It’s always tense when the Glasgow giants meet, but this one will have a slightly different vibe. There’s jeopardy for both of them, not just from each other but from Hearts and Motherwell, too. The Old Firm are playing catch-up while being hounded from below. It’s unique in the lifetime of many, many people who are watching.
And there’s been some verbal jousting in the preamble to Sunday. Luke McCowan, buoyed by a goal and a win against Stuttgart on Thursday night, gave it the big one about Celtic being the best team in the country, despite significant evidence suggesting they are not.
“We know that if we’re at it, no team in the league touches us,” said McCowan the other night. He backs his team. Fair enough, but…
Celtic, as if anybody doesn’t already know, are sitting third in the Premiership. If it wasn’t for their ability to score late winners – 87th and 90th minute in two games against St Mirren, 90th minute and 90th minute in two against Kilmarnock, 90th minute against Motherwell – then their title hopes would have already turned to dust.
Credit to them for having the bottle to win those games, but they were all desperate grinds. As were others they scraped home in. O’Neill has dragged them forward by the scruff of the neck, but it has all looked very tired, very stressful, very on the edge of blowing up.
He is still without some mainstays in defence – Cameron Carter-Vickers and Alistair Johnston. Auston Trusty is suspended.
They’ve dropped points in 10 of their 27 games. The majority can be pinned on the ludicrously ill-judged appointment of Nancy, but under Brendan Rodgers they lost to Dundee and Hearts and under O’Neill lost to Hibs and drew with Hearts. A controversial red card in both of those games, of course, but the performances were still a mile off what Celtic used to be.
Compared to this point last season they’ve won five fewer games in the league and have lost five more games, they’re -28 on goals scored and +9 on goals conceded.
They’re 15 points worse off. A year ago they were sitting pretty at the top, 13 points clear. They’d just taken Bayern Munich to the wire in the Champions League. Life was good.
Leave a Reply