DECLAN McCONVILLE, recently celebrated his 18th Birthday. He was at Ibrox at the weekend and has promised to give us an account of his day a little later this evening. For now though he continues his diary of the Invincible season. In earlier posts he has cover the summer when Brendan arrived and though the tricky European qualifiers before taking us through August and then September 2016.
This time he focuses on the action as it happened in October 2016. It was quite month following the Hoops…over to Declan.
Saturday 1 October 2016
The month started of with an early kick-off at Dens Park. This was my first visit to Dens and I was absolutely buzzing after a terrific performance against Manchester City in the Champions League. The game was in no way a thriller like what had been watched the previous Wednesday evening but all that mattered was that Celtic picked up three crucial points. The only goal of the day came shortly after half-time with the skipper Scott Brown getting the vital strike. The biggest disappointment was that Scotty Sinclair was not able to break Jimmy McGrory’s debut run of goal-scoring in each game. Sinclair had wrapped up six in his first six league games.
Saturday 15 October 2016
The Celtic team were again impressive at home with an excellent performance against Motherwell. The Hoops took the lead after a terrific run from James Forrest picked out Scott Sinclair who neatly finished past Craig Samson. Following this, Kieran Tierney nearly scored what would have been the goal of the season, after he dribbled past four Motherwell defenders, only to be denied by the woodwork. Samson had an excellent goalkeeping display at really kept the score line down for the Steelmen. There was however, a calamitous mix-up at the back for Motherwell which led to Moussa Dembele being fouled by Samson. The referee pointed to the spot with Dembele comfortably dispatching the penalty. The Bhoys went four points clear at the top, with a game in hand.
Wednesday 19 October 2016
Celtic welcomed Borussia Monchengladbach to Paradise in what looked to be the game that would decide third place in the Champions League group. On the night, Celtic were outplayed by a very well equipped German side. At the interval the tie was level with the Hoops being kept in the game by Craig Gordon. Eventually though in the second-half the deadlock was broken after Stindl pounced upon an error made by Kolo Touré. Unfortunately, the evening did not get any better for the defender who was again punished for a mistake with Andre Hahn smashing the ball into the roof of Craig Gordon’s net. This was a disappointing evening for all Celtic supporters who expected a far better performance.
Sunday 23 October 2016
Brendan Rodgers had to give the bhoys a major lift as next up for the Hoops was a visit to the National Stadium to contest the League Cup semi-final with Rangers. For ninety-minutes, Celtic completely battered Rangers with Matt Gilks pulling off a magnificent goalkeeping performance. It would have been unjust if the Hoops hadn’t won the game but again Rodgers made a tactical swap with Leigh Griffiths replacing Tom Rogic. Griffiths made an outstanding run down the right-wing and picked out Moussa Dembele who back-heeled the ball through Matt Gilks legs to send the Celts into the final of the League Cup. Amazing celebrations followed!
Wednesday 26 October 2016
Following an excellent performance at Hampden, the Celts had to travel north to Dingwall to take on Ross County in what has generally been a difficult fixture for Celtic. Brendan Rodgers made a few changes for this game and it was one of them that struck first. Patrick Roberts made a great run and neatly stuck his effort past former Celt Scott Fox. Celtic held onto this lead for majority of the game until a multiple amount of goals came at the end with Stuart Armstrong, Scott Sinclair and Moussa Dembele all getting in on the act in what became a four-nil rout.
Saturday 29 October 2016
The month of October ended with a tough fixture against Aberdeen at Pittodrie. This was not the tidiest games of football, but a Tom Rogic cracker proved to be the difference between the two sides. Aberdeen had a good go at Celtic towards the end of the game but couldn’t get that all important goal to take something from the game. Craig Gordon pulled of a brilliant save at the very end of the game to give the Celts all three points.
Declan McConville
Next time, November 2016, Declan’s Diary of earlier months in our Invincible season are below.
THE CELTIC STAR BOOKSTORE iIS NOW OPEN!
Teenage Kicks! The Treble winning Invincible season diary continues, September 2016
Teenage Kicks: Declan’s diary from August 2016 in Celtic’s Invincible Treble winning season
