After Wednesday’s unconvincing win over Arbroath, it’s back to SPL duty with – oh no! – a home game versus St. Mirren. Celtic’s home performances in the SPL have been very poor this season, with only 3 games out of 7 won and only 7 goals scored, which is the joint lowest number of goals scored by a home team, bottom placed Dundee being the other side.
Why has our home form been so bad? There are a number of factors, from the dreaded Euro hangover, to players not talking SPL games as seriously as Big Cup games, to Celtic lacking the players to break down teams which come to Parkhead only to defend. The consensus however, is that now that Last 16 football has been secured and the Big Cup is on the backburner until February, that SPL will go on a run in the SPL and distance themselves from the rest of the league. Judging by the win at Kilmarnock last week that is certainly a possibility, but the performance against Arbroath seemed to show the inconsistency of the team once more.
As for the team tomorrow, Adam Matthews will surely keep his play after recent performances and Gary Hooper will probably take the place of Lassad. It will be ineresting to see if Lennon sticks with 3-5-2 he played against Killie or goes back to 4-4-2/4-4-1-1. Celtic’s recent record against St. Mirren is excellent, they haven’t scored a goal against us since that fateful night they put four past Tony Mowbray’s team and he was sacked the next day, and we comfortably beat them 5-0 earlier this season.
Here’s hoping tomorrow is the start of much improved domestic home performances.
Like everyone else I`m thinking how the team could get better against packed defences. McGeouch in a more central role is worth a try. More important of course is not wearing those black socks!
Enjoy the game and hopefully it`ll be a good day.