Celtic 69 unbeaten

Last weekend Celtic's eighteen month, sixty-nine game unbeaten run came to an emphatic halt by Hearts. The scenes after Celtic had been soundly beaten 4-0 saw manager Brendan Rodgers bring every member of the team into a huddle presumably to tell them to not dwell on the result and that they were history makers regardless. History makers they most certainly are, that sixty-nine game run is a British record, they became the first Scottish team to go a season unbeaten in one-hundred eighteen years and the first to do so in a thirty-eight game season.

Rodgers oversaw 68 of the 69 games
source: SNS Group/ Rob Casey

Such was the length of the run, it actually began under Rodgers' predecessor the Norwegian manager Ronny Deila. Defeat at St Johnstone on May 11th 2016, which saw the Perth side come from behind, was followed up with a 7-0 thumping of Motherwell on the final day of the 2015-16 season. That 7-0 win was Deila's last in charge after a campaign that saw Celtic fall below usual standards.
Rodgers would be appointed not long afterwards and the contrast would be day and night between the 2015-16 and 2016-17 campaigns.
The opening day of the 2016-17 season saw Celtic beat Hearts at Tynecastle. That was August 7th 2016, the Celts would drop points at Inverness (September 18th) and then draw again away to arch rivals Rangers in March, winning every single other domestic league game in that period. There was that roller-coaster game at Fir Park in December where Motherwell raced into a 2-0 lead, lost it, regained the lead and then lost it again with Tom Rogic scoring the winner in stoppage time. That would be the closest they would come to losing until much later in the run.
In fact Celtic would only drop points four times in the entire campaign with further draws at home to Partick Thistle and away at Ross County to finish not only as invincible title winners but treble winners too. 2016-17 Celtic were simply in a league of their own.

The current campaign began with Celtic winning the first three games before a draw at home to St Johnstone. Three more wins followed including a 2-0 Ibrox success before they needed to rescue a point at home to Hibernian in a 2-2 draw. Overall this season despite securing a third place finish in their Champions league group, Celtic haven't been as impressive as last season which was bound to happen given the incredible standard they set.
That defeat to Hearts was arguably coming for a few weeks. Celtic had a scandalous penalty decision awarded to them away at Motherwell with the team losing 1-0 going into the final two minutes of normal time. Callum McGregor was apparently felled in the area with replays showing it was most definetly a soft decision from referee Willie Collum. Scott Sinclair stepped up and converted the spot kick to salvage a draw from the clutches of defeat.
A week later a 1-0 home defeat to Anderlecht in the Champions league was as dire a performance of recent times. It was enough to qualify for the Europa league knockout phase in the new year on the better head-to-head record but it nonetheless was concerning. There was the 2-2 draw away at Hibernian the following weekend in which Celtic took a second half two goal lead before being pegged back to two-all and were a Mikael Lustig boot away from defeat in stoppage time.
The immediate reaction was going to be interesting. Would Celtic go into a slump in form or brush off the defeat and go again?. Three days later Partick Thistle were beaten 2-0 at Parkhead to get that defeat out of their system before following that up with an impressive 3-0 success at home to second placed Aberdeen. The gap at the top of the table has widened after the defeat and puts Celtic firmly back in control at the top without the distraction and media obsession of going unbeaten.