There was a moment deep into stoppage time yesterday that said everything about Celtic: their mental and physical strength, their attitude throughout games and their stubborn, pig-headed refusal to budge, either on the pitch or in the Premiership table.
With three Rangers players around him, the outstanding Cameron Carter-Vickers held off one, wrestled away another then crunched through a 50-50 tackle before hauling himself up off the turf, adjusting his shirt and punching the air in celebration.
The tough, uncompromising USA international epitomised the spirit that dug Celtic out of a hole at Ibrox. No sooner had his heroic, last-ditch block prevented Malik Tillman making it 3-1 than Kyogo Furuhashi was popping up at the other end, snatching an equaliser with two minutes left.
They might have been accused of stealing the point had it not happened so often before. Furuhashi’s strike, his first in an Old Firm derby, was the 17th goal that Celtic have scored in the final 15 minutes of games this season. They have become masters in the art of playing to the final whistle.
It was the ultimate example of the ‘never stop’ philosophy that is Ange Postecoglou’s trademark. He admitted that all three points could easily have been lost as his players conceded possession too cheaply and allowed Rangers to turn the game on its head with two goals early in the second half.
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“The beauty of it is, within that context, they still found a way,” said Postecoglou. “At 2-1, it would have been easy, with the crowd the way it was and the way the game was going for us, to resign ourselves to our fate — it is not our day’ — but this group of players never do that. And they didn’t today.
“It’s the way this group is, the way we have created the environment. There isn’t anything like a lost cause. You go till the final whistle and nothing changes. You have to do that. For that to be effective, you have to do it on a weekly basis. And we do. Even in our comfortable victories, you’ll still see us being really aggressive till the last minute. The players are conditioned to think that way and play that way.
“It’s easy for me to talk about it, but in today’s environment, and the way the game was, it would have been almost natural to say ‘jeez, it’s not going to be our day’. But this group of players just doesn’t do that.”
Postecoglou brought on Jota, Giorgos Giakoumakis and Liel Abada in an effort to equalise, but thankfully for Celtic, it was not at the expense of Furuhashi, who moved to a slightly deeper position. From there, he arrived at just the right time to convert from 12 yards. “Kyogo’s pretty clever,” said the manager. “He can drop in as a 10. He has played that in his career. So I just felt at that time that we needed a goal. Rangers started to retreat a bit which meant that hopefully we would get more balls in the box. And if we did that, having extra bodies in there would help us. It worked out that way.”
Postecoglou described it as a “cracking game of football, a good derby”, although he was disappointed that his players did not maintain the standard they set early in the game. It wasn’t like them, he admitted, but they were “human beings”, and an early injury to Greg Taylor had not helped. When right back Josip Juranovic came on to replace him at left back, the team lacked their usual balance.
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Juranovic, expected to attract big-money bids before the end of the month, had been left out of the starting XI, freeing up Alistair Johnston, signed only last month, to make his debut on the right side of defence. Postecoglou was satisfied with the Canada international’s performance.
“I thought he was good. It’s a difficult game to throw him into. Not only is it a derby, it’s away from home and we all knew it was a big game for a number of reasons. He was solid defensively. He was up against a very good player in Ryan Kent. For the most part, I thought he handled it really well, but there is more to come from him, especially in an attacking sense once he gets to understand our game. He won’t get a sterner test than that as a Celtic player. He came through it really well.”
Before the equaliser, there were two VAR checks for handball, both of which could have earned Celtic a penalty, but they were turned down. Callum McGregor, the Celtic captain, was disappointed that at least one had not gone their way, but the main thing, he said, was that his team had avoided defeat and maintained their nine-point lead in the Premiership.
“It keeps us where we were, coming into the game, and we obviously know the significance of that,” said McGregor. “Coming into the game, we wanted a result to come away with. Ideally we wanted to win, but don’t lose, and I think it’s important in football that when you aren’t playing well you don’t lose. That’s always vital. So credit to the lads.”
