This was quite a remarkable game. It was far from the best Celtic performance this season – but it was good enough to earn the three points and to keep Celtic at the top of the League. VAR once again disgraced itself sufficiently to call into question its own sanity and the last few minutes were once again a maelstrom of emotions…but once again we emerged triumphant.

Celtic’s main fault was the inability to kill the game early in the second half when we were well on top. It is always said that if you cannot score when you are on top you will suffer for it, and how true that was! Giakoumakis was enjoying himself trying to score a goal with an overhead scissors kick. He must either perfect this technique – it would be marvellous to behold – or desist trying.

Dundee United came more and more into the game, came closer and closer and duly reaped their due reward (as they thought) when they scored in the 87th minute through Levitt, the man who almost spoiled out party last May. Tony Watt’s career has not exactly gone from strength to strength since that great goal against Barcelona 10 years ago, but he can still play and had a point to prove. I cringed when I saw him come on.

READ THIS…“They just refuse to yield, there is no lost cause,” Ange Postecoglou

But then Celtic at last said “enough is enough”. Ange had once again got his substitutions correct, and Kyogu and Abada got the goals. It was all right in the end – in fact it was quite an exhilarating experience – but it came close to ending in tears, and all because we did not put the game to bed.

For Celtic, full marks to Haksabanovic for his two first half goals (the second was a bit lucky, but deserved none the less). Generally it was a Celtic performance with some weaknesses – Turnbull, for example, had a poor first half but improved in the second half, and Ralston became very careless in the second half – but we did not lack energy. It was an excellent example of our mantra “We Never Stop”.

And so to VAR. Let’s not mince words about it – the Dundee United penalty was absolute rubbish. Not a single Dundee United player appealed for a penalty, the referee Mr Dickinson saw nothing wrong, but then allowed himself to be bullied by the VAR referee who, they tell me, was our old friend Nick Walsh, into awarding a ludicrous penalty kick. It was a sad moment for Scottish football, and the pundits rightly had their say about it on TV.

The “serious foul play” referral looked like a bad foul, indeed, but I wouldn’t have wanted to see a red card, and the attempt to stop the fourth goal (again there was no serious protest from Dundee United) looked like a “clutching at straws” moment.

But a game that will be remembered, I feel, with Dundee United doing enough to make one feel that they are not necessarily doomed yet, and they certainly contributed more than they did on the day when they lost 9-0, and Celtic showing yet again that they never stop. But oh, it was a difficult game for us to watch at times! Not at the end, though, and I look forward to visiting Motherwell on Wednesday.

Thank you to everyone who picked up a copy of The Celtic Rising from the Celtic Superstore today and also for everyone who had already ordered on this site. I am reliably informed that almost everyone, perhaps with the exception of supporters in Australia, Canada, United States and elsewhere around the world, will have received their copy by now.

David Potter