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Twice denied by the crossbar, one goal disallowed for offside and now a couple of points behind Hearts at the head of the Premiership.
Celtic have enough evidence to point to in arguing that they should have won this encounter with a Hibs side that clearly travelled along the M8 with the primary intention of defending and staying organised at the expense of anything else.
The fact the defending champions now find themselves trailing in Hearts’ wake, though, in a competition that should, going by wage bills and cash in the bank, be a one-horse race is only going to exacerbate the organised fan protests against a cloth-eared, complacent board that stepped up a gear here.
Much of the headline-grabbing psychodrama that surrounded Celtic during an absolute disaster zone of a transfer window has subsided slightly.
Manager Brendan Rodgers is back to talking about actual football during his media conferences. Anonymous insiders are no longer accusing him of tearing the place apart and trying to engineer an exit. He’s not calling them ‘cowardly’.
You cannot say, however, that this is a club settling down and getting back to normal service now the window has closed. Far from it. Their squad lacks balance and sufficient depth in key positions. Consider the way things ended in this one.
Maeda and Iheanacho are left frustrated as another chance goes begging for Celtic
Iheanacho manages to beat Sallinger in the Hibs goal before the flag went up for an offside
Kelechi Iheanacho started up front after a decent display when coming on against Red Star Belgrade in Europa League action through the week. He cracked the top of the bar on 21 minutes when moving onto a Daizen Maeda cross and was adjudged to be offside just after the hour when converting at the far post.
He’d shot his bolt by then, though, and made way for Benjamin Nygren. Maeda, who started in an unfamiliar role on the right flank with Seb Tounekti out left, went through the middle for a while before going off with 16 minutes to play.
The Japanese forward’s head is clearly wasted after having to call off a move away from Glasgow on deadline day. He is a shadow of himself and is now being played out of position to make matters worse.
His removal left Celtic closing out the match, chasing a winner, with Johnny Kenny at centre-forward. No offence to the young Irishman, but that is simply a byproduct of bad squad management.
He did see a decent downward header from a Liam Scales cross clawed away by visiting goalkeeper Raphael Sallinger in the fourth minute of time added-on, but his failure to score — and the fact Celtic, who didn’t play badly over the piece, looked more ragged as the second 45 went on — simply led to more chants of ‘Sack the board’ around the ground.
Celtic fans continued their protests against the club's board
Much was made before this encounter of the first of three silent protests against the Parkhead board and, sure enough, it was executed successfully.
The Ultras’ section in the North Curve ran proceedings, raising a banner for the opening 12 minutes aimed at the directors, reading ‘Your Silence Is Deafening’, and holding up other artwork calling for the heads of major shareholder Dermot Desmond, CEO Michael Nicholson, chairman Peter Lawwell and finance chief Chris McKay.
You are never quite sure how the support for such rebellion on internet platforms and social media will translate into the real world, but it must be pointed out that the remainder of the stadium held the line.
We’re not at the stage of braziers in the car park quite yet, but it’s clear a large section of the supporter base is not willing to take a step back in demanding answers from the boardroom over the disasters of the last transfer window and what the club’s strategy really is.
Not that Desmond will be entirely up to speed with their desires. While this was playing out, he was 3,500 miles away at the Ryder Cup in New York.
Applause was allowed, shouts of encouragement permitted. It has been made clear, under the terms of the protest, if you like, that reacting to the action on the field is perfectly fine.
There is just no singing allowed. And for the duration of yesterday’s demonstration, there really was none — other than from the away section in the corner.
Clearly, they didn’t get the message over what was occurring. At one point, chants of ‘Is This A Library?’ boomed out from the visiting fans.
The moment the clock hit the 12th minute, though, everything returned to normal. The banners were folded away and all was well again. Until Thursday night, that is, when 29 minutes of silence against Sporting Braga in the Europa League are planned.
Sallinger springs into action to keep the scores level at 0-0 as the clock ticks towards full-time
Hibs rarely threatened, with O'Hora going close for David Gray's side
For Hibs, this was a good and much-needed point ahead of the Edinburgh derby. It is tempting to criticise them for being just a bit too defensive at times.
There was one point at the end of the first half where Kieron Bowie released Martin Boyle from a deep position. Boyle faced up to Scales and waited so patiently for someone to arrive in support.
They never did. In the end, he released a shot that was easily saved by Kasper Schmeichel.
Yet, Hibs did still have a couple of real opportunities. The stand-out one came right at the end of the first half.
After Celtic left-back Marcelo Saracchi had cracked the bar with a terrific angled shot at 0-0, a Dan Barlaser free-kick from the left was headed into the danger area by Bowie and fell to the feet of Warren O’Hora no more than three yards out.
He should have scored. It is still difficult to explain how the ball looped over the bar and ended up landing on the roof of the net.
Look, Celtic were the better team. Sallinger had a number of decent saves to make in the visiting goal. Who knows what would have happened had Hibs got their noses in front?
This ground and this Celtic fanbase feels like it’s only one bad result away from a riot, though. The fact they are now trailing Hearts with a visit to Tynecastle at the end of next month now looming on the horizon just adds spice to a surreal season choc-full of subplots.
It also adds fuel to the fire for an angry mob showing no sign of letting the Celtic board off the hook.
