Since last Sunday, Celtic have scored eleven goals in two league games and a Scottish Cup tie. And, incredibly, have had ten different goalscorers in the process.
It adds up to the definition of a team who marry entertainment to endeavour in a way unsurpassed for a very long time. Whoever is responsible for the succession strategy where Ange Postecoglou is concerned at Celtic Park will need to come up with a masterclass in managerial recruitment when, or if , the time comes.
Nobody saw it coming when he came here and created a side of extraordinary quality. Nobody, apart from Rangers fans, can bear to think about what it will look like when he’s gone. But that’s for another day. It’s what happens in the next twenty-four hours that concerns me. Far be it from me to advocate any form of deception when the Scottish Cup, semi-final draw is made tomorrow night, particularly when Monday happens to mark the 150th anniversary of the SFA, the tournament’s administrators.
But it would be undeniably true that if it so happened the Old Firm avoided each other in the last four a problem would be overcome. Celtic are in the hat. Rangers will also be there after they beat Raith Rovers at Ibrox this afternoon. Nobody should take offence at that prediction.
Michael Beale’s job as manager would be under threat if he lost, which is why there’ll be no fairytales written. Inverness Caley Thistle will represent the Championship and the final team in the draw will either come from that division or the one beneath.
In other words, we will either have a showpiece worthy of the occasion at Hampden on June 3, or else a one-sided, run of the mill wash-out that would, in terms of pre-match promotion, tax the corporate imagination of the newly constituted organisation called Scottish Football Marketing.
It is the brainchild of the SFA and the SPFL and the mission statement is concerns capitalising on Scottish football inclination towards what we shall call the game’s fascination with the eccentric side of life.
“It’s mad,” SPFL Chief Executive Neil Doncaster said at Thursday’s press announcement, without anyone having to put inflammatory words in his mouth. Hearts’ manager, Robbie Nielson, has, to be fair, periodically done his bit to immerse himself in the box office madness of it all.
Any man who can introduce the word ‘Decapitation’ into the game’s vocabulary deserves an honourable mention in dispatches. Even if his supplementary remark at Celtic Park on Wednesday night about Alexandro Bernabei’s challenge on Nathaniel Atkinson being bad enough to have cost the Hearts player the removal of his leg was an amputation too far.
If Robbie was ever to have a quiet word with himself it would end up in a fight. He was noticeably less moved to fire off any more cutting barbs yesterday after being knocked out of the cup by Postecoglou’s side at Tynecastle.
The master of deflection was left without an excuse to stand on, other than to talk about the loss of an early goal to Celtic being a crucial development in the tie.
Celtic, of course, lost an early goal to Hearts at home in the league on Wednesday night but still found a way to win in the end. Robbie’s last resort was to praise the home fans for the backing they gave their team.
Up until, that is, the arrival of Celtic’s third goal and the departure of the crowd to wonder why a manager who had started the day talking about breaking through the glass ceiling and beating members of the Old Firm didn’t play more attack-minded players to give defenestration a better chance of happening.
Hearts' Scottish Cup final appearance against Rangers last season was so underwhelming they could have presented the trophy to James Tavernier to begin with and then played the match as a book-keeping formality after that.
But now we’re contemplating the possibility of Celtic or Rangers playing lower league opposition in what would be the equivalent of a public flogging. The cynics used to say cup draws were made with hot balls and cold balls being secreted in a bag so that favourable pairings could be made for the betterment of the competition.
All a load of nonsense, of course. But if fate just happened to keep Celtic and Rangers apart until the cup final it would be no bad thing in the interests of having of a spectacle worthy of the name.
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