Kai Watson: Celtic Just Know How To Win
It was Super Sunday in the Scottish Premiership as Celtic headed to Rugby Park to face Kilmarnock before Hearts headed to Ibrox for a clash of the top two at 16:30. Many would have predicted an easy victory for Celtic given that Killie were sitting in eleventh but they look much improved under Neil McCann.
They comfortably beat Aberdeen 3-0, before heading to Ibrox where, despite losing 5-1 in the end, were still in the game for large parts despite being reduced to ten early on. They then played out a seven-goal thriller at home last week against St. Mirren where a Tyreece John-Jules hat-trick led them to a 4-3 victory.
They were confident and it showed early on as they were comfortable playing out from the back and pressed Celtic aggressively. Then had a couple of half decent openings due to Hugill and John-Jules causing Celtic’s defence a lot of problems. 21 minutes in that pressure prevailed as Hugill played his strike partner in, John-Jules attempted the one two but the ball fell back to him, he cut inside and fired a wicked shot into the far post, leaving Schmeichel with little chance.
The second though, many Celtic fans may think the goalkeeper should do better with, John-Jules became the provider for Hugill as the former's cross was met by a brilliant header that looped over the Dane in goal, who really struggled with his footwork.
Killie went in 2-0 up at half-time and Celtic made three changes for the second half, Cvancara, Tounetki and Oxlade-Chamberlain all came on and it only took eleven minutes for one of them to make a huge impact. Tounetki had the ball on the left, drove inside past Curtis and released a thunderbolt from around 25-yards into the top corner, a brilliant strike to get Celtic back in it.
They were then level just eight minutes later as a defensive mixup from an Araujo throw-in allowed Nygren to sneak in and fire home his thirteenth goal of the season, making him the joint top scorer in the league. Celtic had a bit of sustained pressure but Robbie Deas missed a sitter at the back post and John-Jules rattled the crossbar from a freekick.
However, Celtic would come away victorious as they scored in injury time for the THIRD game in a row. Against Dundee they scored a 97th minute equaliser, midweek it was a 91st minute winner against Livingston and in this one, it was another 97th minute goal.
This time it was Julian Araujo’s first goal for the club as he attacked the backpost and found the top of the net with his weaker left foot and caused pandemonium in the away end! It was another thrilling victory for Martin O’Neill’s men and this type of comeback and finding ways to get three points are normally the hallmarks of champions in the making.
Will the average performances catch up to them though or will they continue to just keep finding ways to win? When it comes to winning the league title, all that really matters is the three points and with how they’ve been doing it recently, Celtic are now many peoples favourites to go on and retain the title.
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