It is difficult to overstate the importance of Sunday’s cup final to Motherwell. They have won as many major trophies in the last 65 years as Celtic have won European Cups in the same period. What an opportunity they have.
Sunday might be just another final to you and me, or more importantly, to the Celtic players, but it is a date with destiny for all at Motherwell.
Right now, Celtic players will still be de-escalating emotions from Wednesday night. It is difficult to switch from one emotional peak straight into an equally intense state, but if we do not find our sharpness or thought and body, the Invincible trail will end this weekend.
I don’t think that will happen; there should be a backlash from Celtic. The open wounds from Wednesday will be used as fuel. The players have been slapped about by the hurt of defeat and will want to avoid a repeat on a national cup final. If Motherwell want to win, score a goal, or if they even want to pass the ball, they will have to operate at a level they have only attained for seconds this season.
The stakes are as high for both teams. Let’s hope the matter is decided without controversy.
Have a great and memorable day at Hampden.
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BIG JIMMY .
A better arrangement would be for you to come to the BV and I’ll pay for your taxi fare there and back to the Saltmarket.
Bom dia
Yeah, Brendan’s tactics are guff, he needs to learn.
Get a good solid centre back, someone who won’t take prisoners.
It’ll no doubt work cos PSG and red other greats won’t have experienced that before.
Turnips.
Read what his words, realise the drawbacks Celtic face fiscally et-al. Realise what Brendan is trying to do: it’s not about today, not even tomorrow, but a chance, yes a chance, to get the club closer to the previously unnattainable, regular consistent CL participation.
The club, not just this present team will learn grow and perhaps if stupidity doesn’t hamstring him, we may realise our dreams.
Can someone tell me where it says you can’t defend properly unless you park the bus?
Seven defenders in the box and none of them within five yards of one of the best strikers in the world?
It doesn’t require bus parking to fix this.
Tontine Tim
Dallas ? He was refereeing the Salzburg – Guimares match!
Incredible, given his lack of ability, mistakes and level of criticism.
Right enough lack of any quality hasn’t hampered Collum.
Lustig and Bitton at Ross Hall last night…
Sinclair and Armstrong will come back in on Sunday which should give us a freshness. I would go with James and Moussa with Paddy and Griff on the bench. Any word on Lustig?
Out walking the dug yesterday when Mrs TT turned tae me and said “Jock Stein widnae lose 7-1”, my response was “whit, in his first 2 months he lost 2-6 and 1-5 at Brockville and East End Park respectively.
He did learn and it was another 6 years before we suffered another heavy defeat, 1-4 tae the harry wraggs and that was a freak result.
He learned fae that tae and went out and bought Denis Connaghan and Dixe soon after that.
OLDTIM67
I’d pay for his taxi fare in the opposite direction!!!
Only kidding,BIGJIMMY was exactly the person I thought I would meet. Smashing fella.
Yer no too bad yerself,mind(!)
HH
So according to some we need a right back at least one centre back if not 2 and a new keeper who can kick the baw.
With all that in mind why o why would you want to” park the bus “especially in what was for the most part a Dead rubber.
??????????.
TONTINETIM 221
I was Celtic Boy in The View that day. Wee photograph,who’s your favourite player.
It was also the first time I’d seen Celtic lose. Four years,half my life,never seen us lose.
I got used to it. Some days,like 1971,a bad day at the office,and find out why. Others,we knew why.
JIMBO67 mentions today that we have a poor record in this cup. It’s incredibly bad.
I think we were in 12 finals in a row,and lost half of them. The first time I saw us win that cup,I was 20yo.
I was 35yo the next time
I hate that cup!
Btw,I’m sure we signed DConnaghan ASAP after the semi. Played a blinder,£10,000 on the table right away.
Dixie,well,if you’re lucky you’ll hear some tales about him. And I reckon you know more of them than me!
Even if you park the bus it has to be parked in the right place.
On the 3rd and 4th goals the other night we had plenty parked buses unfortunately in all the wrong places.
The lack of a defensive leader and organizer hurts us.
Maybe it will give the coaches food for thought that on each of those goals we outnumbered them yet on each they had at least 3 men in clear scoring positions with not one of our players near him?
