Anyone watching Sportscene last night will have seen Aberdeen scrap past Livingston in a penalty shoot-out at Pittodrie in their 4th Round Scottish Cup meeting. Usually a drawn match at this stage of the competition would mean a replay but due to the Covid situation that delayed the earlier rounds of the Scottish Cup, the ties this season will all be played to a finish on the day.
That means if the game at Ibrox this afternoon is level after 90 minutes we will go into extra-time and then if there is no winner scored it will be another penalty shoot-out. That will of course bring back good memories of the followers of the Ibrox club – founded in 2012 by Charles Green – as it remains the ONLY time that they have beaten Celtic in the Scottish Cup.
That penalty shoot-out victory over Celtic was in the semi-final and unfortunately for theRangers they went on to lose the final to Hibs, managed at the time by former Celt Alan Stubbs with two Celts on loan to Hibs – Tony Stokes and Liam Henderson – both playing significant roles in theRangers defeat. The was also a full scale riot that afternoon as theRangers fans bravely entered the field of play to protect their defeated stars who had all been assaulted by the dastardly thugs from Edinburgh. Or so the papers said anyway.
That penalty shoot out success for theRangers happened in April 2016 and a month later Celtic brought in Brendan Rodgers. Thereafter the next 12 major trophies in a row in Scottish football all ended up back at Paradise. Indeed it was only last month that any other side won a trophy – hats off to St Johnstone for their League Cup success.
So if it goes to a penalty shoot-out today fingers crossed it will be Celtic’s turn to have a rub of the green. The Hoops of course won the 2020 Scottish Cup against Hearts in December in a penalty shoot out – Kris Ajer netting the winning spot kick after Conor Hazard’s two wonderful saves – so more of the same might be needed today.
The interim Celtic manager will have Celtic ready for this eventuality. “Ideally, it won’t come to it, but it is something you do just to be sure,” said Kennedy, as reported by Sunday Post. “We have done a bit of practice on our penalties already, and we will touch on it again before the game.
“As a team of coaches, we don’t like to leave anything to chance. Once you have a plan, and you once have covered everything, then you feel you are fully prepared.
“We focus on what we can affect,” Kennedy said. “There has been a lot of noise about the place, whether it’s about the manager or performance issues.
“But it is what it is. We can only affect what we do on a daily basis. What I try to do is bring a calmness to things. You don’t want this to become an emotional week and, by the end of it, everybody feels a bit drained because of that.
“If you can bring a level of consistency to your preparations, so it doesn’t matter if you are playing (the)Rangers, Falkirk, Dundee United or whoever, then hopefully performances improve. That has happened, as has the thing I have been asking for the last few weeks – a clinical edge in terms of scoring goals and putting games to bed.
“So we are in going into this game in a good place. It is a big one for us, but in terms of preparation, I think we are in the best shape we can be. We’re going in with the confidence that our performance levels against them in the last two games have been good. But it’s about results – especially in a cup game.
“We want to go one step better, and make sure it’s a good performance with that clinical edge at both ends of the pitch. That will be positive for us. Mentality-wise, we’ll take confidence from the performance. But it’s about the result.”
