On Friday we discussed that a win over Hibernian would likely be required if we were to maintain our spot at the top of the table, and so it proved. The normal anxiety of slipping two points off the pace is not evident among the support, perhaps because it is Hearts at the top of the pile. That relaxed tone might be justified this season, but will not last forever. Our visit to Tynecastle in four weeks is already looking pivotal.
Although Celtic dropped two points and became only the third side this season who failed to score against Hibs (14 games in), there was evident improvement in the champions’ play. Kelechi Iheanacho looks like he is enjoying playing for a team who create so many chances. He remains short of match practice, which will hopefully sharpen him and covert near misses into goals.
Marcelo Saracchi played his best game so far for Celtic, largely inverting into the old Greg Taylor role. This worked to an extent but left Sebastian Tounekti isolated, without the overlapping foil he has used to such good effect in his previous appearances. Hibs defenders knew to expect him to cut inside and were able to blunt him accordingly.
The right side of attack did not work throughout the game. Anthony Ralston returned from injury behind Daizen Meade. Anthony also played inside yet frequently, looked up to find no one on the wing, as Daizen had drifted into the middle. James Forrest did not improve things when he came on. Neither wings worked well.
Benjamin Nygren was one of several players rested ahead of Thursday’s Europa League game. His appearance on 67 minutes added drive to Celtic in the middle of the park, which until then lacked directness. Running at defenders is a low-probability play, but it disrupts opponents who are settled into a solid block.
Fair play to Hibs for coming to Celtic Park and playing out from the back throughout. They are not a great side and relied on free kicks to get into Celtic’s final third, but you can see what David Gray is building.
148 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- »
P67 says: ‘They are not a great side and relied on free kicks to get into Celtic’s final third, but you can see what David Gray is building.’
If anything, currently, what ‘David Gray is building’ is a repute as a Gerrard clone; a cliched copycat of non-football; a see-how-much-time-we-can-waste-by-having-pro-footballers-play-act type of manager. A architect of wasting time, feigning injury, a Cardigan influenced imitation.
It’s thin gruel indeed and in truth we battered them 0-0 !
Historically I’ve always liked the Hibees but they were a cynical bunch abetted by a sleekit ref: I thought they offered little to nothing and were lucky to face us – a side still finding its synchronicity, what with all our last gasp signings.
Belmont Brian
I’ve never met you – it doesnt matter – the good wishes on here speak for themselves.
Best wishes to you and your family.
I dont need to tell you to savour every minute – you will know the score by now.
Currently consoling the missus – we waved goodbye to our daughter at the airport as she left home (for the first time) for a new life. She’ll be back at Xmas anyway :)
I agree with Martin, and will make the point again.
If forecasting football scores was a science the bookies would be out of business….
They’re not….
quadro
agreed – i like the hibees too
its the ref I blame – 100%
hes the guy who blows the whistle and ignores the rules
AT,
I call out all racism.
You conveniently missed the last bit :-
“Let’s call out the evil of racism, but not selective racism and not as a throw away remark or jibe to stiffle debate or to end a conversation. ”
It was me who posted about the poor Ukrainian refugee’s racist murder.
It took place in the same country as George Floyd’s murder which prompted countless posts on here .In that respect it was relevant as it went viral.
As usual you are off on a tangent. You seem to think you have the moral racism authority on here.
You do not.
Can you call out all racism, not just selective racism.?
I certainly can.
SPIKEYSAULDMAN
I remember when our son moved away, we took it sore, his mum in particular.
Best thing he ever done, it was the making of him, left a bhoy, came back a mhan.
PS
Any recommendations where I can source the best pipes and slippers😉
Playing out from the back, must mean the GK passing it sideways to a defender 5 yards from the goal line, then launches it 60 yards….
BELMONTBRIAN – congrats due on you becoming a Papa!
That’s a Papa – not a Papal ;)
Domestically, Play fast, attacking, exciting football for the full duration of the game and you’ll not witness so many empty seats with 15 minutes to go.
