With the club's disappointing 7-1 Champions League defeat to Borussia Dortmund now firmly behind them, all focus is on the trip to the Highlands to face Ross County at Dingwall.
At the same time as licking their wounds after a landmark Champions League defeat, Celtic can now savour the prospect of setting an all-time club clean sheets record.
Celtic don’t know whether to hang the bunting up at Parkhead or fly the flag at half-mast. They are back on league duty this weekend so that in itself is cause for celebration as they continue to flit between domestic and European worlds.
Few teams will have to cope with the huge variation in successive assignments that Celtic are in the midst of contending with. It’s a rich contrast – involving journeying from highly industrial, densely populated Ruhr valley to the Scottish Highlands – but a contrast nonetheless. And it brings its own challenges.
The entire population of Dingwall, where Celtic are due to play Ross County on Sunday, could fit into the Yellow Wall end of Borussia Dortmund’s Westfalenstadion, scene of the Parkhead side’s traumatic evisceration on Tuesday night. In fact, it could fit in five times over.
Back home in Scotland, Celtic are living their best life, as summed up by one meme doing the rounds on Tuesday. Celtic’s blissful Scottish existence was illustrated by a group pic of the classic Frasier cast. Their rather lower rent European version of themselves? Yes, you’ve guessed it – represented by a promo pic of the recently relaunched and decidedly inferior Frasier.
This joke isn’t funny anymore. Certainly not for Celtic fans, who saw their side fall to a 31st defeat in 40 Champions League away games in Dortmund. It wasn’t just any defeat either. Despite beating St Johnstone 6-0 last weekend, Celtic have still managed to end the week on a goal difference of zero from their endeavours. The most galling aspect of the 7-1 loss in Germany is that it could easily have been worse.
No matter, it’s Ross County away this weekend. Supporters’ bus after supporters’ bus will stream up the A9. These fans might well witness a very special piece of history being made as well. Having equalled the club record of six consecutive clean sheets at the start of a league season last weekend in Perth, a record dating back to 1906-07, Celtic are looking to create a new club record of seven this weekend. It would mean Kasper Schmeichel supplanting goalkeeper Tom Sinclair, who, unusually, was on loan from Rangers at the time, in the record books.
This information might amuse Dortmund fans, who enjoyed a game of shootie-in on Tuesday as their side racked up their biggest-ever Champions League win.
European opposition all want to play Celtic at Celtic Park – Rodgers yesterday revealed Nuri Sahin, his opposite number at Dortmund, told him that he wished the draw had been the other way around. “So did I,” Rodgers smiled. But increasingly, teams lick their lips when Celtic come to town.
So what’s the answer? It’s too simplistic to claim that the Parkhead club, the first British winners of the European Cup, do not belong in the Champions League any more. It’s not even two weeks since they ripped Slovan Bratislava apart in their first match of the revamped competition.
In a way, that 5-1 win might have been one of the worst things that could have happened on matchday one. It whipped up supporters and emboldened Rodgers. Maybe Celtic are good enough to have a go.
Rodgers does not need much excuse to think that way. It’s part of his charm. Maybe it helps keep him interested. The manager certainly appears unrepentant on the issue of his tactics.
“We play how we play,” he said on Friday. “It’s the same plaudits that are commending our performances over the last number of months that allows us to come into this game (v Dortmund) with this incredible optimism that we can get a result out there.
“We can’t just turn the tap back off and become super defensive,” he added. “It is not how we play. So what do we do? Sit back and have probably 15 per cent of the ball? And probably lose 3-0? 4-0? We have seen it over six months. Teams that will come to us and sit back and play five at the back and 5-4-1 with no chance to attack.
“Or do you play how you play but know the mistakes (you make) you have to get your teeth into, you have to be brighter and make quicker movements to close space. All those things are a learning process. I would much rather do that and go down with my own vision than with someone’s who has never coached a game in their life or played or done whatever. I respect their opinion but I don’t listen to it, never have.”
