GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - SEPTEMBER 02: Celtic's Camilo Duran celebrates scoring to make it 1-0 with teammate Haissem Hassan during a William Hill Premiership match between Celtic and Aberdeen at Celtic Park, on Sepember 02, 2026, in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Rob Casey/SNS Group via Getty Images)
There are Celtic performances you watch and think, yes, that is exactly what I have been waiting to see. Then there are performances where you don’t simply watch Celtic winning a football match, you feel Celtic winning it.
That was last night, as we beat Aberdeen at Celtic Park.
Three-nil. Three points. Three absolutely gorgeous goals. More importantly for me, it was a performance which had something I have been screaming for: hunger, pressure, intensity and mentality.
This wasn’t Celtic simply turning up, scoring a couple of goals and doing enough to get the job done. I saw a Celtic side which looked as if it actually wanted to impose itself on the game, and that makes a huge difference.
I don’t want Celtic to be a team which merely wins football matches. I want Celtic to be a team which makes the opposition feel, from the first whistle, that they are in for a very, very long night. Against Aberdeen, I got that feeling.
I loved the attitude, the pressure and the way Celtic looked hungry for the next goal rather than sitting back and protecting what they already had.
There was an energy about the team which was missing a lot last season, little bit of nastiness, in the footballing sense, which says: “We are Celtic, you are at Paradise, and we are not here to make your evening comfortable.”
That is the mentality I want. I want Celtic players chasing lost causes, pressing opponents, moving constantly, demanding the ball and forcing mistakes because the other team feels suffocated.
Most importantly, I want that mentality to become normal rather than occasional because Celtic should be setting the standard in Scotland. We should not be asking permission to do it or apologising for it. We should simply do it.
So let’s discuss the goals. Oh, the goals.
Camilo Duran, Benjamin Nygren and Yang Hyun-jun.
Three different players, three different moments of quality and all of them contributing to a Celtic performance which felt beautifully complete. Celtic had the game finished before half-time, with Duran scoring after 14 minutes, Nygren adding the second after 34 and Yang making it 3-0 in first-half stoppage time.
I simply cannot stop talking about Camilo Duran.
Six goals in five games for Celtic already. Six.
This man has arrived at Celtic Park and made himself very difficult to ignore.
Duran is a dazzling striker and there is something about him which immediately catches my eye. He does not look frightened of responsibility. He wants to be involved, wants to attack and wants to score. His goal was another bit of individual brilliance. He got the assist for the third as well. He is quality. You can see it clearly.
When a striker starts developing that relationship with the Celtic supporters, where every time he gets the ball, you start thinking something might happen here, that is precious. That is what I want from a Celtic striker. I want anticipation and excitement, that little spark in my stomach when he receives the ball.
Duran is giving me that.
Then there was Nygren and what a finish that was. He has really had a great start to the campaign, that terrible error in Austria aside. He looks like he could score in every match right now. He is already on course to better last season’s goal and assists haul … and that is a pretty remarkable thing to be writing.
Yang’s goal was beautiful too, his finish into the bottom corner pure quality. His overall game was brilliant, on his weaker left side role too … he is frustrating at times but it’s only because we know that he’s got quality which he’s often showing to us.
Those strikes were not simply numbers added to a scoreboard. They were moments of quality which gave the performance its punctuation.
Perhaps that is why I enjoyed the match so much. Celtic weren’t merely effective, they were entertaining, and when you combine effectiveness with entertainment, Celtic Park becomes what it is supposed to be. Paradise.
I don’t want to get carried away after one 3-0 victory. Well, actually, I probably do, because I am a Celtic supporter and not a robot. But I am not looking at this result in isolation. I am looking at the signs: a team beginning to understand what is required, players beginning to understand the demands of playing for Celtic and a side developing the mentality that winning on its own is not enough. We want to dominate.
Celtic can win ugly. Celtic can grind out three points on a horrible afternoon when the football is not particularly good. But when Celtic combines that ability to win with hunger, aggression, quality and confidence, that is when I start getting excited. Because who would not rather watch this version than the one which wins games by last minute goals? There’s nothing wrong with that, of course … but being entertained is what it’s all about.
That is when I start seeing a team capable of something more, and I don’t want our ambitions to stop at domestic football either. I want this mentality taken into Europe.
