I watched Tottenham at Ibrox last week. They are devastated by injuries at the moment, in particular in central defence, where they played an 18-year-old right back and 22-year-old central defender, albeit, acquired for a combined cost of £50m.
On Sunday. you and I both watched former Tottenham central defender, Cameron Carter-Vickers (26), whom they sold to Celtic for £6m three years ago, deliver an incredible performance at Hampden. Cameron is head and shoulders better than the resources Ange Postecoglou currently has available to him.
Ange had total control of the football department at Celtic, with his signature required on all player and non-player appointments. At Spurs, he is Head Coach, without the same levers.
If you speak to people in the game they all have a view on which model is right: manager running the show, or director of football containing the manager’s influence. Both have their drawbacks.
Ange’s strongest suit at Celtic was recruitment. That £6m he paid Spurs for Cameron Carter-Vickers went a long way to winning the League Cup on Sunday. Splurging £50m on defenders but not having a squad balanced enough to prevent you forcing a teenager right-back out of position, is the antithesis of what he achieved in Glasgow.
If you were being critical of Ange, you could suggest his commitment to playing the same style of football, irrespective of the environment, is unpractical. As Head Coach, this is one of the decisions he is absolutely free to make, so he appears belligerently committed to it. Spurs appointed a recruitment superstar but have not let him shine.
Any excuse to look again at this image! Four men had a dream: to get a shot on goal. It wasn’t to be.
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HH
YNWA SFTB
HH!
RIP Tony, all the best to his family moving forward.
Not so sure Ange had total control in his time here…..
That’s the last couple of Derby games, that a stooge has fed Clement a get out of jail defection card, within minutes of FT,to cover his ineptitude
BADA
That’s fine by me . It just means his ineptitude continues .
From The Herald
Glasgow City Council have no concerns about the temporary alcohol licence that has been granted to Rangers before their January 2 clash with Celtic despite the trouble that occurred in the city over the weekend.
Supporters from both clubs clashed in Glasgow City Centre on Sunday morning and afternoon ahead of the Premier Sports Cup Final at Hampden.
Fans could be seen chasing each other through streets with pyrotechnics thrown into pubs as police tried to control the situation.
Hundreds of supporters were involved from each side but despite that, the council aren’t considering changing their mind on the occasional licence.
Rangers were granted permission to sell alcohol from a temporary marquee in the New Edmiston House car park on January 2, having also been allowed to do it for last week’s game against Tottenham Hotspur too.
Licencing rules mean fans will only be able to purchase four drinks per transaction after a request from Police Scotland.
Fans have to pre-book tickets to enter the marquee, where food will be available and music is allowed to be played, and that has helped ease any worries that trouble could flare.
It’s also understood that the lack of away fans at the Old Firm game on January 2 means there is little to no concern of any trouble occurring because of the alcohol sold at the marquee.
A spokesman for Glasgow Licensing Board said: “Rangers Football Club was granted an occasional alcohol licence for a temporary marquee to be operated within the grounds of their stadium on January 2.
“We were advised the marquee is to be used for a ticketed hospitality event in keeping with previous events where no concerns were raised.
“All licence holders have a duty to fulfil the standards set out in the licensing legislation when operating their licence.
“All licensing legislation is enforced by the police.”
Absolute RR of a defender is CCV; the foundation rock upon which our modern football church is built.
Makes me wonder how – in the world of much vaunted and essential stats and analytics – none of the football people at ye Spurs had an eye for how much of a baller Cameron is or would grow to be.
As for Ange mainly being a recruitment superstar Paul, there is no developed transfer system in Oz to speak of.
Rather, Ange built his teams’ strength by getting rid of any deadwood and billy big baws’s before inculcating his playing style into the more eager playing students. Seems to love his philosophy more than his trading ability.
We got lucky re his short tenure with us and even luckier when Brendan came back to make peace and attend to his unfinished business with us.
——
Also from afar – RIP SFTB.
