Graeme McGarry Guile and grit trump pretty football in title charge
Senior football writer and Monday columnist
IT was clear that Celtic must be on the brink of celebrating a monumental success when John Terry was spotted in the crowd wearing their colours yesterday. At least it was just a scarf this time, mind, though he may be saving the full kit for the trophy presentation.
For the Premiership now surely belongs to Celtic after their draw with Rangers, and while their rivals may have been able to avoid the ignominy of having to stomach a full-throttled title party, they couldn’t quite get the win they needed at Celtic Park to plant even the merest seed of doubt about the destination of the trophy.
The green and white ribbons aren’t quite on the handles yet, but safe to say the person responsible at the SPFL can look them out and get ironing.
It wasn’t a vintage Ange Postecoglou-era Celtic performance, and we have been saying that quite a bit lately, particularly in matches against Rangers.
But while there were doubts over Postecoglou’s lack of a Plan B in the early stages of this season, his team have shown they absolutely have the capacity to get a result in a variety of different ways.
When they can cut loose and show their free-flowing, swashbuckling football, then they do just that, as St Johnstone found when they were on the end of a 7-0 thumping recently.
But when they are being matched and even outplayed? They have shown on more than one occasion that they still have the minerals to get the job done.
The mental resilience that Celtic have shown has been highlighted by Postecoglou at times, but it may be an overlooked facet of their character that has arguably proved the most valuable when it comes to winning this title. And they needed all of that mental fortitude to see off the desperate challenge of a Rangers side yesterday who knew that only a win would do.
“You can’t question their character,” Postecoglou said. “Even when things aren’t going well they have found a way to hang in there, they have found a way to find that
moment or that resilience to get the job done. To me that’s a lot harder to find than improving them in aspects of their play.”
The character that Postecoglou has managed to ingrain into this group is all the more impressive when you consider the amount of bodies that were thrown together at the start of the season, and when you factor in just how poor their start in the league was.
Three defeats in the opening six games left Celtic with no margin for error, and it is in the aftermath of the last of those losses – at Livingston in September – that Postecoglou has found out just what his men are made of.
They haven’t lost in the league since, with the draw against Rangers making it 29 without defeat in the Premiership. And within those matches, there have been moments that have exemplified the courage and character that Postecoglou references.
Take the late, late winner by Anthony Ralston against Ross County in Dingwall in December, a ground where Rangers’ title defence would later falter, in a shambling 3-3 draw.
Or the similarly late winner by Liel Abada against Dundee United at Celtic Park in February that kept them within touching distance of Rangers, and a result that allowed them to leapfrog their rivals with the 3-0 win at the same venue just days later. They have remained there since.
Perhaps the biggest test of their character came in the match at Ibrox early last month. Aaron Ramsey had Rangers ahead in the third minute, and Celtic were rocking just as wildly as the Ibrox stands.
In large part due to the leadership of captain Callum McGregor and the stoic defending of Cameron Carter-Vickers and Carl Starfelt, they not only steadied the ship, but somehow navigated a way to a critical victory.
There have been other icebergs in their path, but Celtic have managed to plot a route to the title through a combination of guile and grit. We have always known that this Celtic side had the first of those qualities, but we now know beyond all doubt that they also possess the latter. Indeed, both are equally important hallmarks of Postecoglou’s team.
The game against Rangers at Celtic Park yesterday, with all due respect to the opponents that still remain, was the last real test of their title credentials.
Celtic would still have been in the driving seat had they lost, but their ability to grind out a draw when they were under intense pressure in the second half has made sure they are all but home and hosed.
It has been a triumph built on both breath-taking beauty at times, and brass balls at others.
“Whatever we’ve got this year we’ve had to earn,” Postecoglou said yesterday. “It’s not like we were the stand-out team with no one to challenge us this year. It’s a pretty strong opponent, as you saw today, that we had to overcome through the course of this year “Today was another challenge for us and we got through it.”
Their manager, and every Celtic player who goes up to collect their Premiership medal will therefore thoroughly deserve it.
Well, all apart from that suspicious
looking tall fella lurking in the background, perhaps.
TOMORROW