When Celtic’s assistant manager, John Collins, last week accused Scottish football’s chasing pack of being below the necessary standard even to trouble his side – never mind beat them – this is probably the kind of match-up he had in mind. Having comprehensively lost their opening two league games, Kilmarnock could surely be relied on to offer little riposte and, when Leigh Griffiths opened the scoring with ease to put Celtic ahead within three minutes, Collins must indeed have believed the outcome of this match had effectively been decided.
If there was a smirk on his face, however, it was not to stay there for long, for Kilmarnock troubled Celtic significantly more than they had against both their other opponents this term, Dundee and Aberdeen. For the most part Celtic were the better, stronger, smarter and largely dominant team – and all with a selection of key figures rested – but, given their marked improvement over the course of 90 minutes, Killie deserved the reward of a draw.
“I’m well aware of John’s comments but I don’t really want to get into that,” said Kilmarnock’s manager, Gary Locke, afterwards. But Kallum Higginbotham – the scorer of Killie’s late penalty-kick equaliser – was more forthright. “I think everyone in the league will be looking at those comments and putting in an extra shift, like we did,” he said.
The Celtic manager, Ronny Deila, conversely, was left to rue his side’s failure to make the most of their superiority, particularly following a one-sided opening 20 minutes. “We had a lot of chances and we should have scored more goals,” said the Norwegian. “But we were very sloppy in defence and we got punished in the end. They had four or five chances and that’s more than the other teams have had for maybe 10 games. We deserved to get punished. We have been very good defensively for a long time, so hopefully this was a one-off game.”
It was perhaps unsurprising that Celtic looked so shaky at the back, given that Dedryck Boyata, Mikael Lustig and Scott Brown were all rested with a view to next week’s Champions League clash against Malmo. But for a somewhat fragmented side, Celtic settled quickly, as Griffiths made the most of some lackadaisical defending from a quick free-kick to slide a finish under Jamie MacDonald.
They would have been out of sight in the 10 minutes or so that followed were it not for a series of saves by MacDonald – first from Kris Commons, then from Tom Rogic and finally from Griffiths. When Josh Magennis scored an unlikely equaliser before the break, flicking home a well-weighted Darryl Westlake cross to produce Kilmarnock’s first goal of the season, the goalkeeper’s contribution took on all the more importance.
Nir Bitton’s astonishing 25-yard strike restored Celtic’s lead 15 minutes into the second half, just as Kilmarnock looked at their most secure. With Celtic now peppering MacDonald’s goal with shot upon shot – mainly from Griffiths – a Killie leveller appeared even less likely than when Magennis had struck his in the first half. But with Emilio Izaguirre’s clumsy trip on Greg Kiltie, Higginbotham was presented with the chance to convert a penalty two minutes from time, nonchalantly dispatching a Panenka chip down the middle.
“I think we answered a few questions tonight,” Locke said. “I’m just glad that we turned up. I had to apologise to the fans the last time we played at home [after an opening 4-0 defeat by Dundee]. Thankfully I don’t have to do that tonight.”
