It wasn’t just the result, which was enormously satisfying, but the manner of Celtic’s performance yesterday was equally gratifying. We passed with speed and precision, creating space between what was often two blocks of five defenders. Hearts were in a sorry state but despite enduring the consequences of being unable to pay their dues, they remain considerably more resourceful than many of the lower league teams which have caused Celtic problems in cup competitions in recent seasons.
We finally got to see what the fuss over Nir Biton was all about. He brought control, time and space to the play. In particular I liked the way he tried to retain possession. Hope we see more of him in the weeks to come.
While most attention was drawn to the striker position following defeat to Milan last week, central midfield, bereft of recent departures, the injured and suspended, was just as under-resourced. The opportunity is there for Biton to grab a place for himself, just as Victor did a couple of years ago.
Christmas book offer:
To mark yesterday’s 7 goals, you can order a copy of last year’s CQN Annual (we’ve only a few boxes left), plus Willie Wallace’s Heart of a Lion, for only £7 (UK, Ireland only). Email David, david@cqnmagazine.com, who will organise. Once they’re gone, they’re gone…….
You can order this year’s CQN Annual below:
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I try to be a better man but I must admit I do not sympathise with Owen Coyle following his most recent dismissal.
He disrespected Celtic as far as I’m concerned and that is unforgivable.
SwanseaBhoy
is the draw live on the telly?
Mr Murphy actually did exactly what the cardigan told him to do. He gave Scott McDonald onside when he should have been off. Walter said next time he should be quicker to put his flag up – so he did!
youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s26IN8QUAUA
Good to see the team playing some great stuff, thought the passing was exceptional with izzy and lustig playing like wingers.
Hopefully we can keep it up now for the remainder of the season and crack on and claim the double HH
SFTB
Mate it’s not that long ago since MON’s Celtic were gubbing teams 4-5-6 Nil. We even did the old Huns over 7 times in a season…………7 is ma favourite number BTW.
I feel that our game is about to blossom, Utd and Dons are picking up, Hibs could make a fist of it soon with fresh management, the national sides at most levels are even looking decent.
DBBIA..
Rigor Mortis?
Please give Sevco an away game at St Mirren and let them get humped there.
Has the Nevin interview been published?
Robert88. It will make it hard for Kayal and Rogic if Biton can perform like that on a regular basis.Mind you if Joe Ledley doesnt sign a new contract soon I would not play him and that would create a place for one of them. H.H.
Heated balls are home balls.
SFTB
Good post fella. If we dont see something different in January then its the same cycle. Ledley + Sammi = Wanyama + Hooper etc. I keep saying it. Reward those that have delivered. Improve those that are improving. Keep our best players. After one good game Nir is already being touted. We dont need to sell but we need to keep players happy. If they have delivered why not ?
HH
Cold balls are away balls.
Joe Filippis Haircut. thats a fair point, but I cant see ledley leaving like hooper has, and fight relegation over silverware and champs league for a nice packet! As good as Kayal is he’s never kicked on from when he joined the club, hes a steady player but hasnt gone onto play like most thought he would have.
Chairbhoy 13:06
Always think Broonie looks a much better player on the right or further forward.
Agree with that. Good player as he is, I think he lacks a bit of tactical discipline to play at the base of midfield. Gives away fouls in dangerous areas too. Never really saw the best of him under Strachan or Mowbray because of this.
Celtic and their cold balls have been drawn Away 13 out the last 14 games in the Scottish Cup.
robert88
13.09
I agree entirely, Kayal not good enough and Biton will fill that solid/holding middle of midfield position. I get the feeling that NFl has instructed him to play the simple game till he gets with the pace and then he will start to express himself more as he gains confidence.
DBBIA
” I was mildly surprised to see a ‘Scottish Labour’ tifo at the ice rink end.”
My memory may be playing tricks but I seem to recall an advert within a stadium (Starks Park or Dunfermline??) for the local Tory MP or was it UKIP? Anyone confirm?
Imagine the hysteria if the Tom Daley admission got picked up wrongly as Jon Daly by fans of Scotland’s newets club. An Irish player who is also gay.
#Sevcocmeltdown
Árd Macha
Celtic v KIlmarnock scheduled for Sat 11th Jan 3pm has been moved to Weds 29th Jan 7:45pm after a request made by Celtic.
