Nothing summed up the progress of this Celtic team more than the stat which emerged when Callum McGregor struck his sweet shot into the back of the net; it is the 200th Celtic goal under Ange Postecoglou. In little over 18 months.
That is a quite extraordinary number.
But then, these are extraordinary times and this is capable of being an extraordinary Celtic team.
For us to have reached that milestone so soon is pretty amazing and it’s a credit to the man at the helm and his attacking philosophy.
The media started out arguing that if we played whole games on the front foot that it would expose our defence; that has proved foolish. We have the best defensive record in the league, having conceded only 13 times in 16 games.
But for a season which is only 16 matches old, the incredible thing is that we have already scored 51 league goals. We are bang on course for 100 of them in this campaign; indeed, most of us will be pretty disappointed if we do not hit that number.
We are on course to concede more goals than last season, when we only lost 22 in the whole campaign. But we only scored 92. Only. Wow.
Although I argued earlier that we probably need another striker in this window, the two front men don’t provide all of our cutting edge. The goals are spread all throughout this team. That’s what makes us especially strong.
Even if opposing defenders can lock out Giakoumakis and Kyogo, they have to worry about the likes of Abada, Jota, Forrest, Haksabanovic, Maeda and the midfielders.
We have had Celtic sides with forwards who have scored more goals than the guys we have right now, but I cannot remember one that had this much overall firepower.
To have reached such a high point of 200 goals is amazing.
What’s more amazing is that we’ll hit 250 long before this campaign ends and be well on course for 300 early next season. That’s why we’re going to win this title; that’s just too strong for domestic teams to cope with.
And if we add firepower, as most of us expect … well, there’s no telling how many goals we might get before this season is done. 200 is a massive number.
But ultimately it’s just another landmark. Ange and this team are going to make it seem like a minor footnote.
If you consider 2 winter breaks and preseason. It actually works out at about 200 goals in around 13 months of playing. Almost 20 goals a month…that’s frightening.
It’s about time they recovered that momentum then. In the the Australian tour the team let their manager down while playing in front of his homeboys in Melbourne and then they were beaten against a second rate French side before struggling to get the victory against Aberdeen. I hope I’m wrong but It looks to me that they have gone off the boil, the forwards and the midfielders are not firing on all cylinders. Let’s hope they rediscover their mojo against Livingston.
By the way when Ange, famously said, “We never stop”, he did not qualify that by adding, “Except in friendlies”