Ryan Christie’s pitched cross for Scott Sinclair to open the scoring with a volley was a thing of beauty. It was 30 minutes into the game and Motherwell were withstanding everything Celtic could muster; it was going to take something special to open them up. Sinclair’s finish was accomplished.
Ewan Henderson, on his first start in senior football, created space on the right wing to send a ball onto the forehead of Odsonne Eduard for the French striker to score his first of the day. His second, which arrived on 88 minutes, but was just as crucial, was a thundering free kick from 26 yards, which clipped the underside of the bar on its way in.
You wait weeks for a great goal then you get four in one afternoon. James Forrest darted into the box before sliding the ball into the path of Oliver Burke, who finished in the top corner.
So good for Celtic, but the story of this game runs a little deeper. As though our central mid problems were not significant enough, Ryan Christie collapsed injured, prompting Kris Ajer to knock the ball out of play. But, also making his first start in senior football was Motherwell’s 18-year-old striker, James Scott.
Scott collected the subsequent uncontested throw-in, which convention dictated would be returned to Celtic, but the teenager ran into the empty Celtic half and fired a shot at Scott Bain. The Celtic keeper saved, but Scott had an accomplice in the form of 24-year-old Gboly Ariyibi, who scored with the rebound.
At this point, the game needed someone of character to make the right decision. Unfortunately, this proverbial football fell at the feet of Motherwell manager, Steve Robinson. He just “didn’t know what to do”. Motherwell accepted the advantage their break with acceptable standards provided them with, without recourse.
I get teenagers make worse mistakes than this, although we should be clear, he has played the game all his life and will be more familiar with this scenario than you or I. I could also understand that Robinson was caught like a rabbit in the disco lights, but then the Motherwell manager tried to throw Celtic fans under the bus in a clear case of whataboutery in his post-match interview, by accusing them of celebrating the departure of injured Carl McHugh. Robinson has already told the radio audience McHugh has been knocked unconscious for the fourth time in his career.
This context was unavailable to Celtic fans during the game. The context of Robinson’s comments were crystal clear. It was shoddy, calculated and therefore worse than James Scott’s earlier transgression.
If you like football of the blood and snotters variety, the remaining 39 minutes, plus 9 minutes added-time, were right up your street. The goal upset Celtic’s hold on the game and until Edouard’s late strike, Motherwell controlled the game. But, the champions had enough and finished the visitors off in distinguished fashion.
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Great goal by Eddie :-)
3 points to the good ghuys.
Motherwell are a team made in the image of their manager, classless, clueless and grubby…
Celtic are a team made in the image of our manager, the difference is like night and day..
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20190225/0df50acf0f79f729b5b3ccfe8f3d282d.jpg
5th season’s best!
Paul 677
Good point.
Scott and Ariyibi can claim spontanai their actions; Robinson cannot re his take on the incident and his decision to apportion blame to the Celtic support says much about his lack of character.
JJ
Paul 677?
Sounds more like an aeroplane than a EC winners epithet!!
JJ
great game yesterday
Development team playing at Rugby Park today at 2pm. Entry £5 for visitors, Kilmarnock season ticket holders free. Compper Bayo and wee Dembele to start apparently.
Big Ajer has the right stuff, fire in his heart,a born winner.
Robinson could have sorted the mess out,as soon as their goal went in,let us go up the park and score unchallenged. No class,his interview was embarrassing.
Speaking with Celtic fans there are very few that don’t recognise what Scotland is up to in relation to the total Celtic domination of domestic and European football, every adult has a handle on it, even if its just schadenfreude, the quest for eight in a row and an unprecedented treble treble is still seriously under threat, from all angles. We even saw new ways of cheating yesterday, and Brendan Rodgers allegedly set to commit career hari kiri taking over at a smaller club,…. they wish.
Now have an open sectarianism in football debate live from ‘the phone ins’ where Mr Mensa’s discusses ‘strict liability and ‘points deductions’ in the same breath. A debate absent for most of our life times, until Sevco were born now craving attention, the original Rainjurz shunned and haven’t commented on from 1872 until they went under. Celtic fans have joined in unwittingly, in the shape of one or two newly revamped songs, and chants at big targets. After years and years of being on the end of a one way sectarian street the appalling OBAF hastily binned, helped create the climate of equalization for all things what aboutery, when Republican songs overnight became ‘sectarian’ lumped in by Scotland.
