Some goalkeepers save their best for their former employers, and Scott Bain did exactly that on Sunday. The one-time Celtic number made ten stops at the Falkirk Stadium as the Bairns beat the champions 2-0, a result their supporters had not seen since 2007.
After dropping points in a midweek draw against Dundee United, O’Neill shuffled his line-up, making three changes in search of a response. Instead his side were behind almost before they had settled. Ryan Strain swung in a ball from the right, Cameron Carter-Vickers miscued it straight to Ethan Ross, and the winger buried it inside three minutes. Strain hurt himself in the act of crossing and was replaced. Shortly before the break, left-back Scott Tanser ran onto a pass from on-loan Derby man Owen Eames, skipped past Carter-Vickers and finished low.
Celtic were hardly toothless. Before the interval Duran rattled the woodwork, and Bain kept denying the Colombian too. Falkirk thought they had a third soon after the restart when Jacob Murrell bundled one in, but VAR spotted that the ball had come off his arm. From then on it was one-way traffic towards Bain, whose double save from James Forrest and Benjamin Nygren had the home end chanting “Scotland’s number one”.
Six losses from their last ten outings now sit on the record for the Hoops. They still lead Rangers by four points, though their rivals now have a game in hand. O’Neill pointed to the chances his team created, insisting they “could have scored six or seven”.
For Falkirk it is four straight wins and a climb to fourth place, two points behind Hearts.
