That was a difficult afternoon for Celtic against Kilmarnock, but one they got through.
Everyone knows how difficult Derek McInnes’ side make it for opposing teams at Rugby Park and they did just that on Sunday afternoon.
Celtic had to fight tooth and nail to earn their three points against Kilmarnock, with Callum McGregor and Nicolas Kuhn scoring the goals on either side of the half.
Those goals came at crucial moments because they pegged back a Killie team that was pressing high, winning their physical battles and in Celtic’s defensive third more than Brendan Rodgers would have wanted.
In truth, it’s understandable, not just because of how McInnes set up his team, but because of the week the champions have just had.
From Celtic thrashing Aberdeen in the League Cup semi-final, then days later, producing a masterclass performance against RB Leipzig.
You always get these types of matches and the only important thing that matters at the end of it are the three points.
Derek McInnes’ verdict on Celtic’s win over Kilmarnock
Kasper Schmeichel was awarded Man of the Match after the game, with Kilmarnock having 18 attempts on goal and six of them on target.
That tells you everything you need to know, with McInnes telling Sky Sports that his team shouldn’t have got anything out of the match because his players didn’t take their chances.
The Killie boss explained that the game panned out like he wanted it to and the plan was to get to the opposition’s backline as quickly as possible.
“No (it’s not a game we could or should have got something out of),” said McInnes. “Because we didn’t take our chances that were presented to us. If I actually look at the stats, in terms of if I thought we could get something, like as many shots as we did, as many touches inside the opposition box, the amount of times we turned the ball over.
“The game played out like I was kind of hoping. It wasn’t just about work rate and winning the ball. It was actually looking after the next pass. Getting to Celtic’s back lot as quickly as we could at times and causing them problems, so all of that was there in the game.”
McInnes hails Callum McGregor and Nicolas Kuhn
In the big moments, in the difficult moments, you need your big players to step up and that’s exactly what happened here.
Yes, there was an element of fortune to McGregor’s opening goal, but as McInnes alluded to ‘If you allow good players like that to play a forward pass in those types of areas, then they have the quality’.
It was certainly a cross from the skipper, but the ball in for Adam Idah proved to be difficult to handle for the opposing keeper and the ball hit the back of the net to the enjoyment of the packed-out away end.
Then, when Celtic were under serious pressure and you felt a Kilmarnock goal might be coming, just before Kuhn went off, he produced a moment of magic.
McInnes highlighted how a player of Kuhn’s quality just doesn’t miss from there and that Celtic ‘didn’t enjoy’ their win over his side.
“Obviously, the goal. A sucker punch right before half-time,” said McInnes. “It’s a time when Kyle Vassell’s Achilles heels are causing him problems. We can’t quite get to the pressure of the ball with McGregor. It came out of nothing really, but that is the quality. If you allow good players like that to play a forward pass in those types of areas, then they have the quality.
“We spoke about that at half-time. Making sure it didn’t define the game and we had to make sure we didn’t feel sorry for ourselves. I thought the second half was much the same. The sucker punch comes when Kuhn gets, maybe we should block or do better on the halfway line or in the build-up to it.
“But once somebody like Kuhn is through on goal, then he very rarely doesn’t hit the target – you have to say Celtic, as much as they have good players and they normally enjoy controlling games, I don’t think they had that control. But I think they defended well, at times – nobody expected us to get a result against Celtic. There have been loads of plaudits recently and rightly so. They are a very talented team. But I don’t think they enjoyed it. They have got away with one today.”
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