I want the same hunger when the opposition has a bigger name, the same pressure when the stadium is hostile and the same confidence when Celtic is facing players who supposedly cost three times as much.
That is the test. But first we have to build it here, and performances like the one against Aberdeen give me hope that we are beginning to do exactly that.
Now, because I am a teacher, I cannot simply say “Celtic were brilliant” and leave it there. I have standards, so let’s mark this properly.
Hunger gets an A+. Pressure gets an A+. Mentality gets an A+. Attacking football gets an A, while the quality of finishing and entertainment both get an A+.
Overall performance?
A+. My final mark is 9/10.
Why not 10? Because I am deliberately keeping one mark in my pocket. A 10/10 Celtic performance, for me, is not simply about being brilliant against Aberdeen, and you don’t award it when you don’t score in both halves. I want to see this same level of intensity, concentration, ruthlessness and quality again and again.
Consistency is the final examination. Aberdeen was an outstanding piece of work, but I want to see Celtic hand in the same assignment every week. If this is the direction we are travelling in, though, I am smiling.
Because this is the Celtic I want. The Celtic which presses and attacks, which doesn’t become comfortable, and which sees an opponent wobble and thinks: right, let’s finish this. Above all, it is the Celtic which understands that wearing that green-and-white shirt is not simply a privilege. It is a responsibility.
There has to be hunger in it, pride in it and fire in it, and against Aberdeen I saw plenty of that fire. Three goals, three points and six Celtic goals already for the dazzling Camilo Duran. A beautiful goal from Nygren, a beautiful goal from Yang and a performance which left me thinking one very simple thing: yes, that is what I want to see.
That is Celtic. Now do it again, and again, and again.
Because Celtic shouldn’t be satisfied with one brilliant night. We should be demanding a season full of them.
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Duran does look a superstar, his work rate, pace, first touch, strength and finishing are all impressive. What worries me is that he took a bad tackle last night in the first half and I was immediately thinking “who in our team is going to protect him?” If Brown was playing you could expect he would get booked within 5 minutes of that tackle for a foul on the perpetrator, someone needs to do that job and protect our most skilful players so teams don’t think they can kick us off the park. The referee’s sure as fuck won’t protect them.
Great points. I was thinking something similar last night. Just watch the games against Sevco. I’d put money on him getting kicked all over the place. And it would not surprise me if it was one or more of the Hearts traitors. The minute it happens the whole Celtic team should go ballistic at the ref. That ref (Nicholson) last night was a disgrace, and a sign of things to come. Yellow cards CCV for grabbing and holding etc but took no action against several Dons players doing *EXACTLY* the same thing. And they wonder why there were no Scottish officials at The World Cup.
While the first half was good. The early part of the second half would be worrying as the defence were again in panic mode. I was impressed with Hassans work rate.
Duran is probably the best buy in a long time.
Totally agree with the comments about opposition targeting our best players and we have no one to protect them !
The Sevco games will illustrate that ! McInnes will have Devlin and others going over the top as much as they are allowed by our incompetent officials!
And yes, at times we look so weak at the back …that is a worry !
Great piece Paulina very inciteful and without wishing the player away I don’t think Duran will be at Celtic for long and I’m glad the English window is closed already because this guy’s a special player. He’s as technical as Kyogo but more robust and works as hard as Maeda but his touch and finishing are much better, when he plays through the middle he’s a threat to any team’s defence, and although I believe he’s wasted on the right it shows how impressive his performances there (Lask away the exception) really were as he was still contributing and scoring. I think when Kasper comes back Martin has to find a way to play both strikers together even if Duran plays in the number ten position, in my humble opinion they’d score a barrowload of goals. A few thoughts on the debutants Mhueda will come on leaps and bounds playing and learning from these guys too, he looked impressive in his cameo and nearly scored. Sorensen looked ok on his debut apart from one pass straight out the park but all players have done that, he looked tidy on the ball but there’ll be much bigger tests to come. A word for Yang who was my motm last night he’s improving every season and he’s now got the confidence to run at players and take them on on the inside or outside and he took his goal really well. The window has brought more cover in in areas that needed but once again we finish with a surplus of £16 million and time will tell if it’s a success or not, not getting Gineitis was a big mistake the boy’s quality in my opinion and had plenty of scope for development and apparently Martin’s raging that we didn’t get it across the line.