I ndil chuimhne Tony Gillespie. A true Celt.
🙏🙏🙏
Tony Gillespie 🙏💚
God rest SFTB and condolences to his distraught family.
He was an enormous presence on CQN and his passing leaves big hole here, but an unfillable void at home. RIP HH
An engineer friend of mine likes to say that architects make buildings beautiful, but they make the structures valid and safe. This to me sums up CCV. The commentators were saying that if the Rangers player had squared the ball to the left instead of right it would have been 2-0 at that point, but that picture shows him in the exact spot were that pass is not an easy possibility. Top player!!
Total respect to SFTB (whom I didn’t know) and I hope his family and friends take some strength and consolation from the sentiments and admiration expressed on these pages and elsewhere.
The 18 year old was Archie Gray . Grandson of Frank and great nephew of Eddie. The family were Celtic fans from Castlemilk. Archie was bursting to play at Ibrox.
Does Levy not handle the transfer deals?
Latest article in the DR has the header:
“SFA tell Rangers ‘we got it wrong’ as Hampden chief breaks silence on penalty storm”
Then you go down a few paragraphs:
“reports overnight suggested the SFA have internally accepted a mistake was made ”
So you don’t actually have a direct comment other than Maxwell saying human error can happen anywhere 🤔
CCV might not have been at his best this season but his block at Pittodrie and that work on Sunday shows his true value. An immense signing, essential to our recent success and part of a plan for the future.
I’m not so sure Ange isn’t having a lot of input into the Spurs signings though, or that they made an error in not keeping Cameron. They’re down to the bare bones in defence, but that they’ve ended up with kids in defence is a mixture of bad luck with injuries to Romero, Van de Venn and Davies, and a strategic choice to sign young players over experienced quality.
Its not necessarily Ange’s choice alone, Spurs have a policy of signing young players and developing them for the first team, not for selling – they haven’t bought a player over 26 for 7 or 8 years. But since his arrival they have signed even younger players, only the proven quality of Maddison and Solanke were 26, otherwise 11 players 23 or under. Dragusin was 22 when they signed him, in the Summer they signed 3 18 year olds and a 19 year old for £65m, last year they bought two 23 year olds, two 22 year olds and a 21 year old for around £150m.
Its a guess but I think what we’re seeing at Spurs is similar to what we had at Celtic when he was here (albeit on a different scale) and a large part of why he was given the job. He not only buys into Levy’s medium term plan he wants to expand on it. Spurs, and I think Ange, realise that they will never be able to attract and pay the top talent so they buy players who can become the best and aim to keep them (Levy is notorious for keeping players even when they want to leave).
Its why I think Ange is there for the long run and Levy will hold his nerve. It would be crazy to spend so much money on a team that isnt going to mature for many years and then sack the manager who buys into the plan and is committed to playing the youngsters in any situation. While you could say that Ange bears some responsibility for the long injury list and the lack of motivation from some of the players, a lot of their problems come from the more experienced players losing from and motivation. Son has been a dead loss defensively, Ange publicly called out Werner after his pathetic performance against the Huns.
But you never know with the Spurs fans and Levy. Their last four managers, Conte, Nuno, Mourinho and Pochettino were all better than Ange and all got chased by a mixture of the fans and the owners so its very possible he’ll get hounded out again.
They did sign an 18 year old from South Korea, which is a market they have never bought from before so maybe Ange is using some of his old contacts that have served him so well in the past.
Apologies for turning the blog into SpursQuickNews but it does have some relevance to Celtic past and present
TIMBHOY163 on 17TH DECEMBER 2024 11:51 PM
Tierney to many injuries,along with big wages ,once you leave then there is no comeback ,look at Lennon coming back .
*Bertie Auld
God bless SFTB and his family, again from someone who never met the man, but can tell how respected he was by the posts on this great website.
Ok my friends, in keeping with the injustice being paraded on every Scottish media outlet for thems, how about