Ange's Celtic match Brendan Rodgers title-winning points total with 9 games to spare

By John McGinley

March 19, 2023

Celtic picked up a dramatic 3-1 comeback win over Hibernian on Saturday to move onto a remarkable 82 points in the Scottish Premiership after just 29 games. To put it into context, that’s a total that could well win a league title in another year.

In fact, in the successful 2017/18 campaign – Brendan Rodgers’ second season in charge – that was the Celtic points total after the full 38 matches. They won the league with a nine-point gap back to runners-up Aberdeen, with Rangers in third. Ange Postecoglou’s iteration of the Bhoys have hit that mark with nine games to spare.

It highlights an impressive run of consistency stretching back to a defeat against St Mirren in September 2022. Since then, Ange’s Bhoys haven’t lost a single game in domestic action and have only drawn once – which was a valuable point away to Rangers at Ibrox.

Celtic have netted a superb 93 goals in the league alone this season, conceding just 21 in the other direction. As we’ve discussed previously on 67 Hail Hail, it’s a scoring rate that exceeds the club’s current league goal record set back in 1915/16.

Rodgers’ first season in charge – the unbelievable Invincibles run – still sets the high watermark in terms of a points total in the league at 106. However, as you may well have guessed, Celtic are currently on track to break that too – if they keep winning. There are still 27 points available before the end of the current campaign.

However, a record like that still feels unattainable. It would be stunning if Celtic won every league game between now and the end of May – especially considering there are two more derby matches to come. We shouldn’t be getting too excited about breaking that barrier quite yet.

In fact, all of this fun would likely be handwaved away by Postecoglou – who would be quick to point out that the only thing won this season is the Scottish League Cup. Celtic will need to maintain this consistency to keep Rangers at bay – whose only defeat under Michael Beale has come against the Bhoys.

Nonetheless, all the numbers being added to at the moment are very impressive. This is truly exciting stuff from Postecoglou’s outfit. Hopefully finding more trophy success sets the stage for even more improvement to come in the future – as is always promised by the manager.

Europe still remains the untamed monster, after all.

In other news, Celtic captain Callum McGregor happy to park rivalry with Rangers man for now.