Gordon Strachan said that he didn't watch the Huns midweek game at Easter Road and he took pleasure in telling the media that he'd watched a war movie on DVD instead of watching our title rivals play our very next opponents at the same stadium we would play them in. If that little anecdote is true then the manager was truly negligent. It would have been a gross dereliction of his duties as Officer Commanding the Celtic title charge for him not to study the battleground he was approaching and the disposition, capability and tactics of the enemy forces before committing his troops to the skirmish.
Following the 0-0 draw, as our forces fell back behind their own lines, the manager stuck his head above the parapet to declare his satisfaction at how his men had followed their orders. "I couldn't have asked any more from my players apart from putting the ball in the back of the net." said the Celtic boss. "I'll tell you this time next week how damaging, or otherwise, this result has been. We can talk about it then. It's not all about this game. I thought we were exciting and played plenty of good football. We got to the touchline and made chances. It wasn't a frantic game and we were settled throughout."
"If I said to Aiden McGeady, Paul Hartley and Shunsuke Nakamura, I want you to keep the ball all day and make chances, get to the touchline, get corner kicks and free-kicks, then they did that." said Strachan. "I can't change what I asked from them.
In an effort to bolster the troops the manager made reference to 'Black Sunday'. One of the darkest days in Celtic's history, a day that scarred our collective psyche deeply, a memory that we try to keep buried in the deepest recesses of our mind and he dragged it to the surface, into the daylight, and held it up as an example to inspire us to keep the faith!
"But we've seen all of this before in the championship." he said. "Look what happened to Celtic when they went to Motherwell on the final day of the season four years ago thinking they had already won the championship from Rangers. Rangers eventually took the title because Celtic lost at Fir Park."
"We were in the penalty box more often than Hibs were." said Strachan, apropos to absolutely nothing. "I was pleased with that and all you hope for is goals to go with it. That has been our failing in our last two away matches."
Forever the master of the understatement the manager thinks that next week could be interesting. "We are not in the situation we wanted to be in but it will still be quite an exciting day next Sunday." he said.