Not always pretty, but job done!
St Mirren, fighting for their lives, played well in patches and certainly had at least two good chances to score, but against that, Celtic had even more chances that they should have taken, especially in the first half, and of course there was that penalty!
I don’t think New St Mirren Park is the favourite ground of Olivier Ntcham. Sent off for being a fool the last time, and last night a dreadful attempt at a penalty, and the rebound, and he looked lethargic and ponderous throughout the game. Yet he was good enough at the weekend. We all have bad days, Olivier!
It was my first trip to New St Mirren Park for almost a decade. My last time there was also Tony Mowbray’s last game in charge – a 0-4 defeat and that was as bad as it sounded. It is a pleasant, civilised, symmetrical sort of stadium, and it will be a shame if St Mirren go down.
It is almost certainly the only stadium that has a “vomitorium”, which seems to be the posh, Paisley word for an “exit”. I prefer “exit” myself. Both are good Latin words by the way, but imagine Theresa May and company talking about the “Brivomitorium”! The Buddy Bridies were good, and their team certainly fought hard, although on occasion the lack of class was sadly obvious.
Refereeing generally quite good.
But to Celtic. Man of the match was once again Kristoffer Ajer who, if he made the occasional error, recovered quickly. Callum McGregor was on song as well and there were very few real failures. Emilio Izaguirre, always one of my favourites, was nevertheless back to his old tricks of beating a man or two and belting the ball wildly across the goalmouth.
A good cross only becomes a good one if there is someone there for it! James Forrest has had better games and seemed to tire in the second half, but Neil got his substitutions right, and it was nice to see that the supporters were in agreement. Ryan Christie in particular made a huge difference, and although he has missed a huge part of the season, he has probably been our best player of 2018/19. And his goal and subsequent theatrical bow to the fans was, frankly, a touch of class.
And now to the “bad” bits, if they can be called that. Those strips are still awful. Point taken that we have to change in away fixtures, but let’s find something with loads of green and white. After all, there are forty shades of green, as the song used to say!
Scott Brown? No case to answer. He couldn’t put his foot anywhere else, and it was only the MEDIA that made an issue of it. St Mirren didn’t! And our minibus was well past those chaps in Govan (They didn’t seem to like us! Why was that?) before we even heard about it on our mobiles with the BBC website report failing to mention it at all!
But the real bad bit was that flare. We really have to root out these nanas who throw them! They are no friends of Celtic FC, and I am glad to see Neil Lennon saying the same thing.
Although those of us who love amateur dramatics were very impressed by the St Mirren goalkeeper, nevertheless, these things can really damage someone – and it could be a ballboy, a policeman, a steward, a photographer or even a Celtic player! Please stop it, bhoys and ghirls! I beg you. It really has to stop.
But Livingston on Saturday, and within touching distance now. Keep winning, Celtic! Last night was far from vintage, champagne sort of stuff but it was at least a bottle of Budweiser. The mundane stuff is sometimes necessary to win titles.
David Potter
