Celtic stretched their unbeaten domestic run to 51 games as they edge past Partick Thistle at Firhill.
It wasn’t a vintage bhoys performance on Friday night as Brendan Rodgers men beat Partick 1-0 in Glasgow. Olivier Ntcham’s goal was enough to see the champions take all three points back to the east end as they have done so often over the years.
The scoreline may suggest that the game was a dull one and at times it was. It wasn’t however short of talking points. Here are my three takeaways form the 90 minutes.
Ntcham breaks his duck
It may have taken a deflection on the way through off captain Scott Brown but Olivier Ntcham has scored his first goal in green and white.
In the current situation we are in with Dembele out and Griffiths calf playing up, it is important that we have other players chipping in with goals from time to time. Ntcham was brought in at the start of the window by Rodgers as the manager believes he is a player who can add that little bit of extra quality to our squad. I think he is right.
He took his goal well tonight and I highly doubt it will be the last we see of the Frenchman on the score sheet this season.
Is Bitton a temporary fix?
For the second league game on the trot the manager has elected to play Nir Bitton as a makeshift center back when we have Kristoffer Ajer on the bench.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Bitton is more than capable in the position but the fact remains he is not a center half. Maybe I am a bit to old school in this regard but I believe that defending is an art and takes years of repetitive practice to perfect. We witnessed this tonight when Bitton was fortunate not to concede a penalty late on after he barged into Thistle’s Miles Storey.
It showed a bit of nativity from the Israeli in that those careless challenges are par for the course in center midfield where no real danger can come from a resulting free kick however, it could have cost Celtic dearly if the striker hadn’t made a meal of the challenge.
Hard fought win
If there is one thing we cannot question of Brendan Rodgers and his team it is the fact that they know how to win. Rodgers explained afterwards when he spoke to the media that not every win will be pretty. We perhaps get a bit carried away when we see our 2nd string thump Kilmarnock 5-0 and think that we should expect a similar scoreline in every game, But as football will teach you some days teams just aren’t on their game.
Celtic looked sluggish in spells this evening and did not play the free flowing football that we have all grown accustom too but they still got the victory. The season is a long and tough one and to expect to be dazzled by beautiful football in everyone of its games is unrealistic to say the least.
Next: Is Stuart Armstrong about to be offloaded by Celtic?
Still and all the hoops got the job done against a Partick side that to their credit made it quite difficult at times. Its on to Wednesday night now to take on Astana and hopefully extend that unbeaten run to 52.