published Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012 at 10:37 pm by
joe
Celtic's lead in the table is such that not even complacency represents a danger to them. That margin over Rangers, whose troubles are an apparently continued cause for celebration among the home support, now sits at 20 points.
Dunfermline Athletic have more negative matters to concern themselves with. They arrived in Glasgow as the favourites for relegation – a matter which hardly hinged on a meeting with the champions-elect – and left only boosted by the fact that their nearest rivals, Hibernian, lost by the odd goal in seven at Motherwell.
There should have been little surprise attached to the fact Neil Lennon opted to shake-up his Celtic team. Dunfermline's position at the foot of the table made them favourable opponents, with Motherwell's visit to Parkhead on Saturday understandably identified by Lennon as the tougher fixture.
The size of Celtic's squad renders rotation a perfectly reasonable concept given their advantage at the top.
Yet Dunfermline should have handed Lennon an early sense of shock. Only poor control from Liam Buchanan meant the forward did not, as should have been the case, hand his team-mate Kyle Hutton a glorious opportunity to open the scoring.
Celtic's response was immediate. Gary Hooper latched on to an Anthony Stokes pass but the forward was denied when clean through on goal by an excellent Chris Smith save. Their opening goal arrived in more spectacular circumstances. Charlie Mulgrew has not only proved a defensive revelation for Lennon this season, he has also chipped in with important goals. Few of them have been routine and this one was a fierce 30-yard shot which flew past Smith. Kris Commons then passed up two chances to double the lead before the interval.
Stokes and Hooper seemed to use the start of the second half to enter into a competition as to who could miss the most glaring scoring opportunity.
Stokes screwed wide from six yards, with his strike partner blazing wildly over the crossbar from similar range. Scott Brown was more accurate, although Smith smartly saved the Celtic captain's effort after 66 minutes. Hooper at least atoned for this by setting up Celtic's second. The forward sent over a cross from the right which eluded everyone except the substitute James Forrest at the back post. The young winger could not miss, and he did not.
In what had regressed into a completely one-sided contest all that remained to be seen was how many more Celtic could score. The answer was none, but they are still on course to break through the 100-points barrier for the season. There are only such motivations left for Lennon and his players during the closing weeks of this league campaign.
. Whats up with Berlin …
