Jekyll and Hyde Celtic won't change ways as new signing on brink of breaking Rangers loanee's record
Humbled in Europe, Celtic head to Dingwall knowing they can make a bit of history
At the same time as licking their wounds after a landmark Champions League defeat, Celtic can now savour the prospect of setting an all-time club clean sheets record.
Nothing sums up the current Jeykll and Hyde existence of Celtic Football Club like this potential 'double'. No wonder the club’s anthem is You’ll Never Walk Alone. No matter what they do, they can’t seem to shake the other Celtic off. The one that’s constantly embarrassing them on European nights, running giddily around the pitch with their pants pulled down.
It’s a tricky conundrum for Brendan Rodgers to have to solve, although the manager does not sound like he's in a hurry to change his ways.
Celtic don’t know whether to hang the bunting up at Parkhead or fly the flag at half-mast. They are back on league duty this weekend so that in itself is cause for celebration as they continue to flit between domestic and European worlds.
Few teams will have to cope with the huge variation in successive assignments that Celtic are in the midst of contending with. It’s a rich contrast – involving journeying from highly industrial, densely populated Ruhr valley to the Scottish Highlands – but a contrast nonetheless. And it brings its own challenges.
The entire population of Dingwall, where Celtic are due to play Ross County on Sunday, could fit into the Yellow Wall end of Borussia Dortmund’s Westfalenstadion, scene of the Parkhead side’s traumatic evisceration on Tuesday night. In fact, it could fit in five times over.
Back home in Scotland, Celtic are living their best life, as summed up by one meme doing the rounds on Tuesday. Celtic’s blissful Scottish existence was illustrated by a group pic of the classic Frasier cast. Their rather lower rent European version of themselves? Yes, you’ve guessed it – represented by a promo pic of the recently relaunched and decidedly inferior Frasier.
This joke isn’t funny anymore. Certainly not for Celtic fans, who saw their side fall to a 31st defeat in 40 Champions League away games in Dortmund. It wasn’t just any defeat either. Despite beating St Johnstone 6-0 last weekend, Celtic have still managed to end the week on a goal difference of zero from their endeavours. The most galling aspect of the 7-1 loss in Germany is that it could easily have been worse.
No matter, it’s Ross County away this weekend. Supporters’ bus after supporters’ bus will stream up the A9. These fans might well witness a very special piece of history being made as well. Having equalled the club record of six consecutive clean sheets at the start of a league season last weekend in Perth, a record dating back to 1906-07, Celtic are looking to create a new club record of seven this weekend. It would mean Kasper Schmeichel supplanting goalkeeper Tom Sinclair, who, unusually, was on loan from Rangers at the time, in the record books.
This information might amuse Dortmund fans, who enjoyed a game of shootie-in on Tuesday as their side racked up their biggest-ever Champions League win.
European opposition all want to play Celtic at Celtic Park – Rodgers yesterday revealed Nuri Sahin, his opposite number at Dortmund, told him that he wished the draw had been the other way around. "So did I," Rodgers smiled. But increasingly, teams lick their lips when Celtic come to town.
So what’s the answer? It’s too simplistic to claim that the Parkhead club, the first British winners of the European Cup, do not belong in the Champions League any more. It’s not even two weeks since they ripped Slovan Bratislava apart in their first match of the revamped competition.
In a way, that 5-1 win might have been one of the worst things that could have happened on matchday one. It whipped up supporters and emboldened Rodgers. Maybe Celtic are good enough to have a go.
Rodgers does not need much excuse to think that way. It’s part of his charm. Maybe it helps keep him interested. The manager certainly appears unrepentant on the issue of his tactics.
“We play how we play,” he said on Friday. “It’s the same plaudits that are commending our performances over the last number of months that allows us to come into this game (v Dortmund) with this incredible optimism that we can get a result out there.
"We can’t just turn the tap back off and become super defensive," he added. "It is not how we play. So what do we do? Sit back and have probably 15 per cent of the ball? And probably lose 3-0? 4-0? We have seen it over six months. Teams that will come to us and sit back and play five at the back and 5-4-1 with no chance to attack.
“Or do you play how you play but know the mistakes (you make) you have to get your teeth into, you have to be brighter and make quicker movements to close space. All those things are a learning process. I would much rather do that and go down with my own vision than with someone’s who has never coached a game in their life or played or done whatever. I respect their opinion but I don’t listen to it, never have.”
Eleven goals have flashed past Old Firm goalkeepers in the past few days. It might take months for that to happen in a domestic league setting. Indeed, we are now nine weeks into the season and the total stands at just four.
Rangers have let the Old Firm side down, if it’s possible to view it in those terms, by conceding all four of the goals. Celtic remain impregnable. Although Ross County are undoubtedly a test, few would be surprised if the champions’ goals against column is still showing zero come Sunday afternoon after a seventh successive league clean sheet at the start of a season. An achievement for the ages.
Celtic have not conceded in Dingwall in their last two visits, winning 3-0 and 2-0. History beckons in the Highlands just as a blast of reality might await in Bergamo, where Celtic face Atalanta on their return to Champions League action later this month.
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