Site Staff 
After what feels like a lengthy and almost endless opening international break of the year, it will soon be time for loyal Celtic fans to don the shirts and prepare to cheer the Bhoys on once again at Celtic Park as real football returns.
It was somewhat of a mixed bag in the opening quarter of the domestic Scottish Premiership campaign for legendary, and serial winning manager, Martin O’Neill. We have already experienced the proverbial highs and lows of a true bitcoin casino experience and we are back for more, hopefully putting into place what we have already learned. There was plenty of change during the off season and pre season, and we all know the 74 year old would have liked to see even more new faces through the door as he looked to properly rebuild the squad for the future.
But amongst the major hiccups in the League Cup and the Champions League that have seen the concerns and complaints of the Parkhead faithful continue to stay at the fore front of the conversation, our title defence campaign has largely been plain sailing on face value. Seven games in to the season of 2026/27, we went into the September break with six wins from the opening set of matches, with a positive 10 in the goal difference charts, and we sit in top spot clear by two points.
After all of the nonsense that we saw during the last campaign, whilst in many ways it is not the right comparison point, but there is very noticeable and tangible improvement, along with a few glaring deficiencies. At this stage 12 months ago, the team had racked up one point fewer than our current total, and we had scored three fewer goals. However, we have conceded one goal extra, and we have faced a whopping 38 additional shots on goal – with an extra 17 efforts directly on goal.
Whilst we are undoubtedly more direct in our offensive play and that is beginning to pay off for us, there are obviously issues in our game management and our game plan given we have ruined our defensive solidarity and base at the back.
This will reflect what fans have been seeing for themselves and in many ways perfectly explains why some of the complaints, concerns and frustrations that have been aired by Hoops fans so far does not seemingly tally with the final results that we have been picking up and our place in the table. Our apparent comfort and control in games is a bit of a facade, and in conceding so many additional chances to the opposition – and a growing number of very viable ones at that – we are making life difficult for ourselves.
In some ways arguing that right now we have got away with it is actually the valid take, and we all saw just what happens when we run our luck too far and the opposition team are in a clinical mind in the games just ahead of the domestic pause. Sort our organisation at the back out and we could again be laughing – albeit with known issues rumbling on in the background – but fail to address it and we largely know where this may end.
Viljami Sinisalo is performing well, at this point last season our man between the sticks (Kasper Schmeichel) had made nine saves, our 24 year old Finnish stopper is already up to 21 and we are already two clean sheets down by comparison. He is not going to stop them all and we categorically need better from the defensive, from the midfield and from the attack – especially with corners being conceded at a heavy rate (seven more already).
Let us see what North Lanarkshire and Fir Park has to offer.
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