Celtic’s youth side played the patience game again for the second week running to see off St Mirren on Saturday.
An 81st minute free-kick from Filip Twardzik separated the sides to extend Celtic’s winning run to six matches as they attempt to retain the SPL title and SFA Youth Cup.
Hearts maintained their place at the top thanks to a 5-2 win over Inverness Caley Thistle with the young hoops knowing that they must keep on winning and hope for a slip from the league leaders.
Saturday’s win was as much about endurance as inspiration with John Kennedy thrilled that his side emerged with all three points.
“The players have to be very patient,” the hoops coach admitted. “We spoke to them after the game and made comparisons to the first team match with Dunfermline, it was very similar.
“Teams are trying to frustrate us but it’s important to avoid that, we need to keep moving the ball quickly and at some point we’re going to create chances. We missed one or two that we should have capitalised on but in the end I thought that we deserved the goal.
“We felt that it we moved the ball quickly enough we could get at them down the flanks, you need to get good balls into the box with players attacking it to hurt teams.
“In the first half we never got enough players into the box to attack crosses. The balls were coming in and their defenders were quite comfortable just heading it away.
“It was a hard day trying to break them down. We stayed very disciplined and got the breakthrough. Games like that are part and parcel of being a Celtic player.”
Kennedy added: “Filip and Dylan (McGeough) have been excellent with us, their attitude is spot on and they are both desperate to play.
“The manager was keen for them to get a game and they both wanted to play for us. Filip was switching play, putting in the passes and popped up with the goal.
“He was a real handfull and did very well. It’s good for him to get the game time as well as training with the first team. It’s important to get matches.
“It’s great for us when we have Filip and Dylan added something to our side but we’ve got plenty of players in the squad that are more than capable of stepping in and taking their chances.
“The last two matches have been very tight but we are on a good winning run and dominating matches.
“It’s important to keep on winning at this time of year, the most pleasing aspect is that they show the hunger and desire to go the full 90 minutes, they can’t stop at 70 and think that it’s not going to happen.
“They kept pushing and pushing and that’s the way we have to take it game by game. If we keep winning it puts pressure on Hearts.
“If Hearts win all their games they win the league but if they slip up we’ll certainly be breathing down their necks. We’ll concentrate on our own games and hopefully there’ll be a bit of luck somewhere down the line to take advantage of.”
CELTIC: Fasan: Fraserr, Jones (Atajic), Irvine, Chalmers: McGeough, McGregor, F Twardzik, Herron, P Twardzik: Watt
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