Another powerful Parkhead, another three points in the bag. As Celtic move one step closer to the title, a relentless first-half performance killed off any hope Livingston had of grabbing anything from the east end of Glasgow.
Livingston did what Livingston do and, as I predicted on A Celtic State of Mind, parked the bus with almost every player camped into their half as Celtic dominated with over 80% of the possession in the opening twenty minutes of the game.
First-half goals from Taylor, Kyogo and Maeda sealed the win but when it was suggested to Ange that Daizen’s goal was lucky, the Celtic boss wasn’t happy, “You love that word (lucky) don’t you? It’s just so easy!
“How many runs does Daizen make in a game? It was a product of his hard work, anyone who watches Daizen sees he’s constantly making runs and constantly in those areas.
“There were a couple of times he lacked a bit of composure but he’s always there – that’s why he gets his goals.
“I’ve known him for a while now and sometimes people say he’s fortuitous but it’s on the back of working his backside off when we have the ball. He gets the rewards from that.” [Daily Record]
I never understand the media’s line of questioning when it comes to giving our side any credit for a convincing win.
As Ange rightly pointed out, Maeda was everywhere last night.
If he wasn’t bombing down that left flank, he was working his way into the box. Yes, the deflection was fortuitous, but you have to be in those positions in the box to take advantage of those chances and Maeda was consistently making a nuisance of himself.
With only fourteen games to go, Ange and Celtic’s lucky unbeaten run must be close to coming to an end now surely?
It’ll be interesting to see if the media follow up with an inquiry into Mickey Beale saying that he doesn’t trust his the Rangers players on BBC Sportscene ? Inevitably Steven Thompson did not on last night’s highlights programme ! Maybe the BBC think that some important quotes are better off allowed to disappear !
Re Ange and Maeda – this Scottish attitude of someone being lucky over identifying actual hard work is what holds every generation of football back and holds Scotland back (as a footballing nation). Its cheap and lazy to say Maeda is lucky, stats will show how lucky he is with his distance covered in games etc. Just when you think SMSM couldnt be any thicker they come up with more idiotic questions and uneducated narratives.
Suits the other teams to hear we are just lucky rather than good I suppose and that’s why they can still sell 60,000 papers per day…