Do you pay for a TV licence to fund the BBC ? they have employees ‘sports commentating experts’ some of them previously paid on side contracts that screwed all Scottish Football clubs, and the SFA, not just their city rivals and ultimate nemisis, some of them are even working above their previously resigned level fast tracking their favourites towards the most overheard phrase in Scottish Football………..” penalty to Rainjurz.” Minty’s tax fraud years have left the game in pieces, all holed under the waterline ( see Auldheid ) and others, the game here will never recover, it will always be like this,nobody in authority outside Scotland cares
Sevco are lapping up the attention their supporters sing the same songs as Dave Kings first Rainjurz he wants it to be known he’s still there abhoring any sectarianism in his orange pyjama’s in South Africa praying he’ll get his £20M that was channelled away by arch villain Sir Minty who along with Charles Green (mind him?) are convalescing in their vineyards in France.
SMSM are very hard at work promoting Sevco as Rainjurz, with Celtic and Rainjurz what are they like? the pair of them with their bigotry ah that old firm wee devils that they are. Refloating Rainjurz is seemingly harder than raising the Titanic, every game brings a new controversy.Celtic reacted at the start of January quickly bringing in three players and despite the vile partizanship suffered at Ibrokes and from SMSM, almost overnight we were quickly eight points clear again, and still in the cup.
The treble, treble is firmly on CSC
TET..
The worrying thing about that story is the headline ” Star Player ” .
…………
I never heard anyone cheering McHugh being carried off the park..
Lessons to be learned going forward.
We can’t expect ANY fair play from ANYONE. From now on kick the ball out deep in the opposition half and be fully switched on when it comes back into play. When decisions go against us don’t get rattled.
Utterly pathetic from Robinson. Said he didn’t know what to do because it hadn’t happened to him before! If that’s the case you would never do anything! And presumably he doesn’t watch football on TV?
Footballers are quite capable of getting out of the opponents’ way and allowing them to score. The Hamilton players even managed to do it five times.
Really disappointing way to lose the run of clean sheets.
Great to see two goals from crosses. Been shouting for this for ages! Should do it more. Delighted with young Ewan – looks a really intelligent player. Hope Callum isn’t out for too long, especially with Christie out too now, on top of Ntcham and Rogic.
One step closer. Another tough one midweek.
Young Henderson was outstanding anaw….
There is another way of looking at the incident, if I may play the Devil’s Advocate.
I was as angry and as disgusted as the next supporter at the actions of the Motherwell players in not returning the ball as per convention (so angry that it was a couple of minutes before I could explain to my wife, who came with me to the game yesterday, what the fuss was about). But, but…
Fact is, football ‘convention’ or not, we let our guard drop for a moment and we should learn that lesson. It’s a cheap one because thankfully it cost us nothing. But other teams will not give us anything for free.
It also struck me that the Green Brigade bursting into song just as the Motherwell player was stretchered from the field was either crass or an unfortunate coincidence. I fear it was the former. When any player goes down for that length of time, it’s a serious injury and no matter what incident has gone before, that person’s career and long-term health may be in jeopardy. In my opinion it is beneath us as a club, and beneath contempt generally, to celebrate or mock that moment.
Just my opinion.
Far more appropriate to roundly boo the errant striker as he left the field, a cacophony that hopefully will haunt his dreams just as his actions are likely to haunt his career – for a while at least.
BSR
Excellent post.
And what of the Scottish Media in the aftermath of Robinson’s decision not to allow Celtic to score at KO – an ideal way to quickly rectify the problem?
Imagine the tables were turned and Celtic scored a goal like that – I can almost feel and hear the vitriol that would follow in their questioning of Brendan.
Not even one…….”…do you regret your decision not to allow Celtic to score?”
He said he didn’t know what to do…..it was a simple and binary choice…..do the right thing or do nothing. He made his choice.
BOURNESOUPRECIPE
Good stuff B, a treble treble under these circumstances of hysterical ABC will be in fact the sweetest victory of all..
Bring on the Minis they’re due a skelpin’
HH
What a terrific wee player Henderson looks? Gold watch there…
What a classless bunch of knuckle draggers Motherwell are, and their fans are even worse.
Onto Wednesday where we come up against more inbreds dragging their knuckles, as well as their supporters.
And the bhoys go marching on. Must break their wee ugly hearts…..
Keep winning csc
!!BADA BING!! on 25TH FEBRUARY 2019 12:21 PM
I never heard anyone cheering McHugh being carried off the park..
