We have one big game this week, the one this afternoon. It is not a season-definer, but Hearts are one of the best teams we’ll come up against in Scotland, and home or away they will put up a fight. They always do under Neilson.
We did not need any extra incentive to go out here today and put on a show, but we all know that we were handed one yesterday by Ibrox and its Street Fighting Man. I think they’d have got something had they only had to cope with Lundstram being off. Morelos forced their manager into a desperate rear-guard action.
(The wrong tactic, by the way, as some of their fans have pointed out.)
At that point, I think any side would have fancied its chances scoring. Perhaps teams will look at their “every man behind the ball” decision, and its failure, and wonder why they would play against the Ibrox club the same way for 90 minutes, as some of them do. Who needs to be down to nine men? If you’ve decided to sit back and soak up pressure you’re voluntarily strapping yourself into the same tactical approach. And it did not work.
Even without that result yesterday, we would have approached today as the best team in the country does. With the will to win, and the capability to do so in some style. I think we will win, and I think it’ll be comfortable. Comfortable is our default position now, even on a tricky away ground like Kilmarnock with its hellish plastic surface.
As good as that win was – and I thought it was a great performance – you just sense there is more to come, that this team has a few gears left that it could have gone through. We haven’t seen close to the best this side has to offer yet.
So we’d have been up for this today even without Mad Dog and the Karate Kid having their impact on the Easter Road result. Ibrox fans continue to kid themselves that the ref was the only factor in the game too. Hibs scored an excellent goal when there were still eleven men facing them. That result has been coming.
So has Celtic really crushing someone.
Are Hearts a little too good for that? We swept them aside on their last visit to Parkhead last season, but that was another day on which we could have had a cricket score and where we could have dealt with them in a far more savage fashion.
That sort of performance is always in this team. We’ve seen it most regularly at home. Three times last season we scored six at home, and once we scored seven. Could today be a victory on that order of magnitude? Probably not, but it could.
It could, and that’s the fact of it. A five goal haul away last weekend is the biggest win we’ve managed on the road under Ange. As promised, this is a team that is only getting better. Today will be a test, but it could easily end in a rout.
We are all entitled to be confident. We are all entitled to be looking forward to this. We deserve days like today, when we can move clear at the top of the table. And don’t underestimate goal difference either; we are already in front.
We should see this as a chance to extend our lead there too, and make sure we have a nice cushion for the weeks ahead. Most important, though, is just to win this game, to push forward and get those points on the board.
At Celtic, things are as relaxed and comfortable as I can ever remember them. Win today and we can spend the rest of the week with our feet up. Let others sweat. Let others worry about all the things that the champions, and the top team, don’t have to.
Instead of rehashing old articles about Boyd, Keevins or Keith Jackson, how about some proper journalism breaking down decisions that shower of bastards always seem to get?
Against PSV, struggling to score they get a pen on the stroke of HT. Yesterday was the same. I didn’t see the first one but anyone who says yesterday’s dive deserved a pen is a liar. It was never a pen.
I don’t think Lunstram should have been sent off but Morelos’s red card was well deserved. The penalty Hibs were denied was a million times more a pen than the one the huns were gifted.
I am getting fucking sick of this. If you look at all the big games they lose, there is one common denominator. No gifted penalties. This deserves investigation.
It is my belief that Celtic Blog fans would much prefer to read an informed piece on refereeing decisions based on stats and logic rather than yet another Boyd snoreathon that you phoned in from the pub.
Both penalties you mention were penalties. Both were avoidable, they were stupid mistakes by the defenders involved, nobody forced them to make those errors, brain farts I would call them, but definite penalties just the same and certainly no conspiracies involved. The goal; against PSV where the goalie threw the ball into his own net was also an inexplicable error on his part. No conspiracy though, more like a curse, they do seem to get the breaks when they are most needed. They will run out of luck eventually, and may already have with the two red cards, but no investigation is needed, at least not for the examples you mention..
By the way Roonsa, I think you mean the penalty against USG, not PSV, where the defender deliberately brough the cross ball down with his arm. Stonewaller!
Is it possible for there to be such a thing as an independent investigation against the unionist midden thugs in this country? Knowing the press and media the outcome would no doubt be turned against us in a compare and contrast deep dive analysis of every and any decision we’ve ever had in our favour.
Sadly I did force myself to watch the highlights on the totally independent BBC, couldn’t resist. It was worth a watch for once just to see GvB’s gutted done to slapped arse face in full display, and Kenny Miller failing to be independent when trying to justify the pen. I agree there were many examples of the usual Gollum inconsistency as a so called ref, the first sending off was clearly a booking and will no doubt be rescinded. Hibs should’ve had a pen but hey Gollum Mororless got that 2nd red card right.
We don’t need the press and media support to break more hearts than the one in front of us today. A winning margin of 3/4 or 5 will make for another perfect day in Paradise. C’mon a Hoops
An unchanged team with Hatate on the bench, that’s fair enough, if it’s not broke don’t fix it. I expect a comfortable home win,
COYBIG!
Fair play to Ange, for sticking with David Turnbull instead of replacing him with Hatate, that is good man management. He could justifiably had made that change because David did not have a great game last week against Kilmarnock, but in naming him once again, it is a vote of confidence in the player and hopefully David will repay him in kind today.
I’m delighted with the victory, with the 3 points, but the performance was nothing to rave about, it was acceptable. However, the League Table says it all, top of the league and looking down on the scum.