Celtic 1-0 Caley. Not bad at all.

By: Ian Rose | November 29th, 2008

I’ve never been one to celebrate a loss. The very idea goes against everything I believe as a sports fan … but today was about as close to me being happy about (or at least satisfied with) a loss as I can remember. Caley went down 1-0 to a Shaun Maloney strike off of an absolutely brilliant Nakamura pass within the first half hour, and that’s all there was for goals. Frankly, aside from a Paul Hartley shot over the bar, that’s nearly all there was for chances too.

There are two ways to see this match. On one hand, yes, a bit of disappointment creeps in when you think of how close we got to taking a point out of Celtic away. I know that if they hadn’t scored that goal, they would have kept attacking more severely, but we had good answers for just about everything Celtic threw. The 4-5-1 was well chosen today, even if being alone up front at Celtic Park is a bit much to ask of young Garry Wood. I’d have liked to have seen Adam Rooney there instead. And late, when we were playing it close, I would have ideally liked to see Barrowman come in for a midfielder, instead of for Wood up front, but that’s the idealist in me talking. The realist knows that five in the midfield is what allowed us to keep it tight, and going 4-4-2 at that point would have been a risky call, at best.

No, I’m choosing the other interpretation of this match, to recognize that we played well, better than we’ve played in Glasgow in a while now, and that even though our offense clearly needs something in the footballing equivalent of a little blue pill, things aren’t so bad. St. Mirren’s loss puts them bottom, and frankly, they look like a bottom side. We’re 9th, one place down from last week, still ahead of Motherwell, Hamilton (nice win, though, Accies), and St. Mirren.

The first goal, above the others, for this season, was always to survive. On that front, we’re doing well, and if we play like this the rest of the season, we will survive without any trouble at all.