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CELTS CRUISE TO EASY WIN
October 8th 2007 Gretna 1 Celtic 2 (7/10/07) Cruise to easy win, is he kidding? Well, yes. The league match which follows a Champions League tie is always tricky for Celtic for whatever reason and this one turned out to be no different. The Dumfriesshire club were given no chance by the bookies but Davie Irons' boys had other ideas and made life very difficult for the SPL Champions. Gretna took a first half lead with a free kick which was curled round the end of the wall and left Artur Boruc rooted to the spot. Celtic never looked comfortable and it wasn't really a surprise that they went in at half-time a goal down as they hadn't created anything at all. After the break the Celts stepped up the pace ever so slightly without troubling the home side's goal too much. When a net-bound Scott McDonald header was unbelievably diverted onto the crossbar and away to safety we all thought that it would not be Celtic's day. We should have known better of course as Celtic even on an off day never give up and with 85 minutes on the clock Chris Killen headed the Bhoys level before Scott McDonald fired the winner in the 91st minute. Celtic's midfield looked out of sorts, Donati was caught in possession on numerous occasions and McGeady was trying to beat one man too many. Shunsuke Nakamura looked as if he couldn't hit a cow on the arse with a shovel but he managed to hit the wall twice with free kicks when he would have been expecting to hit the net instead. Did Gretna deserve at least a point? No they didn't because they lost two goals and scored only one and goals are the only thing that count in football. I gave up long ago on the they/we deserved to win because they/we were the better team. That came about when we were regularly beaten by Rangers in the 90's when we always looked the better team but in fact it was Rangers who were in control of the match every time and they simply allowed Celtic to play the ball about without doing any damage. Possession, corners and shots on target count for nothing unless you can turn them into goals and win the match and if you score more goals than your opponents then you deserve to win. That's not to say Gretna don't deserve any credit because they certainly do, they played to their strengths and didn't allow Celtic to play their normal game and it almost paid off for them but the reality is that poor defending cost them two goals. People tend to forget though that they are a SPL club now and not the minnows they were five years ago and at this moment in time they look like they could live with St Mirren and Falkirk.
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