Sevco were also at home on that date.
Caution CSC
Well said Paul re. Biton.
If I could be bothered finding it I would search out my post of months ago when I said I liked the look of Nir the first time I saw him – just to show off. you understand. He reminded me of Big Vic in the sense that some of the game was passing him by at the start (a lot of fans forget that Vic was a really slow starter for us!).
I will also go on record again as saying IMO big Amido looks like he could be the real deal, given a wee run in the team. Neil gave wee Pukki a good half dozen games or maybe more to find his feet, it’s about time Balde got his turn.
This will be Sevco…
In the middle of English football’s greatest
ever boom, a proud club is being publicly
strangled, and those who run the game are
accused of being no more use than
bystanders. Coventry City, formed in 1883
by workers at Singers’ cycle factory, are
owned 130 years later by Sisu, a hedge
fund specialising in “distressed debt”, using
money from unnamed sources via the
Cayman Islands.
Sisu’s decision to take the club 35 miles
from Coventry to Northampton Town’s
Sixfields Stadium, and play hardball with
Coventry city council, which built and
owns the high-quality, 32,000-seat Ricoh
Arena, has proven catastrophically
unpopular with supporters.
The manager Steven Pressley’s
remarkably positive start to the season,
with a cut-price squad of mostly academy
graduates, skidded to two home defeats last
week: 5-1 to Tranmere then 3-0 to
Rotherham. The crowds were 1,815 then
1,961, comfortably the lowest at any
League One match, at the club served by
Jimmy Hill, Willie Carr and Keith
Houchen, which spent 34 years in the top
division before relegation from the Premier
League in 2001. The presence of around
7,000 fans watching Pressley’s team win
3-1 at MK Dons on Saturday demonstrated
abiding support for the club and
overwhelming rejection of the move to
Northampton.
The council, with the Alan Edward
Higgs Charity which, as Arena Coventry
Limited, jointly run the Ricoh, recently
offered Sisu a return rent-free, paying only
matchday costs, but Joy Seppala, Sisu’s
chief executive, has refused even those
terms. She is insisting the council should
sell Sisu the freehold ownership of the
Ricoh Arena, which cost £113m to build;
Mark Labovitch, a Sisu director, suggested
to the Guardian that Sisu’s valuation of the
arena could be as low as £4m. The council,
which spent £14m of council taxpayers’
money building the arena, is not inclined
to be harried into selling a major civic
asset, and certainly not cheaply.
Bob Ainsworth, Labour MP for
Coventry north east, who has been
extremely critical of Sisu’s conduct and the
Football League for agreeing to the
Northampton move, said in a
parliamentary debate last month “The
club’s hedge-fund owners and its boss, Joy
Seppala, want the stadium, the freehold
and the surrounding land, but they do not
want to pay more than a pittance for it,
and have moved the club out of the city
and nearly destroyed it in order to achieve
that.”
Sisu bought the financially distressed
club in December 2007, eyeing millions to
be made by winning promotion to the
Premier League. Little complaint was
heard from Sisu then about the rental
arrangement they accepted at the Ricoh,
agreed under previous owners who had
sold the club’s old Highfield Road ground
but then spent all the proceeds.
Seppala explained to the Guardian that
Sisu’s investment was made using private
equity and hedge funds. The Arvo Master
Fund, registered in Grand Cayman, now
providing money to fund losses at
Northampton which Sisu has projected as
£3m a year, is a hedge fund. Seppala
would not name any investors, but said
they are European and Asian pension
funds, and American universities’
endowment funds. Most hedge funds, she
said, are “domiciled” in tax havens like the
Cayman Islands because it means they
avoid paying capital gains tax.
Sisu burned through around £36m on
players’ wages, transfer fees and other
losses, which brought them only relegation
from the Championship. Asked how
pension fund managers and American
universities feel about so much of their
money being lost on an English football
venture, Seppala replied: “There is no
timeframe in which one needs to crystallise
value. We believe there is immense value
creation to happen in the future.”
Seppala, who says “I know nothing
about football” almost as an expression of
objectivity, explained she reviewed the
investment two years ago, and decided, five
years after buying the club, that their
£1.2m annual rent at the Ricoh was
“stratospheric” and they had to gain
control of matchday income such as food
sales and car parking.
