Celtic Women Have Set Up A Thrilling Title Race Finale With A Big, Big Win Tonight.

Celtic Women have beaten their rivals Glasgow City 3-1 in front of nearly 10,000 fans at Parkhead tonight, coming back from a goal down to show their quality in a wonderful, vibrant, flowing second half display which bore all the hallmarks of We Never Stop.

Fran Alonso’s side are now virtually neck and neck with their title rivals, whilst the Ibrox club trail in third. We have two games left to go and we’re two points behind in the title race. Crucially though, the Ibrox club takes on Glasgow City on the last match-day of the campaign; should we do our business any result there will be good for us.

If the Ibrox club wins, Celtic would be champions. A draw in that match might well be good enough to deliver the title. But even if Glasgow City do come through it with a victory, we would still be guaranteed second spot and the Champions League place.

So the stakes could not be higher in these final two games, and whilst I don’t believe we’ll be in the least bit complacent, this was a massive result and it’s the one people are going to talk about if the league is actually secured. Deservedly so.

The first half was patchy, and we conceded a poor goal after giving away possession cheaply. That’s not exactly unheard of at the moment. The Youths did that last night in their second half where they almost threw the game away. The Under 21’s were a bit wasteful in the League Cup Final, which accounted in some ways for the high score. And the first team has been guilty of it too on occasion. It’s how you respond to it that matters.

And those women responded to it, and how.

The second half performance was simply tremendous, with free-flowing attacking football unleashed on the opposition. Before we got going we survived a bit of a scare, as a great header was palmed away by our keeper, Pamela Tajonar. Had that gone in there might have been no way back, but acted as a catalyst. We never looked back.

Natasha Flint was exceptional. She was the one who got the comeback started with a fearsome drive from outside the box which their keeper got to but could not prevent from ending up in the net. All throughout that second half she probed and ran and harried their defence. She forced the keeper into saves. She had a header come off the crossbar.

Claire O’Riordan’s excellent header gave us the lead from a Jacynta corner kick. At that point, Glasgow City looked shell-shocked and gave every impression of a team who just wanted to limit the damage. Celtic kept coming with wave after wave of attacks.

And so, when with around eight minutes left, a midfield battle ended in the ball breaking to Loferski, she used her strength and pace to stay in front of the chasing defender. It was a run we’ve seen Kyogo make several times this season, powering through on goal, holding off his man, picking his spot one-on-one with the keeper and rolling it past and into the net. She executed the move to absolute perfection, and there was bedlam around Celtic Park.

Celtic Park, which tonight had nearly 10,000 fans in it but should have had a lot more.

The club’s decision to enable season ticket holders to get in should have been kept simple; instead the season tickets were used in an overly complex way by which you could download a match ticket online. I’ve said this before in articles, a lot of our fans are not online and don’t have access to printers etc and others simply won’t bother for anything other than a first team game. Keep it as simple as possible and the next time we’ll put 20,000 on the gate.

Still, the fans in attendance were in excellent voice throughout and gave the women the rousing reception they needed, and deserved. It was a brilliant night, and a superb performance made all the more special by watching Fran Alonso on the touchline; God damn, but that man gets involved, so much so that he was booked.

Officiating in Scotland is a joke because of decisions like that.

For the women, it is onto two big games against the clubs from Edinburgh. Win those and I think we’ve got a better than even chance of being champions. Of course. This club has winners at every level and place in the structure now … the women have been doing us proud. Now they are on the brink of possibly being title winners.

What a fantastic season this is for this club.

Congratulations tonight to the women’s team on an outstanding victory.