HH.
as someone said earlier we have to have stopwatch proof of amount of time play is stopped during the 90 mins to combat the opposition cheating that is rife when we play , or even when a player goes down due to a head injury and play is stopped then the injured player should not be allowed back onto the pitch for at least 5 mins to ensure he has fully recovered from the head injury.
Belmont Brian
Always good to see joy on the blog.
Congratulations.
Cheers and HH.
If forecasting football scores was a science the bookies would be out of business….
—-
It doesn’t forecast though, CelticMac ?
It’s used as analysis after the game as an indication of how well a side created chances.
The danger with having so little on the right is that opponents will double up on Tounetki. We seen that against Hibs. Being so lob sided will lead to us being easier to set up against.
xG is a total nonsense…
We all recognise ‘a chance’ when we see it.
We can readily tell the difference between a ‘good’ chance and a ‘half’ chance.
We can distinguish between ‘should have scored’ and ‘an absolute sitter’.
And we know that the difference between a ‘no chance’ and a ‘worldie’ is that the ‘no chance’ attempt actually went in.
All xG does is replace the vocabulary with a number:
A good chance is twice as likely to result in a goal as a half chance.
A ‘no chance’ has a 1 in 100 likelihood of turning out to be a worldie.
A good chance we’d expect to score with more often than not – he should have scored; while an absolute sitter is scored 99 times out of 100 – can’t believe he missed that.
So xG is simply assigning a numerical probability of a goal being scored from each attempt in the match, and adding it up to a sum of chances as one means of comparing the performance of each team.
MON has a point in that much of what we hear today is old ideas dressed up in new vocabulary – sorry, but that’s the stock in trade of us consultant types. You won’t pay us to write the same old shit, so we have to come up with new shit.
“We had enough chances to win two games” said MON, reflecting ruefully that his side failed to take their chances, while inadvertently using an xG heuristic.
Did I mention vocabulary? (trying to sound clever)
philcool on 29th September 2025 12:15 pm
I watched the game through Hibs TV and both commentators were aware that the Hibs players were buying free kicks and fouls throughout the game!
They even mentioned that they were throwing themselves down on the ground at the least contact received!!
_______
That has been a feature of all our domestic opponents’ play this season and last. VAR and statistical analysis have largely curtailed the advantage R2ngers, in particular, previously enjoyed. Now, the tactic deployed by the opposition is to drop like a stone when challenged by a Celtic man. A foul against the Hoops is guaranteed – 95% success rate.
I went down to the crossroads
Fell down on my knees
Down to the crossroads
Fell down on my knees
Asked the Lord above for mercy
Take me, if you please
I went down to the crossroads
Tried to flag a ride
Down to the crossroads
Tried to flag a ride
Nobody seemed to know me
Everybody passed me by
Well, I’m going down to Rosedale
Take my rider by my side
Going down to Rosedale
Take my rider by my side
We can still borrow a house, baby
On the riverside
Going down to Rosedale
Take my rider by my side
Going down to Rosedale
Take my rider by my side
We can still borrow a house, baby
On the riverside
You can run, you can run
Tell my friend boy Willie Brown
Run, you can run
Tell my friend boy Willie Brown
And I’m standing at the crossroads
Believe I’m sinking down
Robert Johnson 1934
Baker, Bruce, Clapton. March 10th, Winterland Ballroom 1968.
As I said earlier – thought we did OK versus Hibs.
Where could we improve?
As an amateur observer, I think we are missing a trick by not mixing up our game just slightly.
Nothing particularly scientific.
If faced with a low block and a settled defence?
Assuming they are coached to hold a low position? …
… Explore other ways to unsettle them.
Just sometimes
Early balls into the box.
Balls over the top into centre left and centre right channels.
Tounetki already showing signs of being drilled to recycle the ball more.
Come inside and just shoot or fire a wicked low ball in and get the team to work the ricochet.
Back to Basics
Is that Rick O’Shea from Falcarragh?🤔
An earlier poster mentioned shooting?
The power and conviction in our shooting is, IMHO, poor.
The old fashioned “burst the net” killer instinct is missing.