Negotiations were held with ACL and
the Higgs charity, but no deal was done,
then in March 2012, Sisu simply stopped
paying the rent. Sisu’s failure to “honour
its obligations”, as the club’s administrator
later described it, put ACL under severe
financial pressure. The council, to stabilise
the position, borrowed money to pay off
ACL’s mortgage, effectively becoming ACL’s
banker itself, and earning a little profit
from the interest payments.
Sisu actually sued the council, arguing
it had acted illegally, a judicial review
claim thrown out by Mr Justice Males in
July. The judge said Sisu “had caused rent
to be withheld as a means of exerting
pressure [on ACL] in their commercial
negotiations”.
ACL had to sue for a net £600,000
owed, then when Sisu still did not pay,
applied for the club to go into
administration. Sisu were by far the largest
creditor due to the hedge fund millions
they had put in as loans, and so were able
to buy the club back from administration.
Tim Fisher, working for Sisu as the
club’s chief executive, discussing the
acrimonious detail, told a London
supporters club meeting in July: “SISU is a
distressed debt fund and therefore batters
people in court.”
Sisu brought the council back to court
last week, overturning Mr Justice Males’s
judgment, gaining the right to proceed with
its judicial review claim.
Despite everything, in the summer ACL
still offered Sisu dramatic rent reductions,
but Sisu refused and instead decided to
move Coventry City to Northampton. The
Football League board, chaired by Greg
Clarke, worried that if they refused, Sisu
might still not agree a rent at the Ricoh,
and the club would have nowhere to play.
So they allowed a five-year move, provided
Sisu are making efforts to move back to
Coventry, a decision bitterly criticised by
many supporters, and Ainsworth.
Seppala rejects the accusation that she
is seeking to put ACL and the council into
financial distress to buy the arena on the
cheap. She says she will not take the club
back as tenants because the relationship
with ACL has broken down – even though
ACL have offered a rent-free return this
season, and just £100,000 for the next two
if the club is still in League One.
Seppala claims if Sisu do not get the
arena, they will build their own stadium,
on some site in the Coventry area covered
for planning by a different council. That,
an unusual project for offshore pension
and US university endowment funds, with
a 32,000 seat arena already built in
Coventry, looks a very distant prospect.
The council leader, Ann Lucas, has said
that although they want City back, she will
not allow “paralysis” to continue. The
suggestion is that if Sisu maintains its
refusal, in the new year ACL will seriously
consider a Ricoh Arena future without
Coventry’s football club. ACL believe more
concerts, prestige sporting fixtures – the
Ricoh hosted 12 Olympic football matches –
possibly a rugby club tenant, will pay the
arena’s way.
Sisu, which bought a Championship
club with eyes open, are perhaps
overestimating their negotiating power to
pressure a local council into ceding a
public asset. The hedge fund are now
Northampton Town’s tenants, losing
investors a further £3m a year, sending a
small, very young squad into a League One
winter. And the vast majority of Coventry
City supporters are staying away, outraged
that modern football has brought them to
this.
When is cup draw ?
See if we’re unlucky enough to get that manky mob in the next round, I hope it’s @ Parkhead, we can then make it a season ticket game, and charge them £75 a ticket.
Just for expenses like.
Make sure they dont profit from it!
HH
2pm on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s26IN8QUAUA
Good Article Paul.
Bawsman.
The Nevin interview won’t appear until the Jan issue of the magazine. There are a couple of things to follow up on it.
We are also taking articles no for that issue if anyone wants to contribute — just e-mail the usual address or better still me at editor@cqnmagazine.com and I will look at all submissions.
I would expect to have one or two other interesting features in the mag beyond the Pat Nevin interview. We are also looking at introducing a quiz feature ( possibly with a prize– a guilt framed photo of Paul67 has been suggested— but discounted alas on grounds of taste ).
If you haven’t ordered the 2014 annual yet then please get going if you want one for Christmas.
BRTH
Hope we avoid the morally bankrupt newco fae Govan as they dont deserve to breath the same air as us never mind hang onto our coat tails on the footbal field.
