Dundee United manager Tam Courts labels Celtic "far and away" the best team in Scotland

By David Walton

May 12, 2022

Dundee United manager Tam Courts has stated that Celtic are “far and away” the best team in Scotland after managing a 1-1 draw against the newly-crowned champions.

United managed to snatch a point after Dylan Levitt’s goal cancelled out Giorgos Giakoumakis’ second-half header. But it didn’t matter to the Hoops who managed to get the result they needed to bring the title back to Parkhead.

The draw also ensured that Celtic secured the title whilst remaining unbeaten since September. Indeed, the Hoops have now gone 31 league games without defeat as they look ahead to trophy day vs Motherwell on Saturday.

And Courts provided his honest assessment of Celtic as he stated they’re by far the best team in the land. As he bigged up his own team’s display, Courts said the following on Sky Sports [Sky Sports Football, 12/05, 9:34pm]:

“I think tonight you saw exactly what we’re all about. You saw a team committed to a game-plan and who can go toe-to-toe with the best in the league. I think we showed a lot of quality tonight. But also on the same token you’ve got to congratulate Celtic. They’ve been far and away in my opinion the best team in the league. Congratulations to them.

“But also I think our boys deserve some congratulations as well because it’s been a very very tight league this year and we’ve had to perform at key and regular intervals. I think tonight was another one of those big performances and results from us.”

Dundee United boss Tam Courts tips hat to Celtic achievement

Back 12 months ago, nobody was saying we were anywhere near the best team in the country. In fact, some probably had us closer to the likes of Hibs than we were to Rangers at the time.

Again, and we’ll keep saying it, that only goes to emphasise the scale of the task that Ange has managed to achieve at Celtic Park. Nobody thought this was possible nevermind probable. There was a feeling that the manager was more likely to get the sack at some stage this season as opposed to winning the league and toppling Rangers.

But that’s exactly what he’s done and now he has other Premiership bosses also believing we’re now the team to beat.

The league doesn’t lie, but it always means a lot for it to come from rival managers. Tacticians who have had to come up against both ourselves and Rangers this season. Clearly, Courts believes Celtic are the harder team to get a result against even if he did manage a point last night.

Credit to United for their performance yesterday too. In all of our title-winning emotions, it’s easy to forget that they secured European football last night. They didn’t just turn up and provide themselves as cannon-fodder, and they deserve acknowledgment for that.

However, from a Celtic perspective, all we care about is being top dogs in Scotland once more.

In other news, Hammarby sporting director delivers surprising update on Mohanad Jeahze to Celtic