Celtic manager Tony Mowbray puts his head in his hands as Steven McLean draws Aberdeen level for the fourth time in Saturday’s key SPL encounter at Pittodrie. The 4-4 draw, coupled with Rangers’ 3-0 defeat of Hibernian at Ibrox puts Walter Smith’s side firmly back in control at the top of the SPL. With only 13 games left until the end of the season, the title chase may be disappearing from Mowbray’s grasp as that 10 point difference seem larger than ever.
There are still two Old Firm fixtures to come – wins in both games would put the cat firmly amongst the pigeons again, but Celtic’s defensive frailties need to be sorted out if they’re to avoid dropping more points along the way, a point made by former Celtic player John Hartson, who played under Mowbray at West Brom.
Off the field, the latest financial results brought little comfort to the Parkhead club. A decrease in turnover of around £8m to £36m, together with a fall in profit and a rise in club debt only serves to underline the urgency for Mowbray to deliver a league title and European qualification (the drop in revenue was largely attributable to “disappointing” European competition) to prevent the financial trickle becoming a full-scale hemorrhage.
The financial results do not include spending in the recent transfer windows and which saw big names such as Edson Braafheid, Marc-Antoine Fortune, Jos Hooiveld, Diomansy Kamara, Robbie Keane, Ki Sung Yueng, Landry N’Guemo, Morten Rasmussen, Thomas Rogne and Zheng Zhi joining. The spending is offset by the departures of Gary Caldwell, Willo Flood and Barry Robson to Middlesbrough.
On the positive side, Celtic chairman Sir John Reid underlined the fact that season tickets sales, sponsorship and merchandise have all been “holding up well”.
Celtic are at home to Dundee United on Saturday; Rangers are away to St Johnstone.
Phew. The games are coming thick and fast. We’ve only just recovered from Wednesday night and lo, here comes another batch of top-flight action. As I was saying to The Scottish Football Blog during their live-cast from the Motherwell-Rangers game on Wednesday, it was a strange evening altogether: Celtic picked up points, Rangers dropped them at time we didn’t think they would, United got pounded by a team at the bottom of the league and Aberdeen scored two goals. In the same game.
