Celtic finished their home campaign with a score line that reflected the game and summed up the season: Celtic couldn't score nor defend, but now because of being shattered, not for any other reasons.
In the opening minutes, Celtic looked quite bright, with Connor Hughes laying off Oliver Roberts for a dipping twenty yard shot that Calvin Hare did well to push around the post, with Luke Ashworth heading the resulting corner over the bar. Jake Charles and Connor Hughes both went agonisingly close with skimmed shots after decent build up play, whilst Witton weren't really threatening.The tiredness showed when Steve Tames easily out-paced Liam Dickinson and Luke Ashworth to race onto Paul Williams through ball down the centre. George Sykes-Kenworthy made himself big, but the former Celtic striker is one of the league's top goal scorers this season, lifting the ball over Sykes-Kenworthy to open the scoring.
Seconds after Roberts had seen his shot stopped, Witton built a decent attack, culminating in a ball through the line of defence by Robert Hopley, and Tames held his position well, to latch onto the ball and slip it past Sykes-Kenworthy. It could have been worse, but Sykes-Kenworthy made a good stop a couple of minutes later to deny Owen Dale as he cut in from the wing.
The game was over as a competition at the start of the second half when a Witton corner was put low to the near post and Will Jones turned it in.
Even so, Celtic didn't give up and battled through the fatigue, Connor Hughes running the back line ragged, but his curling shot from twenty-five yards took the slightest of deflections to put it out for a corner. When Danny McKenna's deep cross was rifled into the bottom corner by Prince Heywood, Celtic threw the towel in.
After Robert Hopley managed to prod the ball over the line under a mound of Celtic players, even Witton realised that there was no point risking injury, the game fizzling out for the last twenty minutes, with both teams going through the motions. Even so, when stoppage time was announced, Owen Dale tried to add a sixth, with a twenty yard dipping shot that Sykes-Kenworthy tipped onto the crossbar.
The players can't quite rest yet, with another game, the final game, on Saturday.
| 1 | Hare, Calvin | ||
| 2 | Gardner, Anthony | ||
| 3 | McKenna, Danny | ||
| 4 | Humphreys, River | > 56 | |
| 5 | Wilson, Michael | ||
| 6 | Williams, Paul | ||
| 7 | Dale, Owen | ||
| 8 | Haywood, Prince | > 82 | |
| 9 | Hopley, Robert | ||
| 10 | Jones, Will | > 70 | |
| 11 | Tames, Steve | ||
| 12 | Lingouba, Cesaire | < 70 | |
| 14 | Eves, Ronan | < 82 | |
| 15 | Foley, James | < 56 | |
| 17 | Neild, Ryan | ||
