Celtic Utterly Ruthless In Punishing Another Futile Display Of Totally Negative Football.

There are basically two articles to write about this game and I’ll do the other later on. But for the moment I just want to talk about the tactics of the opposition today because although there will be a media spin on this game which it’s important to knock down, and we do that best talking about our own tactics, it would be remiss not to talk about theirs.

A lot of people will try out the “hard luck story” for size here. St Mirren’s manager might try it himself. But the truth is, there was no hard luck to be had here. We beat a team that had no intention of even trying to play football in this match, and not for the first time this season. I never cease to be amazed at how so many teams try this.

My old man said to me during the first half that it’s hard to watch Celtic games sometimes this season, and not because we’re not doing things right. It’s because every opponent now just wants to pack the penalty area and play this dreadful spoiler stuff.

But for God’s sake, look at the league table. Look across at Ibrox at The Mooch going on a long run without defeat in the league, and his team facing much the same stuff every week. Here’s the news for all those clubs who haven’t twigged this yet.

It. Does. Not. Work. It is ugly to watch. But it is also ineffective.

Had St Mirren got something today there are people who would have hailed Robinson as some kind of tactical genius and asked what he’s doing right that everyone else is doing wrong. The same honey was being poured on Martindale not that long ago, but there’s no secret to it. It’s just as Tom Petty says; “Even the losers get lucky sometimes.”

If these tactics were effective at all we’d not have won so many matches. Hell, if they were effective at all why aren’t these teams using them every week, against every opponent? If you can successfully stifle Celtic you can surely keep out Hibs, Motherwell and Aberdeen, right? So what’s the thinking? Why bother to change that system if it works?

Because it doesn’t work, and if the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different result then we have a league full of mad men.

At some point someone is going to take the hint, and especially against Ibrox there’s a chance of producing at least a point. But fans would also be rewarded to watch something like football.

Only one team wanted to play that stuff today, and that’s why we won.