SPL Saturday 24th September 2005

Celtic 2

Inverness CT 1

0:1 Wyness 51
1:1 Beattie 57
2:1 Beattie 67

Att: 57,242

MIB: Steve Conroy

Celtic: Boruc Telfer Balde McManus Camara Maloney Petrov Sutton Nakamura Beattie Hartson
subs
Virgo for McManus 48
Agathe for Nakamura 86

We are now officially the kings of the comeback - not even September and we've managed to recover from a goal behind four times, winning three of them. That says a lot about the fight of the team.

The fact that we were behind in this game in the first place owed everything to the Caley 'keeper. I'm not suggesting he had the birthday of all birthdays in the first half, but all that was missing was the cake, a card with a tenner in it and a large pile of presents.

Beattie could (read should) have had a hat-trick in the first 45, while Sutton and Telfer both had decent efforts saved as well.

A key moment arrived just before halftime. The communication between Balde and the ever improving McManus broke down, both went for the same ball, Balde ran into McManus who left the field at half time accompanied by some tweeting birds and planet Saturns circling his head. He lasted a couple of minutes into the second half before the hook came out and Virgo replaced him. That was key because right after it we went a goal down thanks to a defensive calamity; Camara and Virgo both missed headers and Balde was daydreaming about languid afternoons on the Cote D'Azure. Wyness, meanwhile, sneakily helped himself.

The hairy-arsed highlanders could see the headlines all over again. But as has already been said, WGS's Celtic are nothing if not persistent. Beattie had the Hoops level within 6 minutes, played in by Maloney and neatly slipping the ball under the goalie.

The winner was the result of Nakamura showing that he does have the necessary determination to tough it when necessary (face it, he isn't a hard tackler and isn't about to develop into one). The fact that he was flat on his back didn't prevent him playing the perfect ball through to Beattie. who ran fully 30 yards before composing himself and showing what a natural finisher he is. Of all the goals he's scored that's the one that impressed me the most. Running that far at that speed and still finishing like that is no mean feat - professional player or not.

So here we are in mid September not top of the league and we lost the game at Ibrox. But if, in June, someone had offered you 6 points clear of Rangers after 8 games I think you might have said 'Yes please'.