{"id":7569,"date":"2015-08-01T17:54:31","date_gmt":"2015-08-01T16:54:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/etims.net\/?p=7569"},"modified":"2015-08-01T17:54:31","modified_gmt":"2015-08-01T16:54:31","slug":"celtic-2-ross-county-0-match-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/etims.net\/?p=7569","title":{"rendered":"Celtic 2 Ross County 0; Match Report."},"content":{"rendered":"

Jack the lad reports on the first game of the season;\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Here we go, 10 in a row!<\/strong><\/p>\n

The next step in the Bhoys\u2019 journey to the mythical 10 in a row is well underway after a somewhat uncomfortable 2-0 victory over Ross County at Paradise.<\/p>\n

Kieran Tierney made his first competitive start for the Champions in what was a largely unchanged side from Wednesday night\u2019s win over Qarabag, with the exclusion of the on form Griffiths replacing Ciftci, who served the first of his six game ban for following through with the cannibalistic threat he made towards Dundee\u2019s Jim McAlister in the final Dundee Derby last season- \u2018Am gonny eat yer legs.\u2019<\/p>\n

The 2015\/16 season had barely kicked off when that bastard (Willie Collum) made a rather out of character decision in awarding the Hoops a stone wall penalty. Griffiths managed to turn his man on the edge of the six yard box before being clipped by a County defender, and was duly awarded a penalty.<\/p>\n

Griffiths himself, only four minutes after being re introduced to the starting eleven, drove the ball low into the right hand corner under Fox\u2019s body, who should have saved comfortably.<\/p>\n

The Bhoys\u2019 upped the tempo in the next 10 minutes, and were unlucky not to have a second, after Forrest took the ball from deep in the County half, skipped past four defenders and forced Fox into a low save at his near post. Ah, the agony of the final product.<\/p>\n

Not a minute later, there was cause for concern as Leigh Griffiths appeared to be struggling with a leg injury. He evidently couldn\u2019t continue, and was replaced by the Serbian lothario, Stefan Scepovic.<\/p>\n

Consequently, Celtic dropped off the pace, with County enjoying longer spells of possession in the Celtic half.<\/p>\n

Celtic were nearly punished for a series of sloppy errors. Boyata, who had his worst performance in the hoops to date, misplaced a pass on the half way line. With the whole Celtic team pushed forward, Jackson Irvine latched on to a through ball and raced past the advancing Craig Gordon, who brought him down on the edge of the box.<\/p>\n

\u2018Who\u2019s the ref again? That bastard Collum? Got to be a red.\u2019<\/p>\n

What happened next was inconceivable, Willie Collum turned down the chance to send a Celtic player off when he probably should\u2019ve been. Gordon escaped with a yellow card, incensing the County players. The resulting free kick was saved by Gordon who pushed it wide for a corner.<\/p>\n

On the half hour mark, the impressive Tierney fizzed a cross in from the left hand side, which found GMS who miraculously failed to convert, as his effort was saved by Fox.<\/p>\n

The Hoops did, however, double their advantage five minutes later. The ball broke to GMS on the edge of the box who, evidently reluctant to have a shot at goal after the ignominy of his last effort, teed up Johansen who cooly slotted past the helpless Fox.<\/p>\n

There was time for laughter in the 42nd<\/sup> minute, as Efe Ambrose Balon D\u2019or was viciously attacked by a sprinkler as he attempted to cross from the right. The Parkhead groundsmen failing to remind the enigmatic Nigerian that he canny hit a barn door, as his cross ballooned over the bar. The half time whistle gave the soaked right back a chance to dry his hair and return for the second half.<\/p>\n

The Bhoys made a decent start to the second half, but after struggling to carve out any clear cut chances, their frustration turned to sloppiness and the Highlanders were able to counter attack.<\/p>\n

County hit Celtic on the break after picking up possession in the midfield, and it took a smart save from Gordon to deny Curran from getting the visitors back into the tie. The Bhoys countered the County counter- try saying that 10 times faster- as the sexy Serb Scepovic played the ball into the path of Armstrong, whose effort was cleared off the line after he rounded the advancing Fox.<\/p>\n

On the hour mark Celtic made a double swap, Janko came on to replace the impressive Kieran Tierney to make this league debut for the Champions, which resulted in a position change for utility man, Efe Ambrose, who moved over to left back. Kris Commons also entered the field of play in place of Johansen.<\/p>\n

County continued to apply pressure as Celtic began to look laboursome on the ball, resulting in a corner for the Highlanders which made its way to the edge of the Hoops\u2019 box, before Michael Gardyne fluffed his lines and blasted over the bar.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t two minutes later before Ambrose turned suspect, as the ball was fizzed across the box from the left hand side, before Gordon was on hand to make a superb save from De Vita\u2019s strike. Big Efe clearly suffering from a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after the sprinkler incident.<\/p>\n

Five minutes later, it was Commons\u2019 turn to shoot from distance, as his sizzling shot forced Fox into awarding a corner.<\/p>\n

The Bhoys began to reassert their dominance on the game, as Armstrong\u2019s strike from distance deflected narrowly past the post.<\/p>\n

Michael Gardyne managed to break for County, before being brought down by Virgil Van Dijk in the penalty area. That sound bastard Collum decided it wasn\u2019t to be, and told Gardyne to get his feet. There must have been something in the water at Parkhead.<\/p>\n

Celtic kept possession of the ball for the final 10 minutes of the game, but continued to struggle in their attempts to break down the County defence. A few mazy runs from GMS appeared to cause problems for the Highlanders, but none resulted in more than a corner kick.<\/p>\n

The game faded out to what many would have seen as a foregone conclusion at the start of the match; a victory for the Champions.<\/p>\n

A win on the opening day of the season is always a must, and the Bhoys managed to deliver just that. Although at times sloppy, Deila must be relieved that an average performance was enough for the three points. Still, a big improvement will be needed for the second leg in Azerbaijan on Wednesday. The Efe Ambrose sprinkler system would no doubt provide a kick up the arse!<\/p>\n

On a more positive note, Griffiths injury doesn\u2019t look to bad according to Ronny (See @celticfc twitter) and he should be available for Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Happy days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jack the lad reports on the first game of the season;\u00a0 Here we go, 10 in a row! The next step in the Bhoys\u2019 journey…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":7570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/etims.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/leigh-griffiths-celtic-ross-county_3332046.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2J7If-1Y5","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7569"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7569"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7571,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7569\/revisions\/7571"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}