Celtic’s extra-time explosion proved what this team can still be.

After the win over St Mirren at Celtic Park, Celtic faced them again, this time at Hampden, for a place in the cup final, and over all of it one question still hangs; can Celtic still win the title? Can we somehow reach five in a row? Can we prove every critic and doubter wrong?

As Celtic fans, we have to watch, keep our fingers crossed and hope that something close to a miracle is still possible. Today we saw part of the answer … it’s just that we don’t yet know which part of it was the Celtic we’ll see the rest of the season.

I’ll be honest; watching that first half, I was caught between frustration and belief. But those two goals gave me enough to hold onto. For all the moments that annoyed me, and for all the times we looked slightly off it, we still found a way to put ourselves ahead. Maybe that is the mark of a team that knows what is at stake, even when it is not fully firing.

Anthony Ralston’s goal surprised me. I did not see that coming, but that is exactly what I mean when I talk about forcing things instead of waiting for them. There was aggression in it. There was a bit of “I’m not asking permission here,” and I loved that. It was not overworked. It was not overthought. It was just done.

Then came Daizen Maeda, and that was just him, wasn’t it? Relentless, chaotic, never giving defenders a second to breathe. His goal felt like one that came from sheer persistence rather than perfection, and I will take that every day of the week.

Sometimes Celtic do not need to be intricate. Sometimes we just need to be ruthless in our own messy, high-energy way. Maeda embodies that.

But even at 2-0, I could not fully shake the feeling that we had not taken proper control of the game. It is strange to say that when you are ahead, but that is the standard I hold Celtic to. Goals are one thing. Authority is another.

Defensively, I did not feel we were under constant threat, but there were enough little warnings to make me uneasy. If you switch off, even for a second, you give teams like St Mirren encouragement. Celtic should be suffocating that belief, not feeding it.

That is what worried me most. We were in control of the score, but not really in control of the game. That matters just as much as tactics, possession or stats. The tempo dipped when it should have risen. The passing felt safe when it needed to be sharp. I kept thinking, we have already shown we can hurt them, so why not keep doing it?

At half-time, I was not relieved. I was not even fully satisfied. I was left with expectation. Because if we can score goals like that while not fully convincing, what happens if we actually put it all together?

The second half left a bitter taste. Not because it was chaotic or dramatic, but because I could feel it slipping before it actually did. At 2-0 up, I was not asking for anything outrageous. I was not asking for five or six. I was asking for control. Proper control. The kind where the game is finished without even needing a third goal.

Celtic did not give me that.

Instead, I felt a looseness creeping in. Not panic. Not even outright poor play. Just a subtle drop in intensity, that slight step back instead of forward. Against a team like St Mirren, that is all it takes. You give them space, belief and time, and suddenly they are not just hanging on anymore. They are in it.

When their first goal went in, I was annoyed, but I was not shocked. That is the worst part. It did not come out of nowhere. It came from us not being sharp enough, not closing things down quickly enough and not treating the situation with the seriousness it demanded.

That should have been the warning. That should have been the moment Celtic woke up and said, enough, this ends now. But instead of killing the game, we let it breathe again.

The second goal is the one that really stung. By that point, we had already been warned. We knew what could happen. Yet we still failed to react properly. We did not respond emotionally, tactically or with enough urgency. We hung on and seemed to expect the game to drift back in our favour.

Football does not work like that. Not at this level, and not at this stage of the season.

That frustration grew because this was not about being outplayed. It came down to game management, mentality and small decisions. Celtic should get those things right without thinking. We needed to keep the tempo higher. We needed to press more aggressively without the ball. We needed to win second balls and treat the scrappy moments as if they mattered, because they do.

Most importantly, we needed killer instinct. Not just in attack, but in mindset. We needed that refusal to let the game turn. We needed that sense of “this is done, and we are making sure of it”. I did not feel that strongly enough.

Then came extra time, and I almost do not know where to start. Emotionally, the game dragged us through every possible feeling before reminding us what Celtic are supposed to be.

At the end of 90 minutes, I was raging.

We took a game that should have been done and turned it into something uncertain, messy and far more difficult than it ever needed to be. Then extra time began and, as James said, it felt like someone flipped a switch.

Suddenly, I was not watching a team manage, hesitate or overthink. I was watching a team that looked angry. A team that looked as if it had finally had enough of its own nonsense. Once that happened, everything poured out.

Kelechi Iheanacho scored twice, and those were not just numbers on a scoreboard. They felt like statements. He showed sharpness, intent and that striker’s instinct that says, I am finishing this now. I found myself thinking, where was that earlier? Because that kind of decisiveness kills games before they ever become a problem.

Benjamin Nygren getting on the scoresheet only reinforced the feeling that Celtic had stopped asking questions and started giving answers. The play looked direct, purposeful and ruthless. Luke McCowan scored as well, and that goal, as much as any, opened the floodgates. St Mirren simply could not live with it after that.

That is the Celtic I recognise. Once it starts, it does not stop. The opposition goes from believing they have a chance to knowing they are out of it, and even that is not enough.

6-2 after extra time sounds absurd when you think about where we were not long before.

So, am I saying the old Celtic are back? No. Not yet.

The old Celtic would not need extra time to remember who they are.

But what I will say is that extra time showed me something I had not fully seen across the 90 minutes. It showed me that the instinct is still there. The ability to turn it on, to be ruthless and overwhelming, has not disappeared.

It is just not consistent enough. That is the difference.

When Celtic are at their best, that energy, aggression and cutting edge are there from the first whistle. They are not saved for when things go wrong. That is why I cannot ignore the fact that we needed extra time in the first place.

But I will not dismiss what I saw either.

Because when a team responds like that, not collapsing after being pegged back but exploding into life, there is something in it. There is character there. There is pride there. Maybe, just maybe, there is still a starting point.

So, I walk away from that game feeling two things at once.

I am frustrated that we made it so hard for ourselves. But I am also reminded of what Celtic can be when they stop holding back.

And now the question is simple.

Why can’t we be that team all the time?

Choose The CelticBlog as a ‘Preferred Source’ on Google News for quick access to the news you value.