GIVEN Celtic's travails – the poverty of some of their play this season, their troubles in three cup competitions and their awful run of two home wins in nine games – this was a triumph to be saluted to the high heavens.
It was the first time in four games that they scored a goal at Parkhead and only the second occasion in the entire season where they managed to deny the opposition a goal of their own at the one-time fortress of Parkhead. Marc-Antoine Fortune, the gr
eat budget-buster of the summer, made his return after two months on the sidelines and Celtic finished their day with three-point lead over Hibs and a four-point advantage over Rangers, who play at Tannadice today.
Job done, you might say.
Certainly, Celtic were a lot better yesterday than they've been recently. They scored three but could have had six and they won the game at a most gentle canter. They ended it by laying siege to the Killie goal, the visitors' having to hack the ball off their own line three times in the closing stages.
Maybe this is the springboard for something, maybe it is the confidence surge they were looking for. Clearly Celtic need a lift. Less than 19,000 turned up midweek for the Hearts game and there were many, many thousands of unoccupied seats again yesterday.
Tony Mowbray will be feeling a little better about life this morning. A few goals returned to his team at last, Aiden McGeady, Georgios Samaras, below, and the substitute, Niall McGinn, landing the telling blows, all of them impressive strikes in different ways.
And it must have come as a blessed relief to Mowbray that his wait for a breakthrough was pretty brief. The poor man has been carrying the weight of the world on his broad shoulders of late. At least he didn't go through the torture mill as he did on Wednesday. Yesterday, the first decent opening they created they scored from and in that moment of trickery from McGeady you could almost hear the exhalation, not to mind the jubilation, coming from the Celtic dugout. For Mowbray, it was pure relief.McGeady has a well-established reputation as an iffy finisher. He says as much himself. His goals-to-chances ratio is poor for a player who seems to be attracting the attention of the newly monied Alex McLeish at Birmingham. Here, though, his finish was a delight, the ball coming to him on the right hand side of the Killie penalty area. He went past Craig Bryson and Frazer Wright in the blink of an eye and lashed in a thumping shot that flew across Cameron Bell in the visitors' goal and went in off his post.
The mercy of an early strike has been rare in these parts this season and the cushion of a second goal soon after has been rarer still. That is what happened, though. Much to the delight, and possible surprise, of the faithful, Celtic went two-up around the half-hour mark and, wonder of wonders, it was Samaras, the chief villain of Wednesday who scored it.
Samaras had begun this game just as he'd finished the last one, with a touch of the hangdog demeanour about him. His touch was all over the place and that increasingly familiar contribution from the fans – the collective groan – rang around the place on more than one occasion. Still, he stuck at it and played well. He slid a ball in from the right that McDonald almost put into the Killie net – McDonald, now there is another angst-ridden figure – but the Greek had a chance himself soon after and he fairly buried it.
A botched header was the pick of his blunders against Hearts but there was no repeat on that front. When Andreas Hinkel crossed, Samaras was unmarked near the penalty spot. How Killie failed to spot him with his big hair and his red boots is anybody's guess but Samaras threw his head at the ball and sent it rifling past Bell.
This was better from Celtic. Clinical. But, of course, they wouldn't be in a bit of turmoil right now if they weren't vulnerable in certain areas of the pitch and the heart of their defence remains a concern.
Just before the break, Killie had a chance. A big chance. And what is more, it fell to the very man they would have wanted it to fall to. Namely, Kevin Kyle. Gavin Skelton was the one who put the cross into the box and nobody picked up big Kyle, who was allowed to stand free near the six-yard box. Alas, for Killie, Kyle managed to put his point-blank header wide of Lukasz Zaluska's post. How good a chance was it? Well, when Kyle messed up he went and gave the woodwork a slap in anger. Safe to say, he knew he should have scored.
And there was more of the same not long into the second half. This time it was Bryson who put in the cross but, again, Kyle failed to execute, putting his header over. Once more, he berated himself. Soon after, he had a third attempt, but at least the Celtic defenders got close to him this time and gave him a reason for putting it over.
Kilmarnock didn't get much of a look-in after that. McGeady got his booking for a supposed dive and that will be a talking point this week. Should all such incidents be punishable by a yellow card? We say no, it's not that straightforward. Referees can get too trigger happy when it comes to diving. This was an example of it.
For the remainder of the game, Celtic banged on the Killie door so often that a third goal was inevitable and it arrived after a Hinkel pass put McGinn through. The Northern Irishman stuck it away in the corner with aplomb. It was his first goal for Celtic, Mowbray almost managed to smile when it went in. Almost.
