The win yesterday was the our fourth in the first five matches.
Four wins and a draw. That’s a decent start, although that draw rankles because we should have won that game. But having gone to Ibrox and Pittodrie and come away with wins is hugely satisfying.
The next five league games are massive. Four of them are away from home. I cannot remember ever having a spell like that, especially surrounding European matches.
If the “computer” had been programmed to give us the most difficult start possible this is what it would have contrived. There is no doubt that this is the toughest start in living memory.
We return from Rotterdam to face Livingston away.
We know how that game is going to go; they are going to try to kick us off the park and their sheer negativity will bend the mind. A week later, we’re in Motherwell. A home game against Lazio in Europe will be followed up our single home league game, against Kilmarnock … the team who knocked us out of the cup.
Then we have two trips to Edinburgh sandwiched around the Champions League game at home against Atletico Madrid. Hearts are first, and then it’s Hibs.
Win these five games, and we’ve come through the most challenging spell I’ve seen in a long time. If we emerge from it with our four-point lead intact, there is a chance to build on it going into the January transfer window. Come out of this spell with more than a four-point lead and you might as well drop the trophy off at Celtic Park.
Five wins, and I think this league is ours to lose.
It’s good that we seem to be hitting our stride; this is definitely the right time to do so. This is always a tough spell, once you’re effectively playing two games a week, and it would test the biggest squad … but so many away games to the biggest teams in the country, all within this short spell … incredible.
But the flipside, of course, is that we’ll have these sides at home next … and the Ibrox club, which has an incredibly easy fixture list in the next few months, with almost all their games at home, will have to visit all these difficult grounds … if they are still chasing us when that run starts it really could be the spell where we leave them far behind.
If the old convention of giving single-purpose “computers” acronym-based human names is (follow) followed, would the SPFL’s ‘fixture computer’ be called ‘B.I.L.L.Y.’ or ‘M.A.S.O.N.’?
No doubt they would have been up to their knees in megabytes when working out all the fixtures….
I posed the question the other day asking why one clumpany can have 4 consecutive games on home ground while the rest have the regular home – away allocation in regulation ? I’m still baffled with no definitive answer to explain this rather obvious advantage to the downtown Ibrox side . As old Ralph Kramden would have said … ‘ hummina ,hummina , hummina ?’ Does anybody know ? Is it The Twilight Zone time in Scawlin ?
There has been a fair bit of planning gone into having to deal with how this computer has thrown up such a suspicious run of matches.
The way to combat it was with increased squad numbers that allows better rotation options, and increased competition for starting position’s, and good options on the bench to help change the course of a game if needed.
That has been put in place for the SPFL campaign, debatable as to weather that remains the case with the approach taken for the CL campaign still.
Believe we will remain a far stronger team in the 2nd half of the campaign when our strongest available team should be on show on a more regular basis, than is the case currently.
The scum still remain only 1 defeat away from a total zombie meltdown, but couldn’t care less about the scum apart from amusement purposes as the focus has to remain upon ourselves and what we do
The way that things are going with The Huns, the more home games they have, the better.
Hail Hail.
That is very true Mauga but my goodness what a strange anomaly for sure…
Surely someone in authority at Celtic should be screaming from the rooftops about this –
But of course their silence as per always will be deafening !
Haha, yes, an unintended consequence that the Masons of the SPFL never thought though nor saw coming.
I’ve never heard of any team in any league ever having four home games in a row while their rivals have four away.
Wasn’t it always a Home game then an Away game before?
When did this regular well worn format change and why?
Also, if the SPFL feel insulted about the fact they seem to be involved in a deliberate conspiracy to benefit the current club playing out of Ibrox all they have to do is televise ‘the computer’ as it spits out these egregious anomalies in real time, though of course they’d likely have it rigged in advance, the weasels.
Every advantage will be given to the new club because the celtic board just sit back and accept what sky sevco decide.
Sevco have been given more home games at the start for a few seasons now. The corrupt spfl hope that sevco get a point’s advantage at the season start and hope celtic lose the harder away games hoping sevco could keep a points lead and win the league and the champions league place to go with it.
Strange fixture list thrown up by the SPFL computer, It could cause problems when the split comes next April. For Celtic to have 2 home games and 5 away during Sept/Oct seems pretty illogical. You would think it had been structured this way early in the season to handicap Celtic. Surely not?
I do worry about this next 6 weeks with 4 pretty hard away games and 3 Champion League ties in between, along with an International break when more than half the team are travelling all around the World, it is going to be a hard task. If Brendan can come through that lot with no damage done in the League he’ll have done a remarkable job.