Celtic dismissed Morton with relative ease to set-up another tie against a lower division team in the Semis.
It was hardly a cup tie to capture the imagination other than to imagine imagine what goes through Ronny’s mind when he picks the team at times. But most of the changes he made to Wednesday’s first picks appeared to have the desired effect.
Stefan Johansen, for instance, worked tirelessly throughout the first half, right up until he was halved in two and was forced to hobble off right on half-time. Willie Collum showed his concern for the player’s injury by leaving the stricken Celt to receive treatment – as the physio was gesturing for a stretcher – and strolling off with his two pals to have a nice cup of tea.
Up until that point things had been going reasonably well. The atmosphere was much flatter than the sub-standard Celtic Park surface today and this was reflected in many of the opening skirmishes.
Mackay-Steven had a chance to open the scoring choosing instead to, unsuccessfully, turn provider for Griffiths. He made up for it by setting up the opening goal for our hit man with a brilliant pass.
Tierney then played in GMS for the second and Celtic upped the tempo, much to the detriment of players like Mulgrew and Commons who looked well off the pace.
McGregor then scored the pick of the bunch with a driving run finished off with a curling shot from the edge of the box coming at a point when Celtic looked dangerous at pretty much every attack.
The second-half saw Morton make a few more incursions towards the Celtic defence and but for an excellent Craig Gordon save might even have had a goal.
Roberts looked bright and lively when he came on. Overall he was largely ineffective over the 90 minutes on Wednesday but he showed much more consistency and substance in his play for the time he was on.
Kazim-Richards was also introduced to literally put some fight into Celtic’s attack – practically committing some kind of infringement any time he looked at a defender. At one point he did show some real composure and class to clinically pick out row Z from a Roberts through ball.
Celtic saw out the game comfortably. Weaker opposition but a marked improvement then handed another minnow in the Semis. Plenty of pressure still on Ronny. Sick bags at the ready if you’re going to read a paper or listen to the radio in the next few weeks.
Tommybhoy
ntvcelticfanzine.com 