When the fixture list was announced for this season’s Scottish Women’s Premier League (SWPL1) no-one involved with the Celtic side could have thought that their start could have been any tougher.
Away trips to Champions Glasgow City, Hearts, big spending theRangers and Hibs with only one home game against Spartans in the opening five fixtures. It’s as if someone handling the fixtures doesn’t really like Celtic very much.
Yet here we are five games in and Celtic are breathing down the necks of Glasgow City at the top of the league having won four from five of these opening fixtures. The Champions are on 15 points with theRangers behind Celtic only on goal difference but that is surely misleading as they have lost at home to the Ghirls on that Beautiful Sunday and have yet to play Glasgow City.
And don’t underestimate the significance of Celtic’s latest outing, the 6-2 win away to a very good Hibs side last Friday. That’s a result that will have Champions League hopefuls Glasgow City believing that the main threat to their domestic dominance is not going to come from Hibs this year, or even the big spending theRangers but from this exciting Celtic side.
Here’s how the table stands as we go into the international break…
Celtic’s Assistant Manager David Haley, speaking to the Celtic FC Women’s site admitted that the management team have been delighted with the promising start to the season and believe that group mentality could pay dividends as the campaign progresses.
“We’re defending really well as a team and that was evident throughout theRangers game – you don’t keep a clean sheet against (the)Rangers without having a strong team mentality and team ethic,” Haley said. “We’ve got that all over the park. It’s not just the keeper who has made some great saves, it’s not just the back four who have put their bodies on the line to block shots, but it’s a team unit – the midfielders being close to the defenders, the strikers being close to midfielders and all working together. I think we saw the best of that against (the)Rangers, but there were signs of that against Spartans and Hearts as well,” he said.
“It was a disappointing result at the start of the season, but to be honest, we are where we thought we maybe would be in terms of how we knew the first game was always going to be difficult given the time we had to prepare properly, but now we are in a good way and we can hopefully continue that on.
“It’s obviously still quite early and you still want to work on things. You’re never going to get it, but you want to perfect things, so it’s the challenge of continuing to work and trying to get as close as you can. There’s still a long way to go and we’ll continue to keep working.
“As long as we continue to work and keep that team ethos, then we can go places.”
Celtic’s next game in the SWPL1 at home against Forfar Farmington on Sunday 6 December. Kick-off is at 2pm and The Celtic Star will cover the match. Incidentally Celtic play their home games at K-Park in East Kilbride, but these are being closed doors at the moment due to the covid restrictions.
