Pat Bonner said what we were all thinking after Celtic ran riot against St Mirren in Paisley.
Out of nowhere, the Hoops have come into some real form. Our 4-0 success yesterday came on the back of another four-goal success at Kilmarnock and a 2-1 home win vs Motherwell. Three Premiership wins in-a-row for Celtic for only the second time since October.
Tom Rogic, Odsonne Edouard, Ryan Christie, and David Turnbull all got on the scoresheet. But all that was on our minds after the game was how this was a glorious chance missed.
Bonner, speaking on BBC Sportsound post-match, couldn’t help but reflect on what is now becoming a haunting January.
“They go out to Dubai and I know were covering old ground here again. And they go out and get three points from three games or whatever. They then threw away three points on the back of that.
“I’ve talked about this many times, if they were able to claw back a couple of those games earlier on against Rangers, then you’re almost asking those questions of Rangers. Can Rangers then be in a position where that pressure might get to them?
“Those are the things that are frustrating. If you’re a Celtic fan, you’re thinking ‘now they’re back to a bit of form, but they’ve thrown away so many points during the critical time around new year'”.
Nail on the head from Pat Bonner, Celtic win in Paisley nothing more than mildly satisfying
It’s tough to cover this because I hate devaluing victories. Good runs of form always have to be given a bit of praise, but they also can’t be taken out of context either.
The fact is all that went through my mind last night was how costly Dubai was. How costly the January decision-making as a whole was for this football club.
When we lost to Rangers at Ibrox, it put us 16 behind them with two games in-hand. It looked over. The truth is it was anything but. If our rivals had dropped another four points to other teams, then it was back in our hands once again.
Rangers have since dropped those four points and we’ve only played a handful of games since Dubai. Had we not slipped up to Hibernian, Livingston (x2) and St Mirren, it would be ball to play for. Winning the two remaining derby matches would’ve had us level with our rivals (assuming we won all games in-hand).
It was a stretch, but it wasn’t over. Especially not considering we would all expect Rangers to drop some more points between now and the season ending.
So Bonner is right. Absolutely every game feels like a glorified friendly. Perhaps that’s harsh given further draws and defeats would be used to beat the manager with. But at the end of the day, this is nobody else’s fault but Celtic’s.
In other news, the Celtic fans were given a heartwarming message by Hatem Elhamed.
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