An away trip to St Johnstone on the back of an away trip to Fenerbahce was a challenging one on paper. Teams drop more points away from home after an away European game than under any other circumstances, but yesterday went as well as we could have hoped for.
Nadir Ciftci has failed to set imaginations alight since arriving in the summer but the support were delighted for the player and his prospects, after two excellently taken goals. The first, controlling a corner on his thigh before turning and thrashing the ball into the corner of the net, was top drawer. More please.
Our other summer signing who has recently pulled some form together is Dedryck Boyata. Dedryck was the proverbial bag of nerves earlier this season. He looked clumsy with the ball at his feet, was wasteful when passing and was part of a defence which could not defend corner kicks. The arrival of Jozo Simunovic in the team coincided with Dedryck looking more like a Celtic player.
Without European football the second half of the season has an anti-climactic feel to it but it’s important for both these players. They, like many others in the squad, have a lot to prove after some indifferent performances. Not all will make it. Several, who are teetering on the brink of the first team, will find their opportunities limited, so there is no such thing as an unimportant game. Every game is important when you are trying to improve your reputation, every corner is important as is every chance.
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Just finished the Hack Attack book and no really going tae comment on it as a lot of you have lived through that period.
However, near the end a couple of paragraphs jumped at me:
“Whenever a rock was lifted in the business it seemed to reveal another allegation of rule bending or law breaking from a company which lived by only one rule: to win.
Even in the world of sport, it had cheated to win, breaking the rules to pay nearly $4 million in secret salary top ups to players in the team which the Chairman and CEO of News Corporation owned. It worked as the team won 4 Premiership titles”.
Now seriously who does this remind you of? I’m now totally convinced that bader, a rugby fan wisnae ever interested in the zombies as a club, it was a means to make money on the back of the deluded punters who followed them, as well as achieving more power.
Clarence also went tae a rugby playing school and while MASH could be seen dancing and hugging his compatriots at White Hart Lane after the very late winner, it has been reported that Glibby did not show up at the ground where he allegedly stood on the slopes of with his da as his side took on the kraysdales favourite team.
And please please no comparisons with our own absentee landlord; he has never admitted tae being a Celtic supporter.
The coincidences are also alarming. In an effort tae save their bid for BskyB, News UK allowed the News of the Screws, a 168 year old institution, to die, while at the same time the copyrighted the “sunonsunday” name which was re-launched 7 months later.
Hmmm the zombies, 2nd biggest institution in the country and 140 years of dignity Timmy, were allowed to die and then also re-launched as sevco, same strip, same badge, same ground and same horrible, nasty, ugly, bigoted support.
What were they trying to protect……a tainted knighthood?
Neither the 2 Murdochs or Brooks served any time; in fact the first 2 were never in the dock, unlike some of their henchmen who did sup porridge.
We will never see steptoe in court or be defrocked.
Why did we do so badly in Europe. The loss of Denayer initially & Van Dyjk was a big factor but the team set up and tactics was the real problem.
However Europe is behind us now and we need to move forward. In the first place we are still in 3 domestic Competitions and regardless of some posters here ridiculing those of us who celebrated our win over St. Johnstone, I will continue to celebrate not only every game we win but every goal we score.
The treble is far from assured, Celtic teams in the past who on paper lorded it over the opposition, have found it nigh on impossible to do, and it wasn’t the deid team that was stopping them.
Regarding our next European venture, the team that emerges after the January window, is the team that should represent us, no additions and no sales.
Tontine …. that book has been on my ‘need to read’ list for a while. From your posts, I might bump it up the list a bit…. would you recommend it?
thanks
Glendalystonsils.
Perhaps the answer to your question is Catch22?
That is we buy players of potential in spine positions in order for them to provide the football spine?
However if they excel at that job their value rises away above our ability to reflect that value in wages.
The players know that and want the higher price for their labour their skills and experience now command as a result of playing for Celtic at a high level.
Affordability is the key here.
