Celtic take a point from Man U

By: Matt | November 5th, 2008

Remember remember the fifth of november…I’ll remember being pissed that Celtic drew Manchester United. Celtic had the current European Champions on the ropes for 83 minutes but could not deliver the knockout punch, or if we want to use a proper boxing metaphor Celtic could not run around the ring and avoid getting punched after punching the bigger stronger guy once. Celtic jumped out front in the 13th minute after Scott McDonald sent a cheeky little flick over the head of United keeper Ben Foster. While United held an edge on possession at that point, Celtic put together a few counter punches (what’s with the boxing references?) and finally found the back of the net. Celtic were able to frustrate and keep United off their game for the rest of the first half and the teams went into the locker room with Celtic in front. The second half started and everyone knew that Fergie was not amused with the first half. It is no secret that Gordon Strachan and Fergie aren’t pals, and I doubt that Fergie liked the idea of taking two defeats at Celtic Park to the wee ginger man.

So in came Berbatov and Rooney. The Man United assault started almost as soon as the second half whistle blew, with United creating chance after chance after chance, but the Celtic defense would not break. However, it was a Celtic substitution that seemed to change the game. Young Cillian Sheridan had a decent run about in this high profile start for the youngster, but as the second half wore down he was removed for Massimo Donati. While I have been critical of Donati in the past, I don’t think he played poorly. I do think that Celtic went from a team that defended with the odd counter attack to keep Man U on their toes to a all hands on deck, defend and hoof it up field team. The trend continued when Shaun Maloney and Scott McDonald were removed for Ben Hutchinson and Darren O’Dea. 5 Defenders allowed United’s back line to camp out at midfield and just play the long clearances back to the Ronaldo’s and Rooney’s (Ronaldo is a diving cunt, by the way. He’s also lucky that Scott Brown didn’t break his fibula a la Roy Keane style when Ronny took a kick at him. I use to sympathize with Ronny, now he’s on my shit list. Wanker.) It was inevitable at this point that United were going to find a chance and it is a shame that it was seven minutes from full time. If you would have told me that we would have drew 1-1 at the beginning of the game I would have been excited, but the final whistle left a bad taste in my mouth.

Some other talking points:
-Artur Boruc had a decent game, but on every cross played by United he looked uneasy. I don’t want to make my final decision yet but it seems like he bottled Ronaldo’s long range shot to put it right at Giggs feet.
-People clammering for Darren O’Dea and Ben Hutchinson got their wish tonight, but neither were effective and I do not remember 100% but I believe O’Dea was on Giggs or not on for that matter.
-The crowd was great. Not just the same sing songs of “Hail Hail”, “YNWA”, and “Fields of Athenry”, I heard Celtic Symphony, Let the People Sing, and others. On a related note, a big “fuck you” to the Manchester United fans in attendance. The term “You only sing when your winning” seems to fit and congrats on the “FTP and the IRA” chants at the end of the game. You are just huns with Malcolm Glazer indeed.
-Great display from the Green Brigade that ESPN caught. Clever stuff with it being the 5th of November. As soon as I find some pictures, I’ll get them up here!

TAL!