The chances of Celtic returning to Fir Park as SPL champions would have been laughed off in November.
With the jibes and celebrations of Nikica Jelavic about to surface Neil Lennon took his squad to Lanarkshire on November 6 with many expecting Motherwell to kill off Celtic’s remote title hopes and end the day six points clear in second place.
The previous day Rangers had stretched their lead over Celtic to 15 points thanks to a Jelavic double and an own goal from Garry Kenneth in a 3-1 home win over Dundee United.
There was some optimism about Celtic’s trip to Motherwell thanks to a 3-1 home win over Rennes secured after losing the customary second minute goal from a set piece.
Exactly the same thing happened at Motherwell as Michael Higden netted from an 11th minute corner re-igniting the debate about zonal marking amongst other things!
Fortunately Anthony Stokes equalised quickly before Gary Hooper clinched the points coming off the bench to score with ten minutes left to play.
The win lifted Celtic onto 26 points, the same as Motherwell but trailing Rangers by 12 points after 13 matches- the following match was an early kick-off away to Inverness to look forward to with tired commentators dusting out their favourite cliches for the trip to the Highlands.
After the match Alan Thompson praised the resilience shown by the players but he could never have imagined that a 17 match winning run was about to bring the title back to Celtic Park.
“It’s disappointing to go a goal down in the manner we did,” Thompson admitted afterwards. “It’s something that we’ve looked at and looked at and looked at. It seems to keep happening but, credit where credit’s due to the boys, they were exceptional.
“They keep going and going and for the last month or so we’ve been asking a small group of players to keep playing midweek, weekends, midweek, weekends and they just keep going and it’s difficult.
“While you’d really like to change it a little bit, rest it a little bit, freshen it up, we haven’t got that luxury at the minute but the lads have shown some really promising signs in the last few weeks in terms of football and in terms of their mentality.
“Paddy comes on and that bit of magic he’s got wins you the game.
“We left him out with a view that we might need him later on and look what happens, he comes on and the manager gets it spot on with the change.”
Dylan McGeough came off the bench for the final few minutes in that match and could be handed his first start today.
What followed from November 6 will long be remembered as Lennon’s side showed the bottle of champions to overtake Rangers and clinch the title before the split.
Six months earlier the Jelavic inspired text messages had bragged about winning the title by Halloween or Bonfire Night.
CLICK HEREÂ for Duff and Phelps- there is no acceptable bid
CLICK HEREÂ for Gemmell hits out at referee Norris
Follow Video Celts on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube