Martin O'Neill says the spirit and resilience of his Celtic side is emulating that of his team of the past ⤵️#BBCFootball pic.twitter.com/SvEV7FHD3T
— BBC Sport Scotland (@BBCSportScot) February 15, 2026
The scoreboard at Rugby Park. Kilmarnock 2 Celtic 3. Scottish Premiership. Sunday 15 February 2026. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)
OVERALL – 7/10 – Darkest Ayrshire. A dreich Sunday in mid-February. Kilmarnock. A town so shrouded in gothic gloom that you half-expect a vision of Kate Bush drifting towards you out of the fog, singing ‘Wuthering Heights’. But I love the wonderful Kate Bush and she wouldn’t be seen alive or dead near that midden. Right, Babooshka? Ya, ya…So, like the enchanting eccentric goddess materialising in such a fever-dream, it was for us dreadful, then magical.
Shaun Maloney at Rugby Park. Kilmarnock 2 Celtic 3. Scottish Premiership. Sunday 15 February 2026. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)
Doesn’t matter how you win these chore games in a tight title-race, just WIN. But, for heaven’s sake, how we manage to do it is almost beyond reason, logic, or the recorded probability spectrum of the universe to
date. Looked like we were playing out the season through a first half of almost UNFORGIVABLE tepid, incompetent and uncompetitive football from a title-chasing Celtic side; totally alien to the Celtic culture. Outplayed, out-fought, out-classed.
Seven Minutes added at Rugby Park as Martin O’Neill looks on. Kilmarnock 2 Celtic 3. Scottish Premiership. Sunday 15 February 2026. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)
Then, impetus and momentum shifted with proper application and we somehow dragged ourselves into contention via a combination of quality and intensity. Yet, in that last minute of injury-time, even with our track record, the miraculous STILL seemed impossible. Until the Bhoys conjured up another epic moment; a Zombie-sickener of legendary proportions. If there was a more perfect way to knock the hubris out of that rat McCann…And with that comes a seismic shift. Not withstanding any incestuous fistery from Mordor, we’re poised on the shoulder of the pretenders to our throne like Red Rum taking the run-in after the last at Aintree. There may be a double cousin ‘redrum, redrum’ (see what I did there Kubrick and Jack Torrance fans?) in the months ahead and we’ll be the rampant assailants.
VfB Stuttgart pose for a photo during the DFB Cup quarter final match between Holstein Kiel and VfB Stuttgart at Holstein-Stadion on February 04, 2026 in Kiel, Germany. (Photo by Selim Sudheimer/Getty Images)
Now to some Germans as a welcome distraction before we need to slap some junkies around.
Go Away Now
Sandman
Celtic in the Thirties by Matt Corr. Click on image to order
