“Business like” and “competent” rather than “spectacular” or ” brilliant” are the words that come to mind after last night’s game. League titles are usually won by the grinding out of results. This was one such game, I felt, and the only really important thing is that three points were won, and that we actually gained a goal over our rivals. And there are now only nine games to go, rather than ten.
The goals were good, but a concern is that they were scored by a defender and a midfielder rather than a recognised forward or a striker. This was my big fear at half time. The build up play was good, but we couldn’t score, and I feared that we might have 90 minutes of this.
It is a problem that we really have to work on. Men like Daizen Maeda and Liel Abada must score more goals. Yes, St Mirren, as we knew they would be, were “bus parkers” but if you want to win a League title, you have to be able to deal with that. We did, eventually, but it took a great deal of time and patience.
Cameron Carter-Vickers deserved to be Man of the Match, although I would not have argued if Josip Juranovic had been nominated. And once again, Carl Starfelt needs to be mentioned. He did not start off well in his Celtic career, but he has won over most of his doubters by now. Callum McGregor was once again inspirational, and Tom Rogic was very impressive when he came on.
That is the good news. The bad news is that Reo Hatate (and to a lesser extent Matt O’Riley) could do with a rest. They both started with a bang when they came to Celtic in January, and Hatate’s performance against theRangers a month ago will live long in the memory, but he has been somewhat ineffective since then, and last night’s in the first half he was distinctly poor. This is not to say that he cannot yet have a large part to play in the remaining games, but a rest seems to be in order for the Livingston game, at least.
Last night’s refereeing couldn’t really be complained about, other than two clearly wrong yellow cards. Callum’s was harsh, but Dembele’s was nothing short of outrageous and one could even argue whether it was a foul or not. It was good to see Dembele, incidentally, and clearly loads of supporters agree with me.
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St Mirren are by no means the worst team we have seen this year, and I enjoyed the animation of their new Manager on the bench! He was like that with Motherwell also, I seem to remember.
It was good to see everyone, both Celtic, St Mirren and the match officials making a point at the start about that tragic war in Ukraine. Another lovely touch was at the end when that wee boy ran on to talk to Joe Hart, and Joe gave him his jersey! A touch of class there, Joe, even though you may get into a wee bit of trouble. It was a very, typically Celtic moment!
The crowd was good and stuck by the team admirably, when I feared they might turn on them. But I cannot say that I can get upset at any friendly being played in Australia next November by Celtic reserves (the good players will be at the World Cup, you would think).
It is a matter of complete indifference to me, and I don’t see me setting the alarm clock for 3.00 am to watch it! There are more important things to bother me, like for example how we are going to do against Livi on Sunday!
Let’s hope that we do better than last Sunday’s shocker.
David Potter
All that matters to me is we keep winning, are top of the league and stay there. Nobody gets any points for artistic impression. HH
— Celtic Gossip (@CelticGossip) March 3, 2022
