Cometh the hour, cometh the Ox. Celtic made a right old meal of it once again, but just as they did on Saturday to claw their way back into the Scottish Cup when they looked all but down and out, they came up with a late goal to remain in the title race by the skin of their teeth.
And who else to get what could be a critical goal as the clock ticked into stoppage time than Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain?
It looked to be a matter of how many goals the hosts could rack up when Marcelo Saracchi picked the ball up a headed clearance from Emmanuel Danso and slammed the ball past the unsighted Jerome Prior after quarter of an hour, the dam appearing to burst after relentless early Celtic pressure.
But Martin O’Neill’s men were made to pay for a host of missed opportunities when Reo Hatate fouled Robbie Muirhead as he crept in on his blind side under a high ball 10 minutes after the break. Muirhead picked himself up and fired home up the middle of Kasper Schmeichel’s goal.
Just as the brave Lions looked to be holding out for a priceless point in their own battle to beat the drop, Oxlade-Chamberlain took the roof off Celtic Park as he picked the ball up on the edge of the area and curled a beautiful finish past Prior to haul the Celts back into the title race.
Here are the talking points from Celtic Park…
Oxlade-Chamberlain saves the day
With 12 minutes to go, and with Celtic staring down the barrel, Martin O’Neill sent up the Ox signal, unleashing his much-decorated new recruit on proceedings. He may have been lacking in match sharpness, but needs must.
With Livi penned in by this stage, the former Arsenal and Liverpool man took up a position just behind the frontline, where he tried to get on the ball and unlock the packed ranks of yellow shirts lined up along the penalty area.
In the end, when the ball landed at his feet in the 91st minute, he decided to just take it on himself, showing all of his quality as he bent a sumptuous finish into the far corner to break Livi hearts and get Celtic out of jail once again.
They still have a lot of work to do, but if Celtic do indeed manage to somehow retain their title at the end of this tumultuous season, you have to wonder if this moment, and the arrival of Oxlade-Chamberlain in the green and white, may prove pivotal.
Martin O’Neill brings up his 200th league game in charge of Celtic with a win - just
As expected, and is still his custom even after all these years, Martin O’Neill brought up the landmark of his 200th league game in charge of Celtic by doing what he does – leading his team to victory. Albeit, he would have liked it to have been a great deal more straightforward than it transpired.
He could never have foreseen he would get the chance to bring up his double century, but where this Celtic team would have been if he hadn’t answered the SOS call twice this season is anyone’s guess.
As it is, even allowing for the disastrous Wilfried Nancy experiment that O’Neill’s two spells in charge this term have straddled, their status as league champions is still salvageable.
Ok, when all is said and done, this likely won’t be one that sticks out in his personal Celtic opus, though the result in the end could prove crucial.
The pertinent stat on the evening may well be though that this was the 10th league match O’Neill has overseen this term, and he has won nine and drawn one of them.
Same as it ever was.
Opportunity to beef up goal difference missed
All that being said, while the famously jittery O’Neill will have been mightily relieved to navigate this game and bag the three points in the end that keeps them in touch at the top of the table, he may also come to see this as an opportunity missed for his side to top up their goal difference.
They have narrowed the points gap to Hearts at the top of the table to six points once again with a game in hand, but the Jambos also still enjoy a healthy advantage in the goals column too.
It wasn’t for the want of trying, in fairness. Celtic peppered Prior’s goal here from the off, and in the early stages in particular, they could have had a barrowload.
They didn’t, though, and while the relief at getting three points was the priority, with such a tough run of fixtures lying in wait, this may be looked back on as a chance that got away to rack up some goals.
Prior stars as Livi show there is fight in the Lions yet
It is often said that for one of the provincial clubs to get a result at one of the big two in Glasgow, particularly those struggling near the foot of the table, they need to have the rub of the green and their goalkeeper has to have a stormer.
Celtic fans may have been fearing Prior was going to live up to his end of that bargain, as the Livi keeper pulled off a remarkable sequence of saves in the opening period of the game, as stops from Tomas Cvancara, Benjamin Nygren and Callum McGregor were the pick of at least seven he made in the opening 15 minutes.
There was a sigh of relief then when Saracchi then found a way through from outside of the area, even coming as early as the goal did, and in fairness, there was nothing the keeper could do, only seeing the ball through a ruck of bodies once it was already past him.
There was the odd flourish from Livi at the other end in the first half, looking dangerous at the odd set play and forcing a decent stop from Schmeichel when the game was goalless as Stevie May caught one sweetly on the swivel.
They hung on in there though, and were rewarded for their doggedness when Hatate clumsily took out Muirhead in the area.
In the end, it was a familiar sinking feeling, but Marvin Bartley and his men will take the crumbs of comfort where they can find them, and they showed enough here to suggest they aren’t quite down and out just yet.
Arne Engels injury sweat
With such a congested and challenging fixture list ahead, the last thing Celtic needed were any injury worries, but they got a big one when Engels limped from the play clutching his hamstring in the first half.
Having rebuffed a £20m offer plus £5m in add-ons from Nottingham Forest on transfer deadline day because they saw Engels as an essential figure if they were to have a successful end to the season, any significant layoff will be a major blow for the champions.
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