In spite of the best efforts of Sky Sports Scotland to find negatives and cast doubt on the achievement, Brendan Rodgers Celtic team made history at Parkhead today, beating Hearts and assuring that this magnificent unbeaten run goes on.
How big was this accomplishment? Well, apart from the fact the record has stood since the era of the Lisbon Lions, and after two months in which we played an astonishing number of games, the record was broken on a day when we were without five key players from our line-up. There was no Sviatchenko. There was no Tom Rogic. We lost both of our front men, Griffiths and Dembele, to injury before the team sheets came out. To cap it, we lost Stuart Armstrong – a top contender for the Player of the Year accolade – to an injury during the warm-up. You could add Mikael Lustig’s absence to that too, if you wanted to give a full picture.
Most clubs would not have coped with those kind of losses, but Brendan’s Celtic is comprised of strong individuals and a superb team ethic.
Young McGregor, who came in late for the injured Armstrong, proved his worth with the opening goal. Boyata continued a nearly miraculous comeback with another strong display. Nir Bitton had a solid game, and gave a solid performance. Gamboa impressed at right back.
These guys might have been considered surplus to requirements here; indeed, I thought Bitton and Boyata would certainly leave. Yet it’s beyond all doubt that any one of them would walk into any other team in the nation.
Liam Henderson came on as a substitute for Forrest with more than 20 minutes to go, and he too didn’t do much wrong.
This is a team that can cope with anything.
Trust Sky Sports Scotland to find no credit for us. At half time they had three main talking points; should Hearts have had a penalty? (No.) Should they have had a corner a moment before we scored the goal? (No.) Will Craig Gordon leave for Chelsea? Key decisions in the game where questioned when they benefited Celtic and ignored when they didn’t. The bitterness of Neil McCann was evident in nearly every word.
The Gordon story is going to continue to generate headlines for the next few days; it is a tiresome one, to be frank. If Chelsea meet Celtic’s valuation then he’ll probably leave. I’ve already expressed my view on that; it would not be an outright disaster.
Kris Boyd, betraying his usual idiocy, said this morning that if Chelsea and Gordon are both set on the move Celtic are powerless to stop it; what an absolute goon that man is. Celtic has the option of extending Gordon’s contract another year; if we don’t want him to go we’ll enact it – and the current level of remuneration – and that’s that. Chelsea won’t wait on him. They will sign someone else and that’ll be the end of the matter, unless Gordon himself wants to cause a stink and you do not get the impression he’s that kind of person. He might not be happy, but he’ll respect the club’s position, and our final word on the matter, and that’ll be it.
This desperate search for negatives at Celtic, I wholly understand where it comes from. It comes from jealousy. From spite. From anger that their own club is a dithering shambles. We’re knocking back big money bids for our goalkeeper. They are trying to sign one on hire purchase because they don’t have £250,000 lying around. They are bringing in players on loan. We just spent £2.5 million on a kid. The difference between the teams is night and day.
Besides, as I’ve said, anyone who thinks our club will collapse without Gordon hasn’t been paying attention in class. We were without so many top players today that this game could have very reasonably been viewed as a banana skin match.
We dominated completely and the victory was every bit as emphatic as the score line suggested.
Let the critics and cynics say what they will; today’s 4-0 triumph was the definitive proof of how strong a squad we have and how good we’re capable of being. It was a tremendous show of strength and purpose from our team, and all the bitterness in the Sky Sports Scotland studio will not change that simple, and unarguable, fact.
These are the History Bhoys. They, and Brendan, have earned every accolade coming their way even if the majority of those will be coming from the fans and not the media who are choking on every positive word they have to write at the minute.