We seem to have a high incidence of feeble side footers getting blocked.
If it is only against us that teams are allowed to feign head injury, waste time and so on, Celtic need to call it out, as the SMSM certainly won’t. If it is common practice throughout Scottish football, it is a sad indictment on the standard of football here.
BRRB – the very one.
Back to Basics
🤣
DeniaBhoy on 29th September 2025 1:53 pm
650,000 . . . sure I typed in 60,000.
Thought we had rebuilt the main stand there 😂🤣😅
Prestonpans
You been on the gin again?🤔
B2B
Yep. Side footing to place the ball in the net if there’s a space , but if there’s a zillion defenders in front of you a blooter is called for . BR should sit the players down to watch some footage of Tommy Gemmell goals .
BRRB
Gin embargo Monday-Thursday, unless I’m at the caravan, which I’m not after looking at the weather forecast for later this week 😡
An Dun
I think you will find that xG is used as a forecasting tool, before every match. (Any fool can analyse the game after it is finished even Danny Murphy). And it is used as one metric by bookmakers when setting odds, more successfully I would suggest than the gamblers.
You dont need a weatherman to know which way the wind blow…
“The old fashioned “burst the net” killer instinct is missing.
We seem to have a high incidence of feeble side footers getting blocked.”
That reminds me of a wee exercise I gave the boys back in the day. The idea of it was to get them to understand that scoring was a deliberate act rather than a random event – that scoring a goal was not down to luck, but instead to clarity and deliberateness in the finish.
If you can be bothered, here’s the wee exercise.
Lionel Messi scored 91 goals in the year 2012. Take a piece of paper and draw a goal frame on it.
Now watch the following video of Messi’s 2012 goal haul, and each time he scores mark an X in the goal frame at the point the ball crosses the line.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OkIb1pnOm8
How many ‘burst the net’ and how many were perhaps more akin to a ‘feeble side footer’?
TL:DR There were a couple of blooters, but the vast majority of his finishes were deliberately placed in the corner of the goal, or otherwise in the place the keeper was least able to cover. He puts the ball in the place it’s most likely to go into the net, with typically no more pace than required to get there. There are some highly skilful finishes in that lot, but most of them just put the ball in the corner where the keeper can’t get it.
For Celtic, CalMac has been the best proponent of this I’ve seen recently.
I’d suggest that rather than blootering the ball, our players need to get better at putting it in the corner of the net. Practice and all that.
91 goals in a season wasn’t a statistical blip, it’s a practiced technique.
Prestonpans
Nae luck J. I’m off to Stirling tomorrow. Probably be pishing doon. 🙄
THE BATTERED BUNNET on 29TH SEPTEMBER 2025 2:30 PM
xG is a total nonsense…
We all recognise ‘a chance’ when we see it.
We can readily tell the difference between a ‘good’ chance and a ‘half’ chance.
—-
All XG does is quantify this to allow ready analysis and tracking.
Prior to XG we had shots on target. XG seems a far more accurate analysis of chance creation than bare bone stats like shots on target.
CELTIC MAC on 29TH SEPTEMBER 2025 3:16 PM
An Dun
I think you will find that xG is used as a forecasting tool, before every match. (Any fool can analyse the game after it is finished even Danny Murphy). And it is used as one metric by bookmakers when setting odds, more successfully I would suggest than the gamblers.
You dont need a weatherman to know which way the wind blow…
—-
Bookies may look at XG trends, but XG is a post match measurement and used in post match analysis by professional clubs.
No manager I’m aware of sits before a match and tells players what they’re trended to score prior to kick off.
Greenpinata on 29th September 2025 2:16 pm
AT,
GP- I call out all racism.
AT – Do you? I don’t really think you do.
Not that you would see kev racist as racist.
I do.
