SPL Sunday 20th February 2005

Celtic 0

Rangers 2

0:1 Vignal 71
0:2 Novo 82

Att: 59,041

MIB: Mike McCurry

Celtic: Douglas McNamara Balde Varga Laursen Sutton Petrov Lennon Thompson Bellamy Hartson
subs
McGeady for McNamara 76

It is a true reflection of the untouchable nature of the man that having thrown away a seriously large points advantage in this league race and made some debatably dodgy signings - not to mention our increasingly utilitarian style of play - there is still no question of Martin O'Neill being under pressure. Now I'm not saying that this defeat was all his fault (we'll get to Rab later) but how many of us in the stands could see that the way we were playing wasn't getting us anywhere? How many thought that, despite all his goals this season, John Hartson wasn't contributing much to the game and should been replaced with McGeady allowing Sutton to go up front? And how many of us think that if it hadn't been for Jackie getting injured we wouldn't have made use of the subs?

This was a bad, bad day. In the last derby at Celtic Park Klos saved them from a four or five goal hammering. Thanks to our profligacy in front of goal we made a Man City 3rd keeper with a bad mullet the hero today. To top that, Vignal was allowed to run the midfield! What is reality?

The first half hadn't really been up to much. Hartson had fired a clear scoring opportunity straight at the keeper, and Bellamy had wasted a 1-on-1 chance. Rangers had done very little, which wasn't surprising given that Prso was saying pre-match that a draw would do fine thanks. The second half was an unpleasant trip through time, back to 1999.

The players started as though their boot laces were tied together. The Huns were clearly running the game, the loss of Agathe painfully apparent given that we had zero width. The switch of Bellamy out wide did swing the game back slightly, but then Hartson missed another clear chance to put us in front before Rab intervened.

Let's be clear - it was an absolute howler of a mistake, and it almost certainly cost us the game, but questions have to be asked throughout the team after this match. First question might be; who in the midfield had the bright idea to let Vignal run in 10 yards with the ball and take a free shot at goal? While Rab had his errors plastered all over the papers other players (stand up Neil Lennon) had arguably their worst showing in the hoops. Giving the ball away seemed to be the name of the game.

The most distressing thing was the way we failed to react to their goal. The players failed to lift their game and the management also sat on their hands. Sutton wasn't having a good day in the middle, Petrov was wasted wide on the right, Thompson was staying true to form, Hartson wasn't doing it, we had a clear lack of creativity. Where was Juninho? McGeady only appeared because Jackie got a knock. That must mean that the 11 we had on display, in that formation are the best we can do. Time to pull down the shutters then because we were rotten.

A home win against Aberdeen in the autumn would have seen us go 10 points ahead. We're now pegged back with an inferior goal difference - just like 2002-03 except this time there's no Europe to keep us all happy. The management and the players have got some hard work ahead of them in the next three months and it's time they all started earning those large pay cheques.