Dundee United manager Jim Goodwin acknowledged the overwhelming quality of Celtic after his side suffered a 5-0 home defeat on Saturday, a result that saw the Hoops officially crowned Scottish Premiership champions for the fourth year in a row.
Speaking after the game, which took place at Tannadice on a historic day for Celtic, Goodwin praised the champions’ performance, saying they were "the best team by a country mile" this season.
“There’s never a good time to play Celtic, but when there’s so much on the line for them today, they were really on it, I felt," Goodwin told Sky Sports.
"It sounds crazy to stand here and say that because for the opening half hour, I thought we were very good. We forced Celtic into playing a lot of long balls, and we coped with most of that in the opening half hour."
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However, Goodwin pointed to a couple of key moments that ultimately cost his side.
"The disappointing thing from our point of view is the first couple of goals," he said. "The first goal was an unfortunate own goal from a corner, and then the second goal comes from a positive attack from ourselves, it's a bit of a tame effort on goal. Then, within five seconds, Celtic have got the ball in the back of our net, and we’ve got a mountain to climb."
At 2-0 down, Goodwin felt his side might have been able to manage the game better to keep the deficit at that level heading towards the break.
But it was Celtic’s quick-fire third goal by Nicolas Kuhn, deep into injury time at the end of the first half, and another fast strike from Adam Idah straight after the interval that sealed United’s fate.
"It’s damage limitation from that point on," Goodwin admitted. "We are bitterly disappointed, as you would imagine, but congratulations to Brendan [Rodgers] and Celtic. They’ve been the best team by a country mile this season and they thoroughly deserve their league title."
