Personal glory trails in a poor second to collective achievement for Aiden McGeady. The Celtic winger has been nominated for both the Royal Mail PFA Scotland player and young player of the year awards. It is deserved recognition for a season in which he has taken his game to another level.
However, the failure of his team-mates to sustain the same levels of excellence has left Celtic facing a trophyless season. "Individual awards are great but at the end of the season you want to come away with medals and silverware," reflected McGeady. "I don't think any awards could make up for that."
The home loss to Motherwell at the weekend all but killed off Celtic's hopes of retaining their league championship. They are now seven points behind Rangers, who have a game in hand, and manager Gordon Strachan's future is in doubt after supporters turned on him at the end of Saturday's match.
"We haven't been playing well as a team," said McGeady. "We have been creating chances, but not scoring enough goals. For every team that comes to Celtic Park and gets one or two chances, they now seem to stick one away. Our form has been really poor."
Saturday was a case in point. Celtic started the game brightly against Mark McGhee's side but failed to take their chances, lost a goal and did not have the belief or ability to turn it around. The anxiety intensified following the dismissal of Bob Malcolm after 50 minutes as the home side struggled to break down the 10 men.
"We started the game on Saturday fairly well and created a few chances, but when you've not scored by half-time the fans start to get anxious," said McGeady. "In the 10-15 minutes after the break they get a man sent off so we are expected to go on and win the game. We were expected to score goals and we've not been doing that, so obviously you feel the pressure.
"If it's 0-0 or you are a goal behind and someone loses the ball then you can hear the fans, they are fairly vocal in that way. But it shouldn't really matter. We should be playing our own games but we have not been composed in front of goal recently.
"In February, we scored two goals against one of the best sides in Europe Barcelona at home, but that was maybe the start of our downfall. We have gone out of the Scottish Cup and Europe and I'm not saying we've thrown away the league, but we've given Rangers a massive platform."
McGeady remains the one player capable of delivering for Celtic. On Saturday, he skated past defenders at will and delivered endless streams of crosses. It was like planes entering the Bermuda Triangle. Celtic's attackers could have played all day and still not converted one of them.
"On Saturday I just tried to get as many balls in the box as possible, particularly in the last 20 minutes, but nobody got on the end of them," he said. "Maybe my crosses weren't good enough. Maybe the law of averages would suggest that someone would get on the end of one of your crosses, but it just wasn't to be. It wasn't happening and it's the wrong time for it not to be happening."
McGeady's excellent form this season has led to teams doubling up' on him. Even then, he has still managed to make decisive contributions. Logic dictates that the special attention he receives should create more space for his team-mates, but it is an aspect on which Celtic have failed to fully capitalise. "Against Rangers, when I took on Kirk Broadfoot I usually managed to get a cross in, but Steven Davis kept coming back to make it difficult for me to get to the byeline. Teams have been playing like that recently, which is very frustrating, but obviously that creates space for other players. It's up to the other players to take advantage of it."
Celtic still have to play Rangers twice at Celtic Park before the end of the season, a double header which would appear more like a damage limitation exercise than any realistic attempt to get back into the title race. However, McGeady has refused to give up hope. "If we beat them twice we are back in with a chance, but it is easier said than done. We've not managed to score against them in the last four games and never beaten them since Walter Smith has been the manager.
"In the first half in the last game a 1-0 defeat at Ibrox we outplayed Rangers, but they got their goal. We had chances, but it was the same old story, we didn't put them away. There's no better time than the present to change that."
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