Michael Stewart noticed something vs Hibs that he doesn’t ‘normally associate’ with Celtic

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Michael Stewart has offered an explanation as to why Celtic start to get agitated during games, especially evident in last night’s win over Hibs.

The Hoops escaped from Easter Road with a 2-1 win and all three points when they were staring yet another draw in the face in stoppage time.

But January signing Adam Idah, after converting his first penalty of the night in the first-half, dispatched his second from 12 yards to seal a precious victory in the Scottish Premiership title race.

Idah now has two goals and an assist in his first two appearances for Celtic, as per Transfermarkt, and gave rise to a massive sigh of collective relief amongst the away end in Leith.

Celtic were poor throughout the game and after Hibs had equalised to make it 1-1, the home side were the team on the ascendency and wasted a number of big chances to get in front.

The Hoops had to rely on two penalty decisions to eke out a nervy win that was actually praised by boss Brendan Rodgers as a mark of ‘champions’.

Chris Sutton labelled the triumph ‘enormous’ and rightly so. But pundit Michael Stewart, while saying Celtic’s success was ‘monumental’ for the title race, got a real sense of how nervous the Treble holders are at the moment.

Michael Stewart ‘nervous’ Celtic claim

Stewart was speaking on BBC Sportscene to analyse the Edinburgh clash and said: “There’s one thing that is for certain, there is a nervousness about Celtic at the moment. When Hibs pegged them back, there wasn’t a certainty that they were going to go on and win the game.

“You’ve seen many times where it goes late into the game and you think to yourself, ‘they are going to get a goal’, but that wasn’t the case.

“There was loads of time to go and I remember saying to Kenny (Miller) that there were 20 minutes left but they didn’t look like they had that belief about them.

“So that goal at the end of the game, the penalty kick, is really monumental because the momentum has well and truly swung in Rangers’ favour that, had they not been able to get the victory, the panic stations and the nervousness only gets ramped up more.

“I think that’s where the nervousness in Celtic has come. Of course you’re going to get moments in the game where the opposition are on top but most of the time, you’d still expect Celtic to control the game and not let things get on top of them.

“What we’re seeing at the moment is chances being created by the opposition, the nervousness is building up and it’s becoming a bit more of a disjointed performance from Celtic.

“After that (Hibs) goal as well, the chances that Hibs had – they were the ones who looked like they were potentially going to go on and win the game. And that’s not something you would normally recognise or associate with Celtic.”