So they leave because we recruited well but the inevitable consequence of their departure is performance drops leading to less football success and so less income.
We cover that loss from the high transfer the player now justifies and we start again.
Signing players to form the spine knowing we can continue to play whilst they develop to bring in the success that naturally leads to their being sold.
A kind of Circle of Football Life to work within rather than some well thought out plan or decision.
In Catch22 terms you cannot get better without first getting worse but as soon as you get better you start getting worse.
mike in toronto on 14th December 2015 5:11 pm
TONTINE TIM on 14TH DECEMBER 2015 3:47 PM
How ya doing today?
*enjoying the balmy spring like weather up here in the Alabama of Southern Ontario. No dodging bullets either, not like our neighbour down Bovaird.
I’m quite happy accepting that CFC are playing the Napoleon Bonaparte card “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
And by that I don’t mean sevco fc as they are now an irrelevance. I mean the SFA/SPFL. The Kaiser isnae a stupid man and disnae employ such either. Right now FIFA/UEFA are in soapy bubble and I believe we, Celtic, are biding our time while they and the Scottish equivalent implode.
The FBI are right on the case and like a dog with a bone will not give up too easily (I watched Quantico last night so might be getting a bit carried away there), we will be there strong and clean when the dust settles.
Meanwhile on to 6-in-a-row, to equal our original record, 7 to better it, 9 to match our honest NIAR and 10 to beat it.
My friends in Celtic,
Although I have reservations about the Ess pee ell we must celebrate a win. If we don’t then what is the point of it all.
Anyway if the much lauded klippty Kopp can celebrate a draw against West Brom in front of the Kop then surely nobody can complain if we celebrate a win away from home.
Ronny roar 1, klippty Kopp out 0
HH.to all Celtic internet bampots.
When considering / discussing how good a manger Ronnie Delia’s is thou shalt ignore Celtic’s domestic form and only take into account their recent European form, the exception to ignoring the domestic form is when they lose or get beat, then it can be highlighted in bold along with any recent dodgy European results. Get with the programme guys!:-)
Auldheid on 14th December 2015 5:28 pm
Perhaps then, the best we can hope for is to extend the stay of such spine players for the odd season/half season to minimise the disruption? Perhaps hold on to ONE of the CB’s in each transfer window so that we don’t go into CL qualifiers with 2 CB’s who barely know their teammates names?
Try to minimise the loans so that a CB’s loan spell coming to an end doesn’t coincide with the other CB being sold a la Virgil and Denayer?
A bit of continuity planning wouldn’t go amiss.
THE GLORIOUS BALANCE SHEET on 14TH DECEMBER 2015 3:32 PM
Greenpinata
To turn your argument about competition on its head-
Look at the case of BATE Borisov. They dominate the Belarus league. Never under any threat domestically, i think they’re going for 9 league titles in a row this year and their domestic rivals offer no competition. Can you name another team from Belarus?
Yet this team have an outstanding record in progressing through the CL qualifiers. I think it’s 5 times out of the last 6 years they’ve come through all the way from CL qualifying round 2 and into the group stages and with a poorer coefficient than Celtic each year.
The Irish leagues seem competitive enough but it’s not generally any use to them in European qualifiers.
So I don’t know if lack of competition is the big problem here.
—————————-
The Belarusian Premier League runs through the summer, that is imo the reason why BATE have such success in the qualifiers.
From Wikipedia:
“Immediately after the organization of the league, it was decided to change its season from a Soviet-style summer season to a European-style winter season. In 1995, the winter season experiment was proven unsuccessful due to poor weather and field conditions in Belarus in the late autumn and early spring. The season was changed back to summer, and the 1995 championship was again held as a single round-robin tournament. Every season since 1996 has been played in the summer.”
I couldn’t care less about the cups, I’d scrap the LC in a heartbeat. As it stands the SC final impedes on the timing of when the players return to prepare for the CL qualifiers, so I’d rather we weren’t in it.
