NORMAL service RESUMED
● Celtic prove their point in emphatic fashion to go back to top of Premiership as shell-shocked Killie taken apart
“Sometimes you poke the bear” was the half-brilliant analogy that Kilmarnock full-back Stephen O’donnell ruefully employed to sum up his team’s tousing at Celtic Park on Saturday.
If the term “bear” might tend to be more associated with a side playing across the river in Glasgow, there was no mistaking that the Scotland defender nailed perfectly what underpinned the mauling that Brendan Rodgers’ men produced to illustrate their ravenous big beast status in the Scottish game.
Steve Clarke may have dismissed talk of his side being title contenders as people “talking out of their backsides” in the aftermath, but the talk was there. It even came from out of the club’s major shareholder, Billy Bowie, who dared utter the notion that “it would be nice to try to do a Leicester City”.
Comparisons with the Midlands club’s incredulous English top flight triumph two years ago were always spurious. Leicester’s £64 million wage bill and £100m spend on players might leave them well shy of the English game’s elite, but only by a differential of five at most.
Celtic’s £60m player budget is 15 times that of Kilmarnock, and their ability to invest £10 mon one player– Odsonne Edouard – puts them in an entirely different league to the Ayrshire club.
Those advantages should count, and by Jimminy they told to the full on Saturday as rodgers’ men took their visitors apart in scintillating fashion, raining goals in from all angles in a four-goal first-half destruction.
Rodgers acknowledged that competition gave his side an edge and it was a rapier one with which they chopped the league leaders to pieces.
Their movement, one-touch passing and finishing were all on point as James Forrest scored twice across the afternoon – the first in the opening minutes – with two laser hits, Ryan Christie continued his remarkable spell with a seventh goal in nine games that arrived courtesy of an exquisite free-kick, and Mikael Lustig and Edouard heaped the punishment on Clarke’s team. There was nothing wrong with Kilmarnock believing in miracles. But reality was always likely to catch up with them, though, as O’donnell acknowledged. “The media were all telling us how we were top of the league, and how Celtic and Rangers aren’t good enough. Well, I’m playing against them and thinking, ‘they’re not that bad’,” said the Scotland international, whose side restored some pride with a secondhalf Greg Stewart penalty conversion as both teams traded a goal after the break.
“I don’t want to say it but, maybe in the past, Celtic have been a wee bit more disrespectful to Kilmarnock. I know that in the past they had changed their team when facing us, and last season they changed a few times, and the first game of the season this year they changed their team.
“So it was a massive statement, in terms of where we have come from, that they didn’t change their team.
“It’s nice to maybe dream, and the players can dream as well. But, realistically, Celtic have won seven trophies in a row and, dreams or not, Celtic are beyond Kilmarnock in every aspect just now.
“We are looking to bridge the gap, as Billy Bowie has said, and with the gaffer we have hopefully got a chance of continuing to make progress. But Celtic, with all these trophies in a row, are no mugs.
“I read in the paper that they need to recruit in January to either make or break their season. Well, I wish we could recruit in January to make or break our season!”
Celtic would have broken any Scottish opponent in the mood they were in to show what they are all about – snapping Aberdeen and Rangers in the recent past whenever there has been talk of a challenge to their championship domination.
“I think we do like a challenge,” said Callum Mcgregor, one of Celtic’s midfield orchestrators, along with Tom Rogic, Scott Sinclair, Christie and Forrest. “When people say we can’t do things, then we normally come back strong.
“The manager said before the game that we had a point to prove and we did that emphatically.
“It was a great first-half performance and then we get a fifth after losing one. We were calm and it was a good day for us.
“You could feel an edge and when you score early, the crowd are up and it takes you to a different gear. The football was amazing at times, along with the standard of finishing.
“We got a buzz after scoring early and we put Killie on the back foot. They have been going well but they came here and couldn’t really handle us at times.”
Clarke’s team have handled themselves brilliantly this season and, while Celtic are a stick-on for the title, they are genuine contenders for next best.
That, in itself, is the stuff of dreams for the club’s followers.
“Celtic have won seven trophies in a row and, dreams or not, Celtic are beyond Kilmarnock in every aspect just now”
STEPHEN O’DONNELL