Celtic’s Spellbinding Performance Last Night Was This Team At It’s Very, Very Best.

This season is winding down in just the way we wanted it to. Not just with a title, and a Scottish Cup Final on the horizon, but watching Celtic again, Real Celtic, the team which blazed its way to the title last season and which has ended this one in style.

Last night’s performance was brilliant. The team was outstanding.

Everything about that was a joy to watch.

A lot of us felt more nervous about last night than we did about the game at Celtic Park at the weekend. I don’t know why. Did we all really over-estimate Hearts and Kilmarnock? In some ways yes, and in some ways no. I think we underestimated ourselves.

We weren’t the only ones guilty of that.

A lot of Ibrox fans clung to the idea that we were vulnerable in these matches for way longer than they should have. In one sense, I understand it; Hearts and Kilmarnock have both beaten us this season, which is more than their own club has managed to do. That’s maybe why they found it easy to imagine it happening again.

But Hearts had done it to us home and away. Kilmarnock is never an easy place to go; that ground has inspired a lot of nightmares down through the years. But we dispatched both of those teams with ease, and the football last night was the best of the whole campaign. It’s as if we flicked a switch somewhere – Motherwell, that was when I first saw signs that this team was starting to play good fast attacking football again – and never looked back.

People who wanted to pick holes in that would ask, “Well what about the Hearts game?” And the answer to that is the same as it was then; that game was decided by the officials. In the aftermath of that game, nobody panicked. Nobody got angry, except at John Beaton. The fans kept on backing the team, the team simply moved past it and won the next two league games, got the point at Ibrox and then won the next five on the bounce.

In the end we had nothing to fear.

The Real Celtic has showed up for business at the time in the season when that matters most, just as the manager predicted that we would. The goals have been flowing too; the average has gone way up since that day at Fir Park. In the eleven games since we’ve cracked three or more goals past our opponents in eight of them, and that’s how leagues are won.

There were standout performances last night – O’Riley, Maeda, Johnston, Forrest and Idah were especially brilliant, although once again I want to pay tribute to Callum McGregor – but it was a team effort and a team triumph, just as the title itself is.

The guys who have come to prominence over the last few months do deserve special merit – Forrest has been excellent and Idah has been a revelation and most of the blogs support our signing him for the next campaign – but it’s about Rodgers’ core group and the way he has gotten the best out of them at just the right time, and how we saved the best for almost last.

What’s this team got left? There must be a temptation to bench a couple of players for the weekend, in preparation for the cup final, but I wonder if it’s not best just to play the top players and keep the momentum going. Rack up another big score and we can strike a heavy psychological blow prior to Hampden, and that has to be a consideration.

Play like we did last night, and we will blow them away regardless. That was fantastic to watch, a team in full flow, confidence surging through every player, everyone knowing his role and what the other players would do … not only was it the best performance of the campaign, but it was obvious that these guys are enjoying themselves on the pitch, and that’s something we’ve not seen much in this campaign up until now. And it’s glorious.

It’s ironic that the end of the season has brought the kind of football which makes us wait eagerly for every match, but Rodgers was right to say that it’s the right time for it. He told the media that we would go out for the game at Celtic Park against our rivals and “have some fun.” We got the result, but the real fun was last night at Rugby Park.

That was Celtic at its very, very best and a reminder of what this team is capable of. We’re in a really good place. Saturday is flag day … and beyond that a double to play for. That’s what I can fun, the most of it we’ve had this season.

And it has delivered one trophy already. Bring on the next one.