SPL Saturday February 14th

Celtic 2

Dundee United 1

0:1 Archibald 61
1:1 Maloney 81
2:1 Sutton 83 pen

Att: 58,698

MIB: Iain Fyfe

Celtic
Douglas
Varga Balde McNamara
Agathe Lennon Petrov Pearson Thompson
Sutton Larsson
subs
Maloney for Pearson 68
Lambert for Petrov 84

So, Celtic equal the Scottish record for consecutive wins. Of course, we beat the top league record a while back, now the papers have dug down a couple of divisions to dredge up Morton in the old Second division. What will they do when we beat that? Check the Junior league record? Or the BB leagues?

'Unconvincing' was the word of the day, but running a close second was 'inevitable'. It was almost as if United scoring relaxed us, because only then did we really start to play (it also woke the crowd up). United had some positively satanic luck (off the line three times for heaven's sake) before Maloney finally drew us level.

A mere minute later Petrov ran into the box and, depending on your point of view, was either brought down for a penalty by a stupid challenge by a defender who had no hope of getting the ball, or cheated in a nasty, foreign way by enticing the defender in and tangling his legs up in the defender's. Of course one of these explanations is complete bat guano (you try running full pelt and tangling your legs in the person behind you, it's not possible) but that hasn't prevented certain TV huns spouting it out endlessly; 'Cute, clever play by Petrov, we've seen that before and he does get a lot of penalties.' Mainly because he does get kicked a lot while in possession in the box. Little mention was made of the fact that Petrov was so badly hurt he took no further part in the game. Then again, he probably needed untangled.

Sutton ignored all the hubbub and slotted home the kick. All those pre-match nerves about Rangers eating in to our lead instantly washed away.