Neil Lennon experienced a season’s worth of emotions as he watched Celtic draw 3-3 with Motherwell yesterday.
At times the visitors defending resembled the display in the Nou Camp while some of the attacking and finishing provided reminders of the dynamic play that saw off Hearts and Motherwell in the dark of winter.
For good measure there was a penalty miss and a first top team start for John Herron for the hoops manager to ponder before he picks his side to face Inverness Caley Thistle at the weekend.
The Manager of the Month curse is acknowledged throughout football but two days after being nominated for the Players Player of the Year awards Virgil van Dijk, Fraser Forster and Kris Commons had days that they’d rather forget.
After falling behind to an early goal from John Sutton Celtic were given a great opportunity to level the scores from the penalty spot but in a rare blot on his copybook Commons found his penalty saved by Gunnar Nielson.
Two minutes from half-time more comic cut defending allowed Zaine Francis-Angol to put Motherwell two in front but thankfully before the interval Anthony Stokes conjured up some magic to pull a goal back.
“I went for goal but it’s one of those one in a thousand efforts,” the striker said to the doubters. “I didn’t really have much on, I couldn’t cut it back so I went for it and it dropped in. I wouldn’t say it was lucky, I’ll take it as a good finish.”
When Stokes set up Georgios Samaras for an equaliser it seemed inevitable that Celtic would take full points with substitute Leigh Griffiths delivering the third goal with four minutes left to play.
That was overlooking any further defensive disasters with Sutton cashing in in the 90th minute to keep alive Motherwell’s hopes of pushing Aberdeen for second place.