When Alistair Johnson’s skew-whiff touch on the ball evaded Will Nightingale and agonisingly trickled past a stranded George Wickens, those brave Ross County supporters who forked out £33 for a ticket to Celtic Park were wondering why they bothered.
That really could, and probably should, have been the beginning of a long and bruising afternoon for the Staggies.
After two below-par performances against Aberdeen and Partick Thistle, this match did have many Staggies fearing the worst.
To much surprise, and despite facing up against the champions in their own backyard, Derek Adams’ side put on their best display in a long while in the 1-0 defeat.
Ross County deserved a point
It is not often you get the chance to leave Celtic Park feeling positive as an away supporter, and it’s even more rare that it can be confidently said that a point was more than deserved.
Despite much of the Central Belt media coverage of this clash focusing on how poor Celtic were, credit must be heavily awarded to that Ross County side.
Derek set his team up bravely, packing the midfield instead of the defence.
The distance between lines was near perfect, meaning Brendan Rodgers’ side didn’t find any sort of rhythm throughout the 90 minutes.
That display should have been commended more favourably, even more so when the Highland side consisted of seven loanees and four debutantes.
They only met each other at the start of the week, never mind having played football together.
It is all fine and well talking about the level of performance, but at the end of the day, the match was lost despite a superhero-like effort from George Wickens, which included a double penalty save.
The level of effort will count for nothing unless it can be backed up at the Tony Macaroni Arena on Tuesday.
In what is a massively important match, the same levels of performance must be reached as were on Saturday.
This is a chance for Derek Adams to get things back on track properly and, most importantly, get the supporters back onside.
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