Wee rovers at home will do for me :))
setting free the bears supports Resolution 12 & Oscar Knox
13:21 on 2 December, 2013
‘DBBIA
” I was mildly surprised to see a ‘Scottish Labour’ tifo at the ice rink end.”
My memory may be playing tricks but I seem to recall an advert within a stadium (Starks Park or Dunfermline??) for the local Tory MP or was it UKIP? Anyone confirm?’
####
It was Starks Park during a local by election.
I think the calculation was that Gordon Brown might attend, so lots of coverage.
Party political hoardings seem to be quite common at smaller grounds.
A question about yesterday.
When watching in a bar I commented on the number of long passes pinged with accuracy from more than the usual single souce i.e Charlie Mulgrew.
Now was the fact that Hearts did not pressure the passer a factor or do we have players who have more in their locker than critics give them credit for?
Did playing Mulgrew deeper give us options for longer passing from other positions?
Whatever the answer we were a treat to watch yesterday.
Hope Sevco get the sheep in the draw.
I would like Celtic to get a tie at Dunfermline. We won’t be at home anyway.
I always liked the Pars decent enough fans. Was in their end in 88 when big Packie lost the ball in the sun. Was only 10 and their fans were very decent with me and my old man.
Now Yorkston is out the picture I wouldn;t mind them getting a few quid.
LB
setting free the bears supports Resolution 12 & Oscar Knox
13:21 on 2 December, 2013
And it was UKIP.
Parkheadcumsalford who is supporting the Amsterdam 5
12:20
It should certainly be part of our playbook. I’m sure it’ll give us results. I noticed Sammi’s big grin too. He has embraced the Celtic ideal.
Still buzzing from yesterday’s performance. It’s a while since I’ve seen a Celtic team pass so confidently. Ledley was on form too.
If there is a downside to scoring seven (!) yesterday it would be that none of our strikers scored
Bawsman
“Mate it’s not that long ago since MON’s Celtic were gubbing teams 4-5-6 Nil.”
I did use the word regular.
A quick check on MON’s time shows
2000-01 – a 4 game run of 4:2, 7:0 (Jeunesse), 6:2 (guess who?) and 4:0. Later there was a run of 6:0, 2:0, 4:0, 6:0 which is as close as it gets to your suggestion.
2001-02- Best spell was 4:0 (Well), 3:1 (Ayr), 5:1(Livi), 5:0 (Dunf) late on in the season.
2002-03- 4 game run in Oct. where we scored 4 four times in a row but only one of those was a clean sheet. Then a run in May of 4:1, 4:0, 1:0 (Hearts) and 6:2; we broke that run in Seville a week later.
2003-4- Nov. saw a run of 5:0, 3:1(Anderlecht CL), 5:0 and 5:1
2004-05- Nothing like it till Feb/Mar where, after a defeat by Rangers, it was 5:0 (Clyde-SC), 3:0, 3:1 and 6:0 (Dunf)
So, even in your reconstructed memory, it was not as regular as you say. However, they were good times too.
Hello to the blog, first time post from a long time lurker, I’ve dropped in here most days of every week and after years of dropping in I’m still overawed by the high quality of many posters who have expanded my knowledge of many subjects due to the quality of posts and the breadth of subjects covered, many thanks.
Re the possibility of a cup tie with the tribute act, I believe it’s a defining monkey off the back moment for both sets of supporters; we should look forward to an opportunity to do the talking on the park, give them a game, pump them and forget about them.
As my moniker suggests the Minty “for every fiver…” got under my skin, we are already demonstrating off the park that for every fiver we spend the tribute act will need to spend a tenner, I am looking forward to giving them another lesson on the park.
PS no I’m not.
HH.
Celtic have been drawn Away 13 out the last 14 games in the Scottish Cup.
The Pat Nevin interview hasn’t been published yet. It will be published in the next edition of CQN Magazine which is out early next month. If anyone would like to write for the mag please email me – david@CQNMagazine.com
Order the 2014 CQN Annual from the link below Paul’s post.
For ticket reservations for CQTEN please email celticquicknews@gmail.com – hurry before all tickets are gone!
ernie
Cheers for that. Politics in stadiums eh?
Green Brigade and UKIP up on the same charge. :-)