Every fan would state the highlights of the last decade or so have been the big European games. Well I’m sure if you asked Aberdeen fans they would point to their games v Bayern, Hearts fans to games v Liverpool / Tottenham, St. Johnstone fans to games v Rosenborg and Motherwell fans to their CL qualifier v Panathanikos.
The LC changes (whilst welcome) do the square root of hee haw to help Scottish teams in Europe. The absolute minimum should be the league season starting in the 1st weekend in July with an extended winter break after the New Year fixtures. Anything else inevitably condemns us to the same failings year in year out.
I’m sure I read somewhere, about 5 years ago, that Scotland had the highest weekly attendance figure per capita in Europe. OK, it’s heavily skewed by us and the Hun, about 100k for a population of 5m? This would equate to over a million attending in England, or about 1.5m in Germany. All sorts of factors to consider of course, but I wonder if Doom monger Reagan is aware of that ‘positive’ stat.
Glendalystonsils
We tried keeping VVD to minimise disruption and bought Boyoata early presumably to try and minimise disruption.
Lessons from that are go into CL with 2 CBS who have played in the same back four (injuries excepted) from Xmas/January preceding.
Auldheid on 14th December 2015 5:55 pm
I think would make a tremendous difference. The key to qualification,in fact.
Johnyrambo67
In terms of helping all Scottish clubs qualify for Europe a change of season is a no brainer for me.
Had I known about the Belarus season I would have added it to the reasons BATE qualify regularly.
Anyone comparing the cohesion of Malmo or Mode to ours would wonder what factors contributed to their performance and dictated against ours.
Glendalytonsils
Agreed
Churn and match fitness.
One within our control the other partly but aided if season change by more game play that also helps understanding.
Glen Dalys Tonsils 5.44pm
You hit the nail on the head there. Having to replace 2 centre backs in the same transfer window was a shocking example of poor planning, not what is expected of such a well run business with such highly paid executives.
How did we get to that point? Too many speculative and/ or temporary fixes in the centre half position in previous windows.
Ambrose signed on summer deadline day 2012. Efe had his moments but his form was such that the likes of mulgrew and wanyama – not natural centre halves – were regularly played at centre half ahead of him alongside kelvin Wilson. Indeed for his national team, Efe is always played at right back.
The next transfer window saw a temporary fix attempted in rami Gershon who came on loan but didn’t play much at all. Still he was on loan so cheap.
Then we had kelvin Wilson leaving, wanyama leaving too (taking away an emergency cb option) and Virgil van dijk and Steven Mouyokolo signed in summer 2013. Mouyokolo hadn’t played in 2 years due to injury and within 270 minutes of football for Celtic (including 90 minutes of slapstick in Karagandy) was permanently broken. Still he was on a free so cheap.
We went with Ambrose and van dijk at centre half for most of that season but still needed more permanent solutions with Efe struggling for form and van dijk increasingly talking of a move to the EPL.
So we then take Denayer on loan from man city. Good prospect but no guarantee he will/ can stay. But he is on loan so cheap.
And then no centre halves signed in January 2015. So no tried and tested partnership available for the European qualifiers. But hey no money spent either- so cheap.
Cheap “fixes” cost more in the long run.
Evening fholks
Looking for a ticket Hearts away, not for me but a friend who has not missed an away game in 34yrs…
Any chance… an Ayrshire Tim of the highest order….
Ayrshire is Green and White
Bit of a moan fest on here today. I usually look to get cheered up on a miserable Monday. Might have to interact with the family to cheer up.
JonnyRambo67
Thanks for that info on the Belarus league season. Maybe the arguments for summer football are now becoming more persuasive…..I think so anyway.
And given the decline of the Scottish national team and our own signing policy we are unlikely to lose much of our squad to major summer international championships in the years to come (Lustig is the only one I can see being involved in Euro 2016) so we shouldn’t be disrupted too much by a switch to summer
I reckon the zombies get pretty pissed off when they tune into bt or sky hoping to see us slip up ….. only to see and hear our support having a party while the bhoys pump teams that outclassed them
Perhaps given the change in football landscape over the last few years, an opportunity was seen to change the nature of player recruitment and development.
