Yesterdays match showed so much promise in the first half. Maloney and McGeady were linking well, Samaras was getting involved in every move into the Rangers half, our defence were there to act as buffers and usher the ball back into the oppositions half and Rangers were reduced to tidy passing with no penetration or purpose.
Then Rangers started to get into the match a little more. Diagonal passes from Left Central midfield into the right channel will always cause problems for a right footed player playing on the left side as it requires him to tackle with his weaker foot or go through the player with his stronger.
Rangers quite rightly and quite cleverly saw this as an outlet for their predictable play and utilised this move again and again. When Mendes hit that first time curling ball perfectly into Cousin's run then you knew that Wilson had one chance to win the ball - which he never took. My screams of "hit him now" fell on deaf ears as Wilson allowed Cousin to roll him. Rather than take a booking for the team Wilson allowed him to progress, Artur crazily showed Cousin his inside post and we were a goal down.
After some equally crazy defending by Sasa Papac Celtic were quickly back in the match and the game opened up into the second half. Worryingly for Celtic however was the fact that despite the game opening up greatly, the space that we were finding in the first half was now no longer to be seen and our central midfielders no longer had any part to play in the match. It still remains to be seen whether Scott Brown can adapt to play in the centre of a midfield four our whether position he played at Hibs is the only one that he can make an impact in. I really hope that it is the former.
Then fate and destiny came into play to break the hearts of the Celtic faithful and no doubt break the banks at the bookies as Kenny Miller came back to score his debut goal for Rangers against his former club at Parkhead - the venue where he scored his first goal for Celtic against his other former Club. The entire Celtic defence was guilty of not playing to the whistle after Naka felled some non-entity in the box and as the ball broke to Kevin Thompson Kenny Miller managed to ghost round the back of our defence into the vacant left back position and rifle home a volley with some aplomb. Artur Boruc was unlucky not to get a palm onto it but had his positioning been correct he may have done better with it.
And now it is time for my thoughts to descend into rant. If you cast your memory back to last season and the final derby game of last season in which Celtic won 3-2 Celtic lost two cheap goals from not having a defender on the front post for corners. Did we learn our lesson? Did we feck!
There is no doubt that Pedro Mendes is a good striker of a football, and yesterdays strike was no exception but why oh why oh why do we never have a defender on the front post at corners???? If we had a player there then that goal would never have knocked the stuffing right out of us and destined us for defeat.
So there we have it. Kenny Millers goal from Artur's howler was at this stage academic, as was Nakamura's sublime free kick. The referee had a decent performance and will be applauded by many for sending off Daniel Cousin for continual leading with the arm. That, of course is the subtle way of saying that he was consistently assaulting Gary Caldwell with his left elbow whilst not challenging for the ball. What a contrast that is to the opening derby game of last season in which he headbutted Darren O'Dea and never even got spoken too by the ref.
So there you go Walter, enjoy your gift.
Yours in Celtic
Clydebuilt