Eleven goals have flashed past Old Firm goalkeepers in the past few days. It might take months for that to happen in a domestic league setting. Indeed, we are now nine weeks into the season and the total stands at just four.
Rangers have let the Old Firm side down, if it’s possible to view it in those terms, by conceding all four of the goals. Celtic remain impregnable. Although Ross County are undoubtedly a test, few would be surprised if the champions’ goals against column is still showing zero come Sunday afternoon after a seventh successive league clean sheet at the start of a season. An achievement for the ages.
Celtic have not conceded in Dingwall in their last two visits, winning 3-0 and 2-0. History beckons in the Highlands just as a blast of reality might await in Bergamo, where Celtic face Atalanta on their return to Champions League action later this month.
Celtic face Ross County in the Scottish Premiership on Sunday, aiming to extend their perfect domestic winning run.
Tuesday night’s Champions League defeat to Borussia Dortmund is the only black mark on the Bhoys’ record so far this term, winning all nine of their other matches.
Three points is again the aim in a tricky lunchtime kick-off live on Sky Sports.
Don Cowie’s side are hardly in towering form, with just one league win from seven, but Ross County players have already vowed to make it a difficult physical match for Celtic.
After the low of Germany mid-week, it’s even more important that Brendan Rodgers’ team bounce back with confidence and return to the kind of football that has been earning them so many plaudits.
Celtic’s 6-0 win over St Johnstone last week ensured that the Bhoys made it six wins with six clean sheets at the start of the league campaign, the first time that’s happened at the club since the 1906/07 season.
The BBC erroneously reported a few weeks ago that the mark of five clean sheets was the record equalled, but subsequent digs into the archives showed that the 1906/07 side did, in fact, make six.
Now, the team has the chance to go one step further and make history with seven wins and seven clean sheets from the first seven league matches. Celtic have never achieved that in their entire history.
Rangers kept seven consecutive league clean sheets at the start of the 2020/21 Premiership season, but one of those was a draw away to Livingston, so it would be a new feat in Scottish football too.
Kasper Schmeichel and the Celtic defence will be given most of the plaudits for the achievement if it occurs, but the truth is that all eleven players have contributed massively to shutting out teams.
The tone is really set in attack with the tireless efforts of Daizen Maeda, Kyogo Furuhashi and Nicolas Kuhn, all of whom do excellently to pressure opponents and win back possession before attacks get started.
All the players who have contributed this season should get their due, though I’m sure Celtic will be quick to point out they are on the hunt for silverware, not intriguing statistical runs.
Celtic defender Liam Scales is eager to make history at Rangers' expense this weekend.
The Hoops have started the season with six consecutive cleans sheets, and if they record another shut-out against Ross County on Sunday, they will match Rangers' record of seven successive cleans sheets to start a season which was recorded by Steven Gerrard's side at the beginning of the 2020/2021 season.
It's already been Celtic's best defensive start in the league for 118 years, and with the added bonus of matching their arch rivals, Scales is keen to notch another clean sheet this weekend.
The Republic of Ireland international said: “We know if we can have a good foundation, keep a clean sheet, we’re more than likely going to score goals and that’s going to win us games with the attacking quality we have.
“So it does give us something else to aim for, to keep going on this run and go as long as we can really.”
The centre-back is sure they can quickly move on from their difficult night in the Champions League.
“It’s in the past now and we’ve sort of moved on with an important game coming up at the weekend and we know that if we get results in the rest of our games in the Champions League, we have a chance of qualifying,” he said.
“It was a tough one to take, but we don’t dwell on it, we’ve moved on from that now.
“We just do what we usually do. We have our meetings, we have our analysis. Nothing changes. It doesn’t change when we win big, it doesn’t change when we lose.
“We just do what we do and move on and we’re always focused on the next game.
“Obviously you have the day after the game, it’s not nice. But we’ve started the season so well in the league, we’re unbeaten, we’re doing everything right domestically.
“So it’s sort of easy to just park what happened and move on to this game because obviously I want to keep being part of a defence that keeps clean sheets and keeps winning. Let’s see how long we can go on this run for.”
