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Celtic Join The 100 Club And Cement Our Status As Scotland’s Biggest Football Institution

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On Sunday Celtic reached another historic milestone when the club achieved it’s 100th major honour.

In doing so they also put down a benchmark to the rest of Scottish football and undoubtedly there’s more to come from Brendan Rodgers team.

The performance to secure the trophy was exactly what it needed to be.

Professional.

Aberdeen chased shadows for most of the first half and two inspired finishes more or less put the game to bed by half time. After a spirited 20 or so minutes by the Dons at the beginning of the second half, James Forrest earned a penalty and the rest as they say is history.

For Rodgers it’s his first piece of silverware in management and expectations are now high of only the fourth treble that the club has ever achieved.

So far in this campaign we have been devoid of the sort of errors that often were dismissed as mere bad luck and which seemed to plague Ronny Delia’s teams in cup competitions. This time the ref didn’t miss a hand ball on the line and there was no Efe Amrbrose to hack down an opposition striker though on goal leading to a subsequent sending off.

The turf also didn’t freakishly pop up when Tom Rogic produced his sublime opening goal strike and Paddy Roberts didn’t miss any open goals.

Just about everything went to plan as it pretty much has all along in the League Cup this season. All in all Celtic scored 11 goals in 4 games and didn’t concede any. Motherwell were hammered, a plucky Alloa were eventually seen off and Sevco suffered one of the most one sided 1-0 losses you’ll ever see.

Aberdeen, it was thought, would be made of sterner stuff but ultimately succumbed in a game that fell somewhere in-between the two other occasions when the clubs have met this season. The first ended 4-1 with the Dons being completely outclassed and the second finished 1-0 with Derek McInnes’s men putting up more of a fight. Any thoughts of a cup final shock though looked like wishful thinking in the first 10 mins with Celtic establishing 80% of possession.

Shortly after Rogic’s goal, James Forrest ran through the Aberdeen defence like a hot knife through butter and slotted home nicely to turn wishful thinking into an impossible dream. Dembere’s second half penalty was simply the icing on the cake.

Under Rodgers now there’s a confidence going into every domestic game due to a consistency built on thorough preparation. Whereas last season Celtic seemed to wilt in the face of the pressure of one off big games this side seems to take it in their stride and thrive off it.

Further evidence of BR’s impact is the fact that the team that ran out against Aberdeen was composed almost exclusively of players from the Delia era save striker Moussa Dembele.

Considering that the players who have been added, in particular Scott Sinclair and the aforementioned Dembele, have made such a resounding impact then one can only be excited at what prospects the next two transfer windows could bring us. Armed with the Champions League cash it’s a certainty that the club will strengthen further. A creative midfielder would appear to be a priority but more defensive reinforcements would also not go a miss.

Certainly there will be some casualties squad wise.

Kris Commons days are numbered and the likes of Gary Mackay-Steven, Liam Henderson, Efe Ambrose and Dedryck Boyata will likely not be too far behind him. Major personnel trimming was already performed in the summer but more is inevitable in the face of such an over-bloated squad

Back to on the pitch and league wise the men in hoops hold an 8 point lead with 2 games in hand.

The title it seems can only be thrown away now even as early as late November.

All in all it really couldn’t be going much better. The European campaign has disappointingly ended before Christmas again for the second time in two years but considering the group we were drawn in, that was always a likely scenario.

As Brendan has stated himself the first goal was just to get back into the Champions League and that has been achieved.

Next season we will approach our Champions League campaign with undoubtedly more optimism as a result of better preparation and an enhanced squad. Fingers crossed the draw is also kinder. It literally couldn’t have been any worse this time around.

The second goal of collecting trophy 100 and setting ourselves up for a treble has now also been ticked off.

As for the third one it’s pretty obvious. No it’s not the league.

Before that Celtic have a game to play on Hogmanay. In all honesty I can never remember going to Ibrox more confident and in a better position.

Rolling in with a fat points lead, the seasons first trophy in the back pocket whilst the front pocket is stuffed with Champions League participation cash really is a dream scenario.

The goal there has to be to turn the club which calls itself Rangers over on their own patch. That really would put them in their place as well as putting more pressure on a post-AGM Dave King to get his scratch card and hope for the best.

As Friday’s pantomime in the Armadillo once again underlined, Celtic really are streets ahead on an off the pitch.

Whilst onerous contracts, angry shareholders, mischievous ex managers, under-performing players and the requirement for further emergency soft loans are being dismissed as minor bumps on the road, Celtic’s only interest is in hoovering up points and trophies.

For now Celtic can bask in the glory of a deserved League Cup success.

That’s 24 trophies now in 15 years.

And like the 76 that preceded them all have been achieved whilst living within our means, not spending recklessly and risking the club’s future.

Not too shabby. Here’s to 100 more.

Paul Cassidy is a Celtic blogger who’s well happy with yesterday’s League Cup Final victory.

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