CELTIC shot themselves in the foot in the sunshine in Leith this afternoon as Neil Lennon got his tactics spot on, exposing the uncertainty and weaknesses in the Celtic defence,
The constant back passing among the hesitant defenders caused a few scares before Craig Gordon reminded us that his kicking has never been a strong point as Hibs accepted the gift to take the lead.
Celtic struggled all over the park all afternoon. Hibs forwards pressed our defenders – only Boyata would come away with pass marks.
Their midfield bossed ours all day long – we did tell you to keep an eye on their number 10 this morning on The Celtic Star. He could very well have played his way back to Paradise with that performance. He was correctly awarded the man of the Match.
Ntcham was hooked at the interval and I thought Scott Brown was going to throw up near the end, such was the effort he had put in to try to turn the tide. McGinn is clearly his toughest direct opponent in Scottish football.
Our forwards, hopelessly ineffective. Griffiths got his chance to shine and blew it big time. Sinclair is a shadow of the player he was last season and James Forrest was back to hiding in his shell.
Edouard took his goal well and is in danger of replacing Griffiths as the second pick striker behind Moussa.
You have to say that Neil Lennon won the managerial tactical war, it just wasn’t our day. Hibs have now taken 5 points from Celtic in one season – more than any other team managed against Brendan Rodgers’ side in TWO seasons.
It means that from 3 trips to the capital this season we managed one single point.
I remember going to Hearts in the centenary season where a win would secure the title. We lost 2-1 I think. It might have been 1-0 but the feeling was the same as today.
It wasn’t like the day in Dunfermline in 1998 when we lost a lead to mean that it would go to the last game – that was much worse than today.
The worst of all was Black Sunday when we threw away the league in the last few minutes as a Celtic side died on its feet. That was an all time low.
So today was frustrating. A disappointment that will be insignificant in the scheme of things. Everyone will remember winning the league against them.
Get it done Celtic.