Fan a tic- careful not to post any Celtic based opinions mate, some botons on here take it that you could do better than Brendan.
BMCUWP
6 wins out of 14 finals – 1 from the last 8!
Connaghan made his debut the Wednesday after the 4-1 debacle at East End Park. Thought he was signed immediately after the final but could be wrong.
Dixie was technically an inelligible signing as he was signed when suspended. Same with Alex Edwards moving to Hibs at same time. Both signing clubs were fined
Jimbo67
SHOOIE on 24TH NOVEMBER 2017 12:29 PM
Against PSG we didn’t play well but equally we carried no luck !
………………………
We played well sporadically but in between those moments we were poor.
We gave the ball away cheaply & lost goals as a direct result.
We failed to defend at set pieces even though we brought everyone back.
On those occasions we couldn’t even park the bus properly.
IMHO Brendan is the best manager we have had since Jock Stein, but even Jock’s team had bad days at the office. Brendan has improved the team & the club, and not necessarily just from signings, but having a philosophical perspective after heavy defeats is beginnin to sound like Tony Mowbrayish.
Jock also famously parked the bus in the 2nd leg against Dukla Prague because he knew when his head had to rule his heart. The PSG game was not in that category, but was the team chosen & were the tactics right for that game?
It’s easy to be right after the game, but we could not transition quickly enough or effectively enough against PSG. They on the other hand did exactly that all night long. Giving the ball away cheaply just set us up for their excellent transition.
Luck seemed to be a factor too, but there is a tired saying about the harder you work the luckier you tend to be. Not always appropriate because we can all see how hard many of the team have worked to change to Brendan’s system – successfully.
After it became 1-1 we seemed to make wrong choices all over the field & I began to expect players to miss pass, go short when the pass was long, or vice versa.
I do question how the team was set up & the lack of any real leadership or steadying influnce on the field.
Once we lost the 2nd goal, we lost our composure & chased after the ball. I was delighted to hear the HT whistle & impressed how we had regained our composure in the 2nd half. We still rode our luck but we had our shape back & looked unlike the team that trooped off after 45 minutes. Replacing Ntcham in midfield affected our shape.
Having said all of that, PSG played as a team & we rarely did.
Like Jock, Brendan is a student of the game & I believe he will know what has to be done in terms of personnel & tactics. He deserves the best backing the board & the club can give him. He’s earned that.
I imagine that even Jock would have struggled to find success with the disparity between the top European clubs and Celtic.
PSG were fined by UEFA in 2014 for breaches of the FFP regulations.
This year they paid 222Million Euros for Neymar & got Mbappe on a loan-to-puchase deal worth 180Million Euros. On Wednesday their 3 subs were all full Argentine internationals.
They are owned by Oryx Qatar Sports Investments who bought a controlling 70% of the shares and became the majority shareholder. Colony (29%) and Butler (1%) remained minority shareholders. The deal, worth €50m, covered €15–20m in debt and €19m in losses from the 2010–11 season.
(Shamelessly cribbed from Wikipedia)
Those sums mean that 70% share off the club was bought for 10 to 15 million Euros.
PSG’s location & the muscle of the French league within Uefa made them an attractive investment.
Celtic hold no such attraction. As things stand PSG may well replicate our feat of becoming champions of Europe next May.
HH
I watched Christy Moore on catchup rte player and have never laughed as much, his song about 4 Irish boys being made redundant and going to Amsterdam for the weekend on their redundancy money. I can’t do the you you tube link but if anybody needs a cheer up after Wednesday I’m sure this will do the trick it is the same tune as the Isle of Man song and is titled weekend in Amsterdam Christy Moore. My opinion on parking the bus re PSG it was not a knockout tie, we were playing for points and trying to be aggressive to win three so there is no way I would criticise Brendan . HH
BADA BING
I know;-))
And there was me thinking that it was a forum where Celtic supporters could voice opinion.
Even someone as thick as me(courtesy of an ubertim on here) realizes that the coaches and players pay no attention to our uttering.
JOHN51
Very good post
.A transitional game is the result of a combination of smart coaching and players capability to execute.
They were excellent and clinical in that strategy.
We are not quite there yet but hopefully coaches are working on.
