Eight changes from the usual Celtic team. Eight. That’s a lot of changes, no matter how you look at it. And that was nothing short of brilliant last night from us. Every aspect of the game and the performance was outstanding. There wasn’t a failure in the Celtic side. There wasn’t a single performance you could criticise with a straight face, although some people are going to try — and I know they will.
But it didn’t matter that we made changes. It didn’t matter which players we left on the bench, or the ones we didn’t have in the squad.
It didn’t faze us at all. This was the ultimate triumph of the Rodgers Revolution so far. To be able to go to Aberdeen with a skeleton team and utterly dismantle a side we’ll be playing in a cup final in just over a week?
Why should we fear that fixture? On the form we showed tonight, it will be a cavalcade of excellent football. A showcase for everything we do right — and do well. And it will end with Callum McGregor hoisting the cup aloft.
I know a lot of attention has been paid to the club across the city of late. But before and before and before and before, I’ve said the same thing on this site: nothing they do matters, as long as we keep doing this.
Two things have to happen for their club to become challengers — they have to get better, and we have to drop our standards. And that has to happen in the same season, at the same time.
Last night we crossed a critical watermark: we now sit on 91 points. And that’s the baseline. That’s the benchmark for any side that wants to catch us — because even with the mid-season slump last year, and even with our little drop in form earlier this year (which Rodgers has course-corrected and got us back on track from), we’ve still put 90-plus points on the board.
That’s the equivalent of 30 wins from 37 games played so far in this league. And that’s the fatal flaw in all the bold predictions that we’re going to be caught next season, or that we’re facing some kind of bigger challenge.
Our biggest challenge is ourselves. We are the only benchmark we judge ourselves against. And as long as we’re setting — and hitting — a 90-point target, anyone who wants to take our flag from us is going to have to maintain that same level of consistency. Good luck to them. That’s what it becomes: catch us if you can.
And I don’t think any club has the required mentality, far less the quality, to do that. It takes incredible will. It takes incredible resilience. It takes hunger, and the more you win the harder it should be – in theory – to sustain that hunger. The ultimate compliment that can be paid to this team is that they can do it.
Consider, too, that we’ve got 91 points, not just 90, that means 30 wins and a draw in 37 games. As it happens, we’ve got 29 wins and four draws.
That’s how we arrived at the magic number.
And that in itself is an extraordinary statistic. An extraordinary fact. To win 29 games so far in a 37-game campaign — that’s why they can’t catch us.
That’s why it’s always going to be about what we do, not what happens elsewhere. Because as long as we can maintain that kind of form — as long as we can win with that regularity — it’s going to be very difficult for anyone to keep up the pace. And that’s the truth that dare not speak its name across the city.
And the thing of it is — that was a team without Nicholas Kuhn in the starting eleven. Without Hatate. Without Carter-Vickers. Without AJ in the line-up. Without the goalkeeper. Without our current first-choice left back. Without our £11 million central midfielder. That’s a team without Daizen Maeda.
And the whole league can see how strong we were — and in a tough away venue. We made it look easy. We fielded a young kid up front and Kenny got a goal. We brought on young McCardle late in the game and he looked excellent — very comfortable indeed — and he had a very nice shot on goal.
Our much-maligned big striker didn’t even start the game, but he comes on land still gets a goal. This is a powerhouse Celtic squad.
And this is when you really see the strength we have in depth. Forrest might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but he’s no run-of-the-mill footballer. He’d be a starter at every other side in this country. Yang — who a lot of us had written off and thought was an absolute no-hoper — is starting to look like a player. Rodgers has added things to his game I didn’t think he could do.
And so even that big chap, whose future we thought might be measured in months, now looks like he’ll be here next season.
Now he looks like he’ll be part of the first-team squad. And looks — if he keeps improving — like he could be here a while, playing regular football.
You never want to get carried away about a young player, but Johnny Kenny looked so comfortable. You can see the difference it makes to have a kid who’s been off and done it, played somewhere on loan and got crucial first-team experience, and then added European football on top of that.
You can see why Rodgers brought him home.
I know we all harbour nightmare thoughts that this board could yet screw the manager over, and we could go into next season weaker than we are right now. But I don’t think that’ll happen. I don’t think Rodgers’ allies on the board — including Dermot Desmond — will allow that to happen.
We will be at least as strong as we are right now when next season starts but even if we were only 80% as strong — I reckon that’s still 20% too strong for any club in this league.
That’s why all the white noise from elsewhere is of no consequence. Because we’re just so much better than every other team in the country. We’re just so far ahead of all of them. We can just keep hitting teams for three, four and five, week in and week out — as if it were nothing but routine. As if it were football made simple. As long as we can do that, why should we worry what happens elsewhere?
Let them rock the hype machine. Let them get carried away. Let them do what they always do. It’s not about them. And it never was. It is now, and forever, going to be about us. About what we do — and how we do it.
On that form? They don’t have a prayer.
It was a great watch last night, Nawrocki was flawless and would’ve been MOTM if it wasn’t for Forrest, he skinned that left back every time he wanted to. Obviously the downside was Hatate getting injured, hopefully he’s ok but it didn’t look good.
