I'VE just about regained my voice from last Thursday night’s game in Glasgow. As always, it was an interesting affair with the usual mixed emotions that come from supporting Celtic.
Sunday’s game against Hamilton was much the same, minus the fact we just about walked away with a win. It wasn’t a great performance from the Hoops but, nonetheless, it’s three points and another small step closer to the title.
I don’t want to take any credit away from Hamilton – they were ready to put Celtic under pressure right from kick-off – but from watching the game I don’t think it was a struggle because the Accies were that great, I think it was more to do with Celtic being pretty dreadful to be honest.
Hamilton were one up after just four minutes when Gramoz Kurtaj’s stuck the ball in the back of the net. Straight away I had the feeling that the game was about to be another poor showing from the Bhoys.
The game was mostly end-to-end up until Celtic equalised on the 26th minute, a decent free-kick from Leigh Griffiths was all that was needed to see the ball prodded over the line from centre-half Dedryck Boyata, who had gifted Hamilton their goal early on with some horrendous defending.
Then just five minutes later Griffiths was on the score-sheet himself with what can only be described as a beauty. Love him or hate him, it was a sensational header and it brought his goal tally up to 12 for this season.
The second-half saw much of the same from both sides, Hamilton almost equalised with a curling shot from Ali Crawford – Craig Gordon had be on hand with an impressive save, or it would have been a screamer of a finish.
Other than that, there wasn’t much to take note of. Celtic were poor but still managed to move within a point of leaders Aberdeen, who were absolutely demolished 5-1 at home to St Johnston on Saturday. It seems their run is well and truly over, although the media in Scotland would have liked it to continue a bit longer.
Ronny Deila’s post-match press interview was all the talk on Sunday evening after he went to town on a reporter who began her line of questioning with the defensive error in the first four minutes.
Ronny, clearly unhappy about the first question, didn’t hold back with his response…
Why can’t you talk about the goals we scored? You always take the negative. It’s sometimes a positive when you get three points. We have had three games after Europe and we have nine points – look at the other teams in Europe, see if somebody else has done it. I am very tired of talking about negative things. We played against Fenerbahçe, who are quite a good team, they have got some good players there and we get the draw. Yes, there were some mistakes, but there were some good and we scored two goals, so we have to turn this around sometimes and not always talk about the negatives. We have played 10 matches, seven victories, two draws and a defeat; I don’t think it’s so bad, it’s better than last year and we are on our way. We are going to win trophies and that is what we want and we want to get through in Europe as well, these boys are working everyday to do it. At the end of the day we had to work really hard for the three points, but I’m happy for what they did and not every time you can play PlayStation football and win, you have to fight and today we needed to do that.
Ronny Deila
"I'm tired of talking about the negatives" - @celticfc boss Ronny Deila roars in post-match interview. http://t.co/UQzJU0QoG5
— BT Sport Football (@btsportfootball) October 4, 2015
I watched it live and, I have to say, I thought it was hilarious. Ronny should know by now how the media works and I suppose it’s easy for us to say not to react but it must get to a stage where you feel you have to.
Ronny is right, though, we should be taking positives from the game, but of late there really hasn’t been all that many. We played poor yet still walked away with the three points so, for that, management and the team have been saved from a trashing from most fans.
Having only played in Europe three days earlier you do have to take that in as a factor, but I suppose losing a two-goal lead on Thursday still plays on the mind of many fans, like myself. Realistically, Celtic should be sitting at the top of the group with six points as opposed to the two they actually have.
Would I have taken two draws at the start of the group? Yes, I certainly would have, but that’s irrelevant now. I’m still reserving my opinion of Ronny for now. Don’t get me wrong, sitting in Celtic Park on Thursday when we went two goals up I thought he was the best manager going – like anyone would I suppose – but that’s what football does to you. Then you concede two goals and you start to remove your green-tinted specs.
With international football this week, it gives us all a chance to relax but not for too long as Ireland look to take the Group D play-off spot ahead of Scotland. A win for Poland against Scotland means Ireland’s last two games won’t matter, here’s hoping Robert Lewandowski can keep up his recent form!
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