position holding everyone up in the league table you would assume the visit to Auld Reekie could be a straightforward three points for the second place team but ‘the’ Rangers have looked sluggish in both home matches since the winter break.
They needed referee help-Quelle Surprise, to score on half time when they got a corner that never was, before requiring a second half penalty to see of Stranraer 2-0 in the cup. Against St Mirren a Jermain Defoe goal was all they could muster for their efforts in a lacklustre win at Ibrox as they returned to league action on Wednesday night.
And remember in their 1-0 home win against Kilmarnock ahead of the Glasgow Derby, Morelos came off the bench to score the only goal of the game and was in an offside position. Just another ‘Honest Mistake’ to remember.
Given the ‘Rangers’ drew 1-1 against a then Craig Levein Jambos side on their last visit to Tynecastle you can see the importance of Celtic getting a good win under their belts to transfer the pressure onto our nearest challengers.
Our rivals don’t have the best track record of coping with pressure over the course of a season – it was dropped points in January and February that cost them their big opportunity to challenge last season. Even with Celtic losing their manager, most of their backroom team and leaving a shell-shocked dressing room behind didn’t see ‘the’ rangers capitalise, if anything their bottle crashed.
Celtic on the other hand have tended to leave their Dubai training camp revitalised and a win at home to our visitors from Dingwall will see Celtic record a third straight win after despatching both Partick Thistle at Firhill and the superb win over Kilmarnock at Rugby Park on Wednesday night.
Two away games and two good wins navigated well. We started strongly this time last year also and it was probably the month the title was won, current form therefor bodes well for a repeat.
With all the distractions in the press post match it would be easy to overlook just how big a win that game was on Wednesday night.
Odsonne Edouard’s goal from a Jeremie Frimpong run and pass from the right wing was a thing of beauty. Name me another striker playing in Scottish football with the talent to operate in the box and finish quite like that? That goal was a piece of art and the smile on his face showed the confidence is flowing back through the veins of French Eddy. Scottish football beware!
Leigh Griffiths has returned to the side and it looks the spectre of Patryk Klimala hanging over his changing room peg has pushed Griffiths to some goal scoring form. Two goals in two games is enough to get excited about but with 4-4-2 diamond’s and 3-5-2 wing back formations in the last two games we’ve seen both Eddy and Griffiths come alive when we play with two strikers. It’s clear that experiment should continue at Parkhead today.
There were moments on Wednesday where goals aside, the two of them looked like they had a real partnership brewing. Let’s hope we don’t break that up prematurely.
What could hold Celtic back is the circus that seems to surround Celtic every time we play of late. Charlie Nicholas has a dig about Griffith’s fingers in ear celebrations at Firhill, while strangely remaining silent on throat cutting and gun firing gestures from the other side of the city at the end of December.
Then there was tape gate, where sock tape thrown in a bin was reported as if a SAM missile had been fired into the main stand at Rugby Park from the shoulder of Leigh Griffiths. Overblown nonsense and you can read The Celtic Star’s Editor fighting Celtic’s corner this morning – Uncle Albert’s Bitterness, an inconvenient black bin bag and Mute Celtic – HERE.
Added to that we’ve had Kris Boyd’s unwise comparison when equating Leigh Griffith’s lack of game time to the players own lack of application, rather than a period of recovery from some dark days mentally.
It seems Boyd didn’t like Griffith’s response when heading toward the TV gantry after scoring Celtic’s second goal. A bigger man takes that on the chin. Boyd had thrown down the gauntlet when he gave the player six weeks to save his Celtic career only a few weeks ago.
I also questioned Griffith’s future as a starter at Celtic. A few weeks back I said he had to the end of the transfer window to stake a claim or Lennon would replace him. I’m happy to see my words being forced back down my throat, I wonder why Boyd reacted differently?
Celtic haven’t been immune to fanning the flames either. The reaction post match to Alan Power’s tackle on Frimpong was over the top. It was a tough tackle, rather robust but terms like leg breaker and calls for red cards and retrospective action was probably too extreme.
It certainly deserved punishment but it was badly timed and executed rather than brimming with malice. Our own captain’s tackle on Slivka at Easter Road in September was probably on a par and got a deserved yellow card. Power should have received the same punishment, nothing more.
Monday jury 👩⚖️…
Sportscene pundit Michael Stewart thinks a yellow card was appropriate for Celtic captain Scott Brown's "heavy tackle" on Hibs' Vykintas Slivka.
Do you agree? pic.twitter.com/Sg6Whg9cbY
— BBC Sport Scotland (@BBCSportScot) December 17, 2018
But it’s all a distraction. It has taken attention away from Celtic’s form and what looks like a very promising start to the second half of the season.
It will be exciting to see Griffiths and Edouard link up together as the season progresses. Considering we have Polish Paddy still to be added to the attacking mix it looks like Celtic won’t be lacking for firepower. It’s selection depth that could leave Premiership rivals on edge.
A win against Ross County today will ramp up the pressure on our title challengers. Let’s hope we’re talking about the football rather than the off field circus this afternoon. Our ‘new’ front two will help see to that.
Niall J
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