We’ve seen Aberdeen look good a few times this season but their last two performances suggest we only need to turn up for that cup final which is a dangerous mindset. If we turn up and play our best for 90 minutes then the score could be anything, I just can’t see them being able to cope. What’s the record win for a cup final?
Celtic 6 1 Hibs 1972. Thanks wiki! It’s in danger based on last night.
Celtic 7 The deid club 1
Another Celtic FC record !!!
The Board will always let us down.
Yes very impressive result last night ,big nawrocki looks a right good player, never understood why he doesn’t get more game time because anytime he has played he has never let us down,don’t know what the manager thinks but nawrocki is every bit as good as scales and trusty, here’s hoping he’s here for the long run,but as James says that was very good from a team that had 8 changes at starting line up,let’s just not get too complacent about the final,HH.
It’s imperative that we get our business done early in the off season and one thing I’d like to see is the club going public with our first target and if the selling club start playing hardball, we should swiftly and loudly walk away, letting other clubs and agents know that our approach has changed from the usual dithering.
Very impressed by the cameo debut of young McArdle, great first touch and awareness with qùck decision making. Well played young man.
The way things are lookin, we SHOULD take care of them next week. And if we show our form ah’ve nae doubt we will. Tho we can take absolutely nothin for granted. This game’s a winner takes all, one off and anythin can happen for a number of reasons. Ye would expect them tae be a different mob than we played last night. Let’s get it won.
As a side note, the youngster McArdle looks a tidy player. Done well when he came on.
Impressive display last night. Nawrocki looked assured & comfortable, Bernardo looked a bit off the pace to begin with..to be expected coming back from injury..but he grew into the game. McArdle looks like a great player and should be a good addition to next seasons squad. Might be a bit of a left field suggestion here but I like Shayden Morris, he caused our defence a few problems, might he be worth a punt in the summer, wouldn’t cost too much after all we scored big time when we last bought locally, Luke McCowan.
Softshoebanana, I was actually thinking the same thing last night and have done a few times when watching Morris. His turn of pace is frightening and you would think, in a better team, ( no disrespect to the Dons,) that he would improve immensely and flourish! As ever, all about opinions !
I would hope there will be no complacency whatsoever, from anyone in Celtic colours, for the upcoming final.
Our professionalism and thoroughness is what has gotten us to this good place and long may it continue !
Last night was another brilliant performance from a wonderful squad of players, who made it look clinical, once they got fully into their rhythm.
Others have mentioned players who excelled and there wasn’t any failures. Nawrocki should get more game time and the puzzle is, why he doesn’t ?
Forrest looked so sharp last night and I hope it’s written in the stars for him to score on Saturday.
Great to see Yang & Kenny score, and it can only boost their confidence.
Like others have said, and I don’t want to get carried away, as it was a brief appearance, but the young lad McArdle was so composed.
We spoke about coaching in an earlier article, and this lad looks like he’s been coached well allied to his obvious natural talent and ability on the ball.
Obvious downside was the late injury to Hatate and it looked as if he’s twisted his knee, suggesting ligament or cartilage injury ! Let’s hope it’s nothing serious !
Onto title party day, in the glorious sunshine.
Let’s enjoy that before we turn our attention to cup final day .
HH
Not for the right reasons, shame for the player and I hope he gets better fast, but on a positive note, no one is going to buy Hatate when he is injured. Just saying like.
Great point! Bad news short term but if he is out until the start of next season it makes us stronger until at least January having him remain in the squad
Notice that the manager said making 8 changes was no problem as every player at the club is used to and knows the system we play.
That’s why he will be never change the system which will hopefully achieve another treble.
Terry, We all know, as has been discussed on here ad nauseam, that players should be brought in to suit your chosen system of play, rather than bought, just for the sake of it ! He has a specific system but within that it can certainly be tweaked!
BR has stated several times what he looks for in his teams, and he’s slowly put his mark on this squad. The evolution should continue in the close season, but let’s hope it’s done a lot quicker, rather than the tardiness we’ve witnessed many times!
We continually require quality, rather than quantity ! HH
Maybe that is a better team than the favoured one, sure looked like that last night, except Trusty of course, the guy is simply not good enough and he is very scared for himself
Dan
I’ve been willing Trusty to show improvement and more confidence, like every signing we make.
However, for me, the jury is still out!
I like big Nawrocki ( when fit) and it is a mystery that he doesn’t feature more !
Maybe BR’s belief in the left right balance at CH will always come first, and ultimately it’s his opinion and decisions that matter most !
Trusty has it. He was awesome at Atalanta. Needs game time and time to settle. BR will get the best out off him.
I said in a previous thread that Brendan should play the reserves as they’d target maiming some of our players aided and abetted by the cheat with the whistle in this case McLean…
And of course they managed a great result for their cup final by putting Rio outta it…
Scottish Football THUGGERY continues unabated so it fuckin well does !
I’ve asked a few times on here if anyone can tell me what Lennon Miller’s attributes are, without a scintilla of a response. I watched him several times and couldn’t work it out. I watched McArdle for about two minutes last night and saw his attributes almost instantly. What a touch and what a football brain the lad has. Get him in the team and prevent any of these development deals happening where the likes of Ben Doak can be snatched away for peanuts.