A spirited comeback, but today still feels like a massive missed opportunity…
We all went through every emotion possible during this afternoon’s vital Scottish Premiership clash at Ibrox against theRangers. At one point we were totally deflated after witnessing yet another inept and soulless performance, and it was at that stage a case of just praying that we would avoid a thumping, such was the massive gulf between the two sides in that dreadful first forty five minutes.
But whatever Martin O’Neill said at the interval seemed to have the desired effect, as to everyone’s amazement we witnessed a totally transformed Celtic side in the second half, in a big way thanks to the introductions of Reo Hatate and Sebastian Tounekti who were very much influential in our spirited fight back.
It’s possibly the case that Martin O’Neill got his team selection badly wrong with the midfield trio never likely to work together in that environment, Alex Oxlade Chamberlain isn’t up to speed and Benjamin Nygren doesn’t impose himself enough outside of his admirable scoring exploits. One or the other would have been the better call but both together saw Celtic being overrun by the Ibrox outfit.
Kieran Tierney gave us hope after pulling one back not long into the second period, finishing off a point blank header thanks to a great assist courtesy of an improving Benjamin Nygren.
We missed several great chances to level, and when all looked lost we were correctly awarded a spot kick after intervention of VAR, something that must have pained John Beaton as he re-watched the incident on the pitch-side screen. The official had no other option to award the penalty, but it’s anyone’s guess as to why the home defender who was penalised for the foul wasn’t ordered off for the denial of a goal scoring opportunity.
At half-time like every other Celtic supporter I’d have snapped your hand off for a point, but now I’m gutted as I believed we did enough in the second half to earn all three points as the stats clearly suggest.
We throughly dominated the Ibrox side in the second period, and one can only wonder why he couldn’t have started the game in a similar manner. If so we’d have won the game comfortably. The chances at half-time made all the difference with both Sebastian Tounekti and especially Reo Hatate making a significant difference, thus backing up the team sheet errors. The chance for Luke McCowan really should have found the back of the net and a square pass to Daizen Maeda was also on. The photo below shows the frustration.
We are however still in with a fighting chance of winning the title, and can make significant strides by moving back into second place with a win at Pittodrie on Wednesday night. There are four teams in the title race, Motherwell could still win it too and Hibs have shown that they can take points off the top four.
All things considered despite our spirted comeback, today still feels like a big opportunity missed but our title aspirations remain strong. We must however put together a winning run.
Just an Ordinary Bhoy
Celtic found themselselves on and of the pitch in last to games yes still seen the small group with political bmand sack the biard banner in a small group of about ten they have caused us so much damage with with abada been forced out by them and sack the board all season these two games showed what we are on and off the pitch fet rid if these anarchay let them stand out side gov house
Abada wasn’t forced out by any Celtic supporters. He got abuse from Israel for playing for Celtic as Celtic supporters campaigned for Palestine. Abada got zero abuse from Celtic supporters. Why lie?
Abada was hounded out by Israeli media. Easy to blame GB while not being man enough to name them.