Former Celtic defender Peter Grant has highlighted the hard-working away moment at Livingston today that he believes sums up their togetherness.
The Hoops managed to secure a comfortable 3-1 win in West Lothian thanks to goals from Daizen Maeda and James Forrest respectively. Nicky Devlin also got on the scoresheet with an own goal.
Celtic came into today’s match constantly reminded of the fact we hadn’t won at Livi since 2007. In the last 5 attempts before today, we had suffered 3 draws and 2 defeats in our 5 visits there since the Lions’ promotion.
And Grant believes Celtic’s teamwork and unity was on full show as he highlighted a key passage of play that emphasised it.
Speaking on BBC Sportsound, Grant said: “You see the enthusiasm the players work at and what the manager’s demanding from them. It was interesting because late in the game there I think it was about 8 or 9 minutes, Greg Taylor’s gone forward and lost possession and was then caught out of position. Who was at left-back? Jota, and I think that summed up his performance today.
“And I think that summed up the team’s performance. They have this belief about them just now, they’re working really hard for each other. They know that they’ve got to concentrate on every single game. He [Ange] knows there are things they’ve got to be better at and be concentrated at, but they are playing on the front foot, they’re playing with that enthusiasm, they’ve got big players playing well.
“But they’ve got guys on the bench who can come on and change a game for them – really good players.”
Celtic players constantly working and covering for each other under Ange
Grant is spot on in that this is a moment that emphasises just how hard-working the Celtic players are for each other. But the truth is we see this all the time from Ange’s team. It happened on more than one occasion today alone.
When the full-backs go on the overlap or the underlap, the wingers will track back if possession is lost. Jota in particular showed terrific energy to do that this afternoon. James Forrest did similar down the right flank.
It’s also something you see between the centre-backs regularly too. When one makes a mistake, the other is generally there to mop up and ensure their error doesn’t come to anything. That’s teamwork, and it’s absolutely constant throughout Ange’s team.
Granted, it’s much more pleasing to see it from the attacking players. Once again, Daizen Maeda was an absolute livewire when it came to closing down the opposition. He didn’t give the Livi centre-backs or even the midfield any time on the ball whatsoever.
That kind of energy is great to see. It’s a basic way of showing supporters just how committed you are to the task and the success of the team. It’s something supporters really appreciate, just as Grant clearly has here.
Today was just a morale-booster for everyone at the club. We couldn’t be in better shape heading into the closing stages of the title-race.
In other news, Rival supporters left incandescent with rage after watching Celtic go 3 clear at Livingston
Receive a digest of our best Celtic content each week direct to your mailbox