Good teams always seem injury free and lucky.Hail Hail
67 EUROPEAN CUP WINNERS on 24TH NOVEMBER 2017 1:15 PM
The ability to park the bus on occasion, if the need arises, could in future make the difference between qualifying and not qualifying in Europe.
It would be nice to have the option available.
http://www.celticquicknews.co.uk/celtic-supporters-moussa-dembele-needs-your-help/
Voie Cast for Moussa. Currently in 2nd place. Tried to give him a 2nd vote but the French don’t seem to have a sense of humor.
GLASSTWOTHIRDSFULL on 24TH NOVEMBER 2017 1:53 PM
Can someone tell me where it says you can’t defend properly unless you park the bus?
###
With respect you’re missing the point.
Parking the bus means a whole different attitude for the entire game for the whole side. It means every player concentrates on one objective: not to concede a goal.
If everyone is signing from the same hymn sheet, and thinking the same thing, there’s less chance of anyone switching off, or being on a different wavelength to the rest. So fewer daft mistakes.
re the 2-1 win v Barcelona. Big Forster was immense that night. Without him we would have been well beaten.
I do recall the next time NFLs team played Barça we were beaten 6-1.
hate to say it but these recent humiliations have a common denominator I.e Neymar.
Horrible git but great player. Should have been man marked, not given the freedom he had.
Ernie Lynch
Fans who actually attend games don’t much like Celtic parking the bus. Who would we practise such a tactic against?
It’s all very well advocating tactics from your computer room but your opinion would carry more weight if you were a regular attender.
Ern I await your response with interest, please tell me you are a regular attendee at our games. H H Hebcelt
Season 2016 / 2017 .. Celtic Champions of Scotland ..
Psg 2nd in the French League ..
Worth remembering that Celtic are Scottish Champions, and that Psg
finished second in their league last year, 8 points behind Monaco ..
In days of the old European Cup, Psg wouldn’t have been in it ..
I don’t count results against 2nd place league teams, who only manage
to get into the competition by default, through TV deals !!!!
GER57
Why would Ernies opinion carry more wait if he attends games in person?
I live in USA so get to few live games, one this season so far and three last season so have to see my team via Celtic tv and it’s disheartening to find that not being a regular attendee that the drivel i post on here is less valid than those who do see the team live.
The Paddy Power site has McInnes and mcLeish at 6/ and 2/1 respectively then has Graeme Murty with a lock next to his name but no odds. Anyone know what that means?
JJ
Fan-a-tic
I am sure Ger57`s post was directed towards someone who chooses not to go to games. I am also sure you realise that yourself.
JJ
PS The above does NOT mean I agree with Ger57`s point.
Oops! 6/4 and 2/1
HOT SMOKED
I was just curious as to why he holds that opinion.
Many have posted the same on here.
James Forrest who posts on here and has a very pro Celtic blog and he has very clearly stated why he does not go to see Celtic live.
I still view his opinion on Celtic matters valid.
GER57 on 24TH NOVEMBER 2017 3:53 PM
I wasn’t suggesting that the bus be parked because it’s what the fans wanted.
I was suggesting the bus be parked when required, because it was required.
Because getting a draw rather than a defeat, or conceding three goals rather than five or even seven, might in future mean the difference between progress or otherwise in Europe.
I was also suggesting that the ability t be able to park the bus might just make it slightly less easy for an opposition manager to anticipate how Celtic are going to set out its stall.
As to how to practise the idea, I suggested previously doing it for a short spell, say 15 minutes, in domestic games.
That’s the idea.
If you don’t think it has any merit, I won’t be losing any sleep about it.
As to your suggestion that the merit of the idea can be judged by the number of games I attend, that’s daft.
evening all
Most Tims cant distinguish between the words “Most” and “All”. VFR Kawaski can you help us out with your dickshunary?
Paul67
Mon the backlash
Park the Bus v Open Football
http://www.the42.ie/jurgen-klopp-liverpool-sevilla-champions-league-flawed-human-games-3714286-Nov2017/
Mon the drivelists
‘Michael O’Neill knocked back the Sunderland job for obvious reasons that we don’t know’
Gordon Dalziel