I’m sure I wasn’t the only supporter to feel a little disappointed after last night’s game. We had several chances of the type that the pundits call “gilt edged” to win that game, and it was so frustrating to see them missed.
But this mustn’t blind us to the fact that last night was a very good result indeed against top rate opponents, and if someone had offered us a draw away to Shakhtar Donetsk…I’m afraid we would have had to descend once more into the barrel of pundit cliches and come up with “we would have bitten his hand off”!
1-1 away is a good result, and keeps us well on target for qualification – but of course it is very early days yet.
Ange is correct when he says that we will one day get our reward for all our fine play. Our first twenty minutes were what one could have called magnificent, and we should have had more goals at this juncture. Describing Celtic’s goal as an own goal is absolutely preposterous, given the amount of thought and intelligence that went into it, not least by Kyogu who (selflessly) decided not to hammer the ball into the net, lest he might be whistled up for offside.
My favourite player last night was Greg Taylor, and although one could perhaps point a finger against Juranovic for being slightly out of position for the equalising goal, it would be wrong to criticise any of the players because this is the top level, and Celtic have now proved that they can live at elevated heights.
Two games against Leipzig now follow. Leipzig might not be as poor as their results seem to indicate, but there was nothing last night to suggest that Celtic are not capable of dealing with them.
But of course we have St Mirren first on Sunday, and that is as important as any other game.
It was good to see so many supporters there last night. At one point the commentator on BT Sport seemed to apologise in case some of his viewers saw a banner which might have offended the sensibilities of the easily offended.
Greg Taylor with Shved at full time , a heart in mouth moment when it looked as if Shved had scored . pic.twitter.com/Hhfs9TpARQ
— Highland__Paddy (@Highland__paddy) September 15, 2022
Perhaps we could have done without the “bad” word beginning with the letter “f”, but it was nevertheless refreshing to see that there is a group of people who are not going to go along with the absurdities that are around at the moment.
Some people at least are not choosing slavery! I think I heard a song some place that said we would not stand for “the despot or the slave”. A lot of people, however, do seem to love tyranny and genuflection – but, then again, they lost 0-3 last night!
David Potter
David Potter’s new book, Willie Fernie – Putting on the Style is featured in the new edition of the Celtic View which is out now and available from the Celtic Stores. You can also pick up the Willie Fernie book there too or order direct from Celtic Star Books, link below…
Goals win games.
Celtic showed again they belong at this level.
Unfortunately the banner people once again disgraced the club
Sporting events no place for airing political or sectarian views.
Leave that to the Protestant club.
Currently rewatching the entire match(footy full dot com(if anyones interested, they have every big game on there, including the Glasgow Derby))
The negatives:
McGregor shouldn’t have dove in during the build up to their goal, and he gave the ball away in a dangerous position not long before that; you get punished for mistakes at this level, something Celtic need to learn to do to opponents.
We lost concentration after their goal and it almost cost us another, similar to the RM game.
We were lucky not to give away a penalty too when Taylor knee’d one of them on the edge of the box, Taylors only bad moment of the game but one he got away with.
A lot of players with the surname Taylor in Europe this year, a trend I’ve noticed in the past with lots of players sharing a surname competing at the top level of football at the same time.
Only 1/3 of the way through this game as i type, and it’s a belter; you get to enjoy it more knowing the outcome and free from the in the moment adrenaline of watching it live the first time round.
Our away support were excellent, you’d think it was a home game given the noise they make.
The press are raging! Every story about last nights game is either about Ange biting the head off an ignorant foreign journalist or about those banners!
On our team though, we’re moving in the right direction under Ange. There’s still something missing from middle to front, but I’m sure it’ll click soon with them