Celtic come from behind for the second week in a row to go 3 clear at the top of the SPL. Celtic once again decided to give their own supporters palpitations by letting slip a 1-0 lead at half-time to trail Hibernian by two goal to one within eight minutes of the restart. Having only seen the highlights on Setanta and seeing how this report has been submitted so long after the fact I’ll not go into a blow-by-blow account of how the game panned out.

Rather I’ll settle for telling you that we played them off the park for the first 45 minutes, got caught with our pants round our ankles at the start of the second half and had to battle for the victory that helped stretch our lead over Hearts (courtesy of the Edinburgh Orcs dropping points at home). Indeed, we could consider ourselves fortunate not too have drawn this one.

Hartson(2) and Maloney got the goals. Wee Shaun’s was the pick of the bunch – a lovely strike from a dead-ball situation from 25 yards. Comparison with similar strikes from one Lubo Moravcik is bound to come along. BBJ decided he was going to be a six-yard box striker for the day and got both his goals from close in – he even shinned his second in after it came back off the post.

Two points spring to mind with this game. The first is that we have stretched our lead over both serious title contenders. I don’t care what Tony Mowbray says – this Hibs team are dangerous and could still be there or thereabouts if we don’t take the opportunity to beat them when it comes along. This was a big game in determining the destination of the league title. A win for Hibs would have seen them close the gap and increase their confidence. The wiser heads amongst the footballing fraternity will say that Hibs don’t have the strength in depth to mount a serious challenge. It is one of the follies of youth that they rarely listen to their elders.

The second, and most concerning point, is that Celtic seem to be returning to the lapses in defense that proved so costly in the early days of this season. Bobo in particular (after yours truly had praised him so highly in recent times) has been having a mare lately. In the last two games Celtic have had to come back from behind in games they should have been winning comfortably.

Does this mean that Mr Strachan will be holding the defence back after class to work on the basics (again!)? Does it mean that he will give a run-out to Scooby and Virgo? Certainly with Bobo due to head off on International duty shortly one of them will be getting the nod. But which one? Scooby has yet to start a game. Virgo has been held back for subs appearances and one match in the CIS cup – and none of those have seen him a centre-back. We can only hope that these guys are up to scratch. Otherwise January could prove very costly for the Celtic cause.

Oh aye, and it seems we have signed Roy Keane.

I’ll hold my counsel on that particular gem for another time.