So the first opportunity has been lost. We’re back where we were before last weekend, having sold two points and given the temporary advantage back to the mob across town. The temptation to feel sorry for ourselves is a hard one to fight.
But we simply don’t have time for it and we cannot allow it to define where we go from here.
We gave them a lift yesterday, and there’s no doubt about it.
You can see it in their result today, and admittedly I thought the opposite might happen, that the breathing room would allow them a trace of complacency.
There was none of it.
It was easily their best performance of the season and although Motherwell collapsed, and had a player sent off early in the second half, you cannot deny that the Ibrox club grabbed that by the throat today.
That’s why we can’t be downbeat.
If we let it affect us we might as well chuck it right now.
We need to pull ourselves together. They gave themselves and their stuttering title defence a shot in the arm today after we’d taken the pressure off them. Now we’re the club that has to, in the words of the song, “pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and start all over again.”
It is frustrating, but this race has a long, long way to go in it.
One good performance from them and another bad home performance from us isn’t telling us anything that we didn’t already know; they are capable of winning well and we’re capable of looking rank.
The gap is back to four points. We weren’t pulling our hair out before the Hibs and Aberdeen games cut it to two and we shouldn’t be pulling it out today. What’s frustrating is that we’ve hamstrung our own momentum and we have to get it back fast.
If we do that then by the time January comes around yesterday will be no more than a bad memory.
If we don’t get a grip on this yesterday isn’t the only day which will haunt us.
I think this weekend was a massive turning point in the title race. We can talk about referees and bias and all that nonsense. We got a pen in the last minute and all day we couldn’t deliver against a team 3rd from bottom. We couldn’t even score one goal and barely had a shot on target. That was a massive switch from being top to now four behind again. It’s a long way to go but four points in this league is quite a gap. I really hope I am wrong but we are lacking that killer instinct to grind out results. Our rivals have been on a poor run but remain four points ahead. That says a lot about our ability to even put pressure on and challenge never mind overtake and sustainably draw away.
The decision to drop Kyogo and not bring him until the last half hour, especially with nothing positive happening in the match was mind boggling.
If we had quality playing up front in order to keep Kyogo benched then fair enough, but Giakoumakis is, I hate to say, never Celtic class.
Another waste of 2 million pounds that will probably be out on loan next season in the same way we seen with Bangua, Killen, Murphy, Balde etc
Sometimes we get carried away 4 Good wins and we think we can challenge for the leauge not on yesterday showing had great chance to go top and put pressure on them but blew it.thats not champion material still not convinced ange is the man or this team but got to give them a chance as its still early but we can’t keep dropping points to $hit teams for god sake livvy are a poor team end of,ange tactics yesterday s#it and messing with line up.
I agree, but my big worry is that we’ve now only gained one point from a possibles six against Livingston. It just not league winning form. And can someone in the coaching team tell the players to put their laces through the ball at a penalty kick a la the great Tommy Gemmell.
Agreed. They stepped up today and I really didn’t expect that. Maybe James could hold off on the “we’ll sweep all before us” until we’re top and looking good.