Celtic were held to a rare draw by Motherwell yesterday afternoon. It was the first time that the Hoops failed to win a domestic match in something like 18 outings and the result leaves us a meagre 13 points clear with five games to play. (6 for the team in second place)
Criticism is legitimate in an analysis of any isolated game. We don’t have to pretend the performance was great and Ange himself didn’t. Maeda missed a sitter, Kyogo missed a one on one, Maeda should have squared to Kyogo for an open goal, CCV and Oh missed headers from 5 yards, while Starfelt directed a free header straight at the goalie. So, for as poor as we were compared to usual standards, we still should have won the game easily. Poor finishing, poor deliveries and poor defending on their goal stopped us getting the three points.
It was the third time in 33 league matches that Celtic didn’t win. Therefore, there is no need for panic or hyperbolic criticism. There’s been some wild remarks that ‘Taylor isn’t good enough for Celtic’, ‘Vata shouldn’t be near the first team’, ‘the team are crumbling before the semi final and can’t cope without Hatate’, ‘Haksabanovic is dreadful’, ‘Joe Hart is a liability’.
These comments are all wildly reactionary and nonsense. By all means tell the truth about things such as Taylor getting turned inside out, but don’t then rewrite his ability as being below the required standard when in truth he has been outstanding this term. And that goes for all the madness and hysteria surrounding one result.
This Celtic team can still equal a world record points total. No team in history wins all 38 matches.
All that matters is that we put in a stronger performance in the cup game next week because the league is done. A victory next week should see us secure the treble, no disrespect to the two championship clubs in the other semi final.
Relax. It was just a rare draw.