I’m in a glass case of emotion! Aberdeen Preview

By: Matt | April 17th, 2009

For Celtic and their supporters, this season has had more ups and downs than a night on the town with Lindsey Lohan. One minute you’re up, thinking “Wow, she’s gorgeous. If I play my cards right, I just might get lucky!” The next, you’re in the car with LiLo (is this what people call her?) and she’s telling you she’s into girls and she’s driving the Mercedes into a tree. After having a seven point advantage in the league twice during the season, only to currently be nursing a slight one point advantage over Rangers as the league heads into its “last” game of the season (quotation marks because of the infamous SPL Split). This week brings Aberdeen to town, who might hate Rangers as much as Celtic, but certainly hate Celtic nearly as much if not more. Their coach certainly hates Celtic. While winning the league last year was great, it was even more sweet seeing Calderwood dash his precious ‘gers hopes of a title. Besides the obvious story line of their manager being a prick, Aberdeen come in fighting for their European lives, as they currently sit in the fourth and final European spot for the SPL, tied with Dundee United on points but with a narrow two goal cushion in goal differential. Both teams will have something to play for, but if Celtic win this weekend, it could be the beginning of the development of a perfect storm for Celtic supporters.

If Celtic are able to win this weekend against Aberdeen at Celtic Park and Rangers lose to Hibernian at Easter Road, something more likely to happen than if it were at, oh, say Rugby Park, then Celtic would go up by four points in the SPL standings. The next match for Celtic would be a yet to be decided top 6 SPL at a location that is undetermined. It would not be Rangers, however, as it has already been decided that the final match between Celtic and Rangers will take place May 9th at Ibrox. If Celtic were to win again this week and Rangers were to drop points, again not something that should be counted on but a bit more likely playing one of the top 6 in the SPL, then Celtic would take a 7 point lead into their affair at Ibrox. 7 points up, with 3 games to remain, at Ibrox. I’ll let you do the math…figure it out? Yes, my friends, there is a possibility that Celtic could win the league at Ibrox. There is not a word in the English language to describe the tastiness of that possibility. Of course, this is probably an unlikely possibility and the league will probably go to the last week or so. But would this not be the perfect end to an up and down season?

This year, Aberdeen has played Celtic close in both of their matches so far (beating Celtic once at Pittodrie). Another close match is to be expected this weekend at Celtic Park as well. For Celtic, Darren O’Dea, Georgios Samaras, and Barry Robson will all be missing from the squad due to injury. The latter in the group hopes to be fit for May 9th’s meeting with Rangers, however and I believe he would be the best fill-in for Scott Brown. Brown recently said of his suspension, “I knew if I picked up another booking I would be banned. It was 10 or 11 games since I had picked up my last one so I was trying not to miss-time my tackles. That has been hard but I have been tackling quite well – which is a change.” Well, at least he’s honest.

Aberdeen will also be dealing some suspensions for the match as well. Strikers Lee Miller and Darren Mackie will be unavailable for the match, so we could see the usual SPL tactic against Celtic of 10 behind the ball and hope for the best. The Dons will have Zander Diamond, who has recovered from an ankle injury, while Andrew Considine and Mark Kerr both return from suspension.

There’s obviously no exaggeration of the importance of every match that remains in the season, including this one. It would be nice for Celtic to put forth a dominating performance to ease the fears of their fans going into the last five matches, but as they say, that is why they play the games.

TAL