not much joy on the road

revenge of the killer draws blights celtic’s season

 

Six games to go now. Three at home, three away. As we go to print before the home fixture against Aberdeen the Hoops sit a point ahead of Rangers at the top of the table. It looks as if it’s going all the way once again, and it’s all very frustrating.

Much of the debate these days centres on Celtic’s results in away matches. Only one victory in the last seven games on the road since the 1:0 at Ibrox last December (the 2:1 win against Kilmarnock last month) tells its own story. It has become a trend and not a blip. It’s not good enough.

The main concern is that the manager does not keep faith consistently with the players who, for the most part, are able to achieve reasonably comfortable victories at Celtic Park. How many of the away draws, for example, would have ended with all three points with a more settled team? It seemed to work last season. An unchanged line-up in the last six games went on to collect maximum points. Why change a winning team?

It will have to go down as one of the more baffling aspects of Gordon Strachan’s tenure. The net result is that a Rangers team that is blighted by off-field problems, financially rooked and with a squad of players that redefine mediocre is still in the hunt, even though they should have been buried weeks ago. We are in danger of throwing them a £12 million lifeline instead of letting them grab an anchor.

Celtic won the league in 2007 with 84 points, our lowest total in the last five years. To achieve that total this season we will have to emulate our form of the last six matches, 14 points from a possible eighteen, albeit four of the six opposition teams were not top six.

Nonetheless, the fact that all of our opponents from now until the end of the season will be from the top six should not be a daunting prospect. It’s not La Liga or Serie A we’re talking about. It’s another source of annoyance and bewilderment that, while there are few players at any of the other SPL clubs who would get a start at Celtic, the manager continually affords his opponents the courtesy of adapting our style of play to suit them. It’s a deference that smacks of temerity.
Incredibly, the 2006-07 season ended with Rangers in second place with 72 points - twelve behind Celtic. For this to happen again they’d need to get two points from their remaining six fixtures. A nice thought, but wishful thinking in the extreme.

That it might come down to which of the two loses most points is itself an indication of a decline in standards.

The most likely opposition for our three remaining away matches are Rangers, Aberdeen, and probably Hibs, on paper tougher looking than last season’s corresponding run-in when Celtic had two away games, at Fir Park and Tannadice. Is it being too unrealistic to hope that WGS will finally decide on his best team and stick with it, home and away?

That we still don’t know the final set of fixtures for sure throws up yet again what a farce the SPL split has become and leaves those in charge open to accusations of incompetence. If Motherwell instead of Hibs make the top six then we will have to visit Tannadice, Fir Park or Tynecastle for a third time. There is no reason whatsoever why a contingency plan for any combination of teams being in the top six should not have been worked out already and a series of alternative fixture lists produced. Only in the world of the SPL or Monty Python would league administrators still be having discussions and debates about fixtures with one week of the regular league season to go and be listening to input from the likes of the police, the local authorities and the organisers of the Women’s Marathon. Where else would it be known that key players (for all of the teams) will be suspended for certain dates without the fixtures for those dates being arranged?

Welcome to the wonderful and frightening world of the SPL.

MARMADUKE BAGLEHOLE