It’s you who is deflecting racism,be it George or Iryna,no word on the brown/black people theorizing vomit about refugees on a site of a club founded by refugees
GP-You conveniently missed the last bit :-
“Let’s call out the evil of racism, but not selective racism and not as a throw away remark or jibe to stiffle debate or to end a conversation. ”
AT-no such thing as selective racism-just racism
-nothing is a throwaway remark on my part re kevracists scummery-there is only racism
– the only stifling of debate as I see it is you are a little peeved at my continual calling out of a racist poster kevracist
Gp-It was me who posted about the poor Ukrainian refugee’s racist murder.
It took place in the same country as George Floyd’s murder which prompted countless posts on here .In that respect it was relevant as it went viral
AT-Good for you,i answered and offered prayers to the victim of racism,continue to call it out,the offshore media in this country mail,express etc are always willing to post of white victims,augmenting their own editorial racism.
Racism to Iryna,racism to George Floyd should be called out as racism,nothing else
Gp-As usual you are off on a tangent. You seem to think you have the moral racism authority on here.
You do not.
AT- You are just bored with me calling out kevvi’s
racism.
Be clear GP,portray me as skiting of at a tangent.
WRANG!!
My moral direction is clear,snd calm its racism,
not confused/diluted/deflected/selective/partial excusery forwarded by yourself.
I am not looking to set a moral tone,far from it.
I question kevracists racism.it is a particular virulent strain that seems to attach itself to gullable Grifters so called ‘woke’left,it will continue to be called out.
GP-Can you call out all racism, not just selective racism.?
AT i know what racism,your forwarded narrative of it being selective is bollox.its racism.
Ps kevracist wrote of its disgust at taking the knee,it was approached at the time by me,
Not seen any comment on its racism,until today,
even then you fail to acknowledge its racism,its racism behind over 100 changes of monikers and its vomit bout indigenous folk being invaded.
No selection or evasion Gp just straight forward racism
I certainly can.
Do you!I only see you calling a few examples,nowt on kevracist and his continual copy and paste of irish puppeteered pishtriots and their racism,posts bout refugees getting attacked,also heralding the same scum who attacked Celtic fans in Dublin,not a word on kevracists racism on here GP,every point you make has been covered by kevracist,it has also been question.
Maybe by sayin kevvi posts ‘uncomfortable truths’
you were hinting at his excusery at the time,its a lot easier I find just to give its racism a boot in the hawmaws,he has no rational other than post its racism.call it out Gp it Racism.He can be a dafty without racism,Being from the grifter strain of left wing racism it won’t learn anything.that grifter scum are on here in a new monikers
On another moral note,I understand you speaking with forked tongue,your party are cancered by friends of Genocide effect on them.
Keep the armaments supplied to the murderers in israel as they continue their Genocide,haver bout a 2 state solution as the genocidal state says no.
Stop the arms trade.in Palestine its been used to genocide and ethnically cleanse
It’s heid and policy on Palestine is a confused it has been since the Balfour declaration,that show of white racism whereby one white racist(balfour) declared with another white racist(rothschild) about land that belonged to Arabs(brown people),
It’s not like the empire to arrogantly impose its supremacy eh,today’s chaos is a direct result of such arrogance.
HH
An Dun – we are in complete agreement
The fact that bookies avail of XG in formulating odds would lead me to believe it’s quite a useful tool.
V A R has been nothing short of being a disaster,players are going down as if they have been hit by a ton of bricks,in fact I would go along as to say if there is nothing the matter with you yellow card should be produced,it’s blatantly cheating to get your opponent yellow carded,or red carded,and this added time is another joke 45 minutes each half is ample time to win or draw the game.
has it been reported/speculated were daizen was going and for what fee ?
an dun
Its main use, but not its usefulness, is using past performances to predict/forecast the number of goals in a game. If you are not aware of this you must be leading very sheltered life.
Mickey – hows this going ?
=============
During the year we have also made progress with our digital strategy, as we look to enhance engagement and communication with our supporters. The implementation of our digital strategy will lead to improved touch points with our supporters, including the launch of a new Club App, digital ticketing options and the re-development of Celtic TV. We understand that our global supporter base wishes to engage with Celtic in this way and we aim to provide them with the opportunity to benefit from a more seamless experience.