Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Ben Hutchinson back in full training this week
Ben Hutchinson
expects to return to full training this week after missing preseason through
injury. The Celtic striker reported, "I'm
not targeting a first-team game to return for. Not yet. I'll probably play a
few reserve games first and make them my pre-season games. This injury meant I
had to miss a fair bit of pre-season so I need to get my match fitness and
sharpness back.
"I'm not having any more treatment now. I'm doing ball work and sessions
in the gym as I get fit again. I'm not training with the rest of the team yet;
I'm mostly on my own or with the physios.
"I went to the St Mirren game, our season opener. It was good to witness
what happens on 'Flag Day' and this year there was special significance.
Rosemary, the widow of Tommy Burns, unfurled the flag. It was an emotional
occasion.
"It seems like a great tradition of this football club. Normally it's the
chairman that unfurls the flag but this time it was different. Tommy is missed
by everyone here. He was such a big part of Celtic - it was a nice way to pay
tribute to him."
You can send Ben questions at his icons page.
It is hard to know why he failed so comprehensively. An outstanding debut at Pittodrie convinced us all that we had found the spark for our midfield, but a couple of aberrations at Old Trafford the following month were more telling portents.
What ability he had was well disguised; a hat trick at Love St and an impressive finish at Ibrox were lost amid a series of anonymous displays. Exactly one year to the day after he joined Celtic he departed on loan to Everton, a move which confirmed his days as a top flight footballer were over.
In a year he went from the Real Madrid midfield to being kept out of the Celtic cup final squad by Teddy Bjarnason, a player who only managed a single appearance for the club in four years and now earns his money playing for Lyn Oslo.
Thomas is a case study in how difficult it is to recruit the proven article. He was only 30-years-old when he joined, one year older than Barry Robson is now, an age you would expect a central midfield player to be at his most effective, and had spent nine years playing top flight football in Germany, England and Spain before arriving in Glasgow.
We will never sign a player who looks so good on paper.
Maybe the prospects were so good we should have looked deeper; with a CV like that, he could have gone anywhere, but it was not as though he was short of offers two years ago from England. Celtic won his signature because he genuinely wanted to play in front of the Celtic Park crowd he enjoyed on occasion as a spectator. He was also offered the most rewarding contract in Celtic history, one that would have made Paul Lambert's agent proud.
Having given this some thought, I cannot produce a strategy that would have uncovered evidence to dissuad me from wanting Thomas to join two years ago.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Licensed trade recoil from TV subscriptions
The Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers
(ALMP) report that the number of their member pubs who subscribe to BSkyB's premium
package, which costs close to £13,000, is down 20% from its peak, with more
expected to decline their renewal this month.
Setanta Sports partner with BSkyB
for the licensed trade.
A fall in demand for increasingly expensive subscription football will take a
few years to seep through to the game itself as contracts exist in both
Scotland and England for years to come, but English football in particular is
particularly dependent on TV money and will be challenged if revenues soften.
Good.