Sadly I must report that a small group of people in section 444 were singing “die, die, die……at him”
Due to my vision angle, the person that I saw most vociferously participating in the chant was a female who looked to be in her early early twenties with shoulder length dark, straight hair.
https://twitter.com/imajsaclaimant/status/1099853723671638016?s=12
This idiot must get sacked
This is professional football, not a Sunday league
“didn’t know what to do” is embarrassing. Plastic pitches, referees that haven’t a clue . A governing body that condones cheating. IF BR walks way, can you blame him ?
However I was startled by how quickly Celtics sense of injustice affected us and pulled us down to our opponenets level.
HJ- we need to be better than that, and to show Motherwell up ,i would not have contested any drop balls after they scored
No need for any more team talks this season…..we are on our own here…
!!BADA BING!!
There will be a picture in the papers tomorrow of the guy with the bucket wearing a Celtic top no doubt!
Here’e Jeff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCYoy4clIdE
KINGLuBO
TET – from your earlier link,
But just in case permission wasn’t granted by all, they publish his address? FFS
We got caught unaware by the cheats yesterday.
But we shouldn’t have.
Every time we step on the field we have officials who are willing to facilitate any approach by our opponents be it by foul, physical or sleek it means as long as it lessens our chances of success.
The mess’s trivialization of the cheating echoes the mindset of the best wee country of it’s okay if it negatively affect’s Timmy.
Celtic should gather the entire playing squad at Lennoxtown today and use what’s happening to galvanize a siege mentality for the run in as the cheating is accelerating.
The mssm have been laying the groundwork with their demonization of Celtic recently and supporting the cheating by refs on behalf of their beloved sevco.
TEUCHTER ÁR LÁ on 25TH FEBRUARY 2019 1:20 PM
TET – from your earlier link,
I think the most telling phrase was the qualification that he appears to give as mitigation
… ” I’m not getting married in the Chapel , or anything like that”
The Onlooker
Aye trying to justify it to the press – he needn’t have bothered.
HH
Bada Bing
I was behind the goals near the GB. They went into their chrouch position and stayed there until the exact second that the stretcher was lifted off the ground and then exploded into life. I though it was in very poor taste given how long the player had been lying on the ground.
It slightly tarnished what for me was a fantastic performance with 4 excellent goals.
And so the bigotry/sectarian story continues to grow with mock outrage being voiced on all sides while the cheating refs and the SFA get a chance to regroup and refocus away from the spotlight. Coincidence?
Stevie Clarke speaks honestly but I doubt he is so sensitive that being called a Fenian B upsets him. But by raising that one issue, the media have been able to go into overdrive about the “Old Firm” and one being as bad as the other.
Where was all the outrage when Neil Lennon was being subject to something a million times worse? Where his life was being threatened? When he was being assaulted in the street and on the park? When it was proven without any doubt that he was being subject to death threats by Rangers fans? Did McCoist, BFDJ, Rae, Chick Young, Novo, King, RFC, Traynor et al take the chance to issue a statement demanding an end to the loyalist paramilitary links?
The media have turned a deaf ear to managers being called a Fenian or Orange B for decades.
Why highlight it now? If Lenny had complained about that he would have been laughed out of the room.
Another great three points yesterday.
I, too, felt that the GB burst into song just as McHugh was being stretchered off.
However, I took it it as a part of one of their choreographed movements, which very often, bare little relevance to what is actually happening on the field.
By that I mean that the GB support is usually proactive following their set agenda.
Very rarely (thankfully imo), do they react to on field occurrences as when they do it is usually a base, OB or FtSFA, to perceived injustice.
Eurochamps67
Thanks for replies Bhoys, i didn’t associate the GB chant,with him going off the park, poor if connected.
MadMitch @ 10:27 am
“SFTB- KA has a bit of heart and a bit of personality.
He needs to be encouraged — he has a winner’s attitude and lets others know about it.
We need more of this not less.
We are short of on-field intelligence and attitude.
He helps with all of these issues.
Hopefully he will have a long career with us.”
I agree with all but sentence 4. My point was not about how Kris Ajer reacted but about how close he came to going out of control afterwards. Scott Brown controls his aggression very well which is why he has so many YC’s and so few resultant RC’s.
Kris Ajer is young enough to learn this.
Paul 67
I could also understand that Robinson was caught like a rabbit in the disco lights,