Before Ronny we had Martin O’Neil, Gordon Strachan, Tony Mowbray and Neil Lennon. All of them preferred recruiting experience to meet the challenge their time brought them.
Now I would suggest the board has sought to promote the favouring of youth, both in recruitment and internal development. Experience is de emphasised, as it will be gained here and Ronny is here to implement that strategy.
At Stromgodset, the average age dropped from 24.4 (yr 1, 2008) to 22.5 (yr 2) to 21.1 (yr 3) before rising to 22.2 (yr4), 22.9 (yr 5) and 23.3 (yr 6) when they won the league. That looks like a changing of the guard then a reassessment coupled to development of players that remain.
In those years, Stromgodset finished 11th, 12th, 7th, 8th, 2nd then 1st. Since Deila left, the team has finished 4th then 2nd this year.
Of the 19 players to have been capped for Norway while playing at Stromgodset, Deila was manager of 7 who made their debut and 2 others continued to get caps while he was there.
So he has a record of introducing youth into a team that goes on to become successful, brings on players to international standard and has left a legacy.
We were close to a treble last year and this year isn’t done yet.
Deila is doing the job well that he has been asked to do and at the end of this season might have won 5 out of the first 6 domestic trophies his team will have competed in.
He could do better, as Europe was guff and we repeated the same mistakes time and again, losing goals from set pieces, on the counter and at the near post. Individual errors yes but also structure. When the team was stressed it failed.
The reasons for this are for Ronny to hopefully work out. If it is through working with, coaching and blending youth with some unique experience, that he feels able to do this, then from past experience he can be successful.
coybig
TBJ
Are you trying to suggest that there’s a gulf in class between us and Sevco?
Warbo the wonderful told yees only last week that the new LC format was the only thing likely to stop Sevco challenging us for top spot next season :))
Tontine ..
Your faith in those that run our club is admirable. I am not sure on what it is based.
In my experience, those that run big organizations do not have the same interests as the little guys who buy penny shares in the companies. Just because PL may be ‘one of us’ doesn’t mean that he has the same interest as the average punter. In fact, as I have suggested in other posts, the law suggests otherwise.
With respect to the 5WA, in law, there are certain presumptions …. The onus is always on the plaintiff to prove its case on a balance of probabilities. As a matter of law, a defendant is not required to lead any evidence (the legal burden). However, once the Plaintiff has adduced evidence to establish a prima facie case, the evidentiary burden shifts to the defendant to adduce evidence to refute the Plaintiff’s claim.
Otherwise, the are other rules of evidence. for example, there is a presumption if an company does not call any evidence for the employees involved, a court can (and usually will ) presume that the employees evidence does not support its employer’s position (otherwise, the employer would produce its employee – over whom it has control – as a witness).
These rules develop over years, and are usually based on …. common sense. (Dont tell anyone I told you that…. otherwise, we lawyers would have a hard time justifying our outrageous fees for ‘common sense’!)
Now, I appreciate we are not in a court of law …. but, we are in a more important court … the court of public opinion. And common sense would suggest to me that, if Celtic had no involvement with the 5WA, it would be easy for them to simply say so. And I think most of us would accept that. It would lead to other questions, of course, but we would accept that statement as true.
as for ‘never interrupting your enemy …’… tautological… because until we know what Celtic said or did, how do we know who the enemy is, i.e., would you feel the same way if you found out Celtic PLC had gone along with the 5WA? Given the circumstances, the failure to adduce evidence to support Celtic’s ‘non-involvment’ (or even simply issue a denial) leads me to draw an adverse inference against Celtic’s ‘non involvment’).
And, in my experience, there are times (I wont bore you with examples) when it is helpful to hold back on information (I have had a few Perry Mason moments in court as a resutlt), but, in my experience, overwhelmingly, parties who have been genuinely injured scream like hell and demand their day in court, sooner rather than later. And it is a classic defence strategy to delay, and hope that things go away. And, before anyone suggests I am biased, I do both plaintiff and defence work, and that is, admittedly, an overly broad generalization, I admit.
As I said, your faith is admirable, my friend. I question on what it is based, but I genuinely hope that it will prove to be well founded. However, I will confess to having my doubts, and will do until Celtic PLC prove them right or wrong.
HH, eh (for non-canucks, that’s how we say HH in Canadian)
JonnyRambo67 5:53 pm
Bate Borysov success has nothing to do with decision – when the season starts?
If I’m not mistaken, Russians have changed it two times in the last ten years and are discussing another change. When you take into account how much money they pump into football every year, you can state that that league is huge mistake.
Regarding Bate.
When Bate was bought by Anatoli Kapsky he had seven points plan.
1. Big investment for the starter
2. Professional Youth Accademy
3. Team that is well balanced (young and experienced players)
4. Always trust in coaching stuff
5. Sympathy from local estabilishment and ordinary people
6. Make local estabilishment fans of your team
7. Don’t panic!!!
Kapsky: “We always try to capitalize our success nad make it bigger in the next step. We want to be stronger every year. We do this not by buying better players but by investing in our infrastructure. WE are not going to buy many foreign players. Maybe, just maybe, one of they days we will buy someone with a big name. If we do this it must be someone whose mentality fits our club. His mentality must be most important factor to us. That person can not think he is bigger than anyone in our club. For all these years half of the team were players who grew up in our club.”
ps … I”m in and out of meetings, so if someone bothers to respond to my ramblings, and I miss them or dont reply right away, please excuse me. Cheers.
Good evening friends and, I hope, fellow LMS’rs ;-)
The Glorious Balance Sheet nailed it earlier when he described our present squad and coach as “flat track bullies”
Winning yesterday was good but really needed to win in Europe to show that we are progressing under Ronnie and that as we all know hasn’t happened.
More alarming is the way that he steadfastly refuses to countenance any variation from his 4-2-3-1. system. Since it is patently obvious that we don’t have the players to play this system against any half decent team then we are likely to repeat the same mistake next season.
HH
Mike another Montreal joint came to my notice by chance today
http://www.smokemeatpete.com/new/
chin chin
MickTT
I’m looking for one more but have asked about so if I get more than one I’ll keep you in mind mate.
2012-2015 Bate Borysov transfers in 600 000 Euros
WDH
thanks…. but, smoked meat joints never happen ‘by chance’…. your email is a sign from God that he wants me to have smoked meat in Montreal! :)
WHITEDOGHUNCH on 14TH DECEMBER 2015 6:40 PM
Mike another Montreal joint came to my notice by chance today.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jeeso, these old hippies on here are bringing the site down. ;)
A little bit of useless Trivia that I read recently. I know one would not expect that the code names the US Secret Service use for V.I.P’s would be in the public domain but this one apparently is.
The Current Vice President Joe Biden, who is apparently a very devout Catholic and extremely proud of his Irish Heritage, has been code named Celtic, by US Secret Service.
Zbyszek
Interesting plan..
Thanks for that..
corkcelt ….. he was also given a horse as a gift, which he named ‘Celtic’
sipsini
the only thing I smoke are pork ribs!
MIT…
Just joshing mate.
We all know DD/PETEC are the Cheech and Chong on here :)
Some simple facts tell you why we have been crap in Europe for the last few seasons,continually selling our best players,who are replaced by vastly inferior ones. A project Manager in charge,who was lined up for the No 2 role,who is out of his depth,baffling team selections and substitutions,unable to manage a lead.Throw in comedy scouting,and it’s not too difficult to see how far we have downsized in a very short period.
“More alarming is the way that he steadfastly refuses to countenance any variation from his 4-2-3-1.”
Croppybhoy,
This season alone we’ve deviated more than once from this.
HH