It’s easy after a game like that to try to find the positives, but I don’t want to do that right now. Last night’s performance was appalling, and we were lucky to come away with a draw.
The last-minute penalty kick gave us more than we deserved because that display was lacking in so many ways. Yes, we’re well clear at the top of the league. Yes, many believe it’s over already. But it would be the embarrassment of all embarrassments to let our rivals back into this, and if we have many more nights like that, we just might.
What on earth happened to us in that second half?
We started well, scored the second, and then let them go straight up the pitch to equalise. From that moment, we stopped playing. We looked panicked, rattled, disjointed, disorganised, and downright chaotic at times.
Dundee got the third to take the lead, and although Brendan was caught on camera referring to the defending as “weak as piss” – with which it was impossible to disagree – there’s no question the home side deserved to be in front. The weakness wasn’t just in defence. The whole team was miles off it.
Full credit to Dundee. I’m sick of watching teams park the bus against us, but if teams can spook us like that, I don’t know why more don’t try to come at us. Go for the throat, because we looked vulnerable every time they did.
We’ve got two massive games coming up: Kilmarnock at the weekend in the cup and Young Boys in the Champions League.
That European tie is critical to the second half of our season, and I’ll tell you right now—I’m not comfortable with how we’re playing. For a while last night, that team looked like the one we saw at Ibrox, the one Rodgers himself said wasn’t a Celtic side. But it looked an awful lot like a Celtic team last night. Our team. Out there on the pitch, wearing the green and white hoops. Yeah, I’ve checked. It was us alright.
But it was a weird hybrid messed up version of us.
Brendan said all the right things at full-time: we lacked intensity, we lacked aggression, we were too passive. All true, but all talk, because I’ve heard it before, and quite recently as well. He said the same things after Ibrox, and then we turned in that performance. He’s got to get the message through to the players that this isn’t over yet. We’ve got to start grabbing games by the throat and playing as if there’s no gap at the top.
We played our best football at the start of the season to build this lead. We played our best football last season when we were clawing back a lead we’d thrown away. Maybe we’re having a mid-season slump after all. If so we better halt the slide before it starts becoming an issue. And this stuff can so easily become an issue. You are never more than a couple of games from being in real trouble.
And yeah, I know, I know. Our rivals are a shambles. So what? It’s up to us to keep the foot on their throat. It’s up to us to show they how futile their pitiful resistance is. But a performance like that might just give them the belief that will allow them to raise their own game. That’s how quickly things can change.
It was a bad team performance. I’ll address individual players in other articles. Some things need to be said, and I’ll say them. I think we all know at least one of the players I’ll be writing about. But he’s not the only one.
I’ve read a lot of rubbish online last night about Adam Idah and not for the first time since we signed him in the summer.
If anyone’s blaming him for us almost losing that game, they need to lie down in a dark room. He wasn’t even on the pitch for the last half hour, and he’s not remotely responsible for the complete collapse across the team after the second goal. That’s not to say he’s getting off the hook—he’s certainly not.
Austin Trusty, a player I like a lot, had his worst game in a Celtic shirt last night.
I don’t know why, but I do know Liam Scales should be rubbing his hands together and getting his kit ready for Saturday. That’s the only reasonable response from the manager because players have to know that if they perform that badly, they won’t be in the next team. That’s how you get the message through.
I thought Luke McCowan was excellent. I wrote yesterday that I wanted to see him start because he’d earned it with recent performances, and I was delighted that he repaid that faith with the opening goal.
He was having a very good match, so I was baffled when he was substituted. At the time, it made no sense, but we do operate a squad rotation policy and it will occasionally throw up surprises.
I’ve also seen people saying Johnny Kenny should have come on. You don’t bring on an untried kid to chase a game where a result—any result—is needed. You introduce young players when the pressure’s off, not when they’re walking into the storm.
It was a bad night. A rank rotten performance. We need to step up, and we need to do it quickly because the games are coming thick and fast. There will be plenty of opportunities for players to make amends, but we can’t afford many more nights like this.
That’s three bad away results in a short space of time. If our away form starts resembling the disaster across the city, we’ll find ourselves in a cold sweat. A lot of people need to give themselves a shake.
One last thing; Aaron Donnelly is getting a bit of media stick over his lack of a proper “celebration” after scoring. The implication is that he should have been more happy but muted his reaction because he’s a Celtic fan. He actually got asked that on Sky; he should have told the hacks to piss off and I hope he does if they keep it up.
Luke McCowan didn’t celebrate much. Did he get stick for it? No, so what was their problem?
There are Ibrox fans who have scored against that club in recent years and looked as if they wanted to break down crying. Not one of them got stick for it either. The hacks in this country are a disgrace.
Photo by Craig Foy/SNS Group via Getty Images
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I thought Idah found the positions a few times but seemed too anxious to score and went ahead of the ball a couple of times. That’s apart from the one on one when he wasn’t anxious enough! He certainly needs a goal to get going again.
I think the recent schedule has taken a bit of intensity out of the team, and they were trying to stroll the first half at 1 up. I’m also a bit surprised that Brendan rotates every player apart from the two oldest, who play every game! Midfield enforcer needed in window!
I think Calmac has been anonymous for weeks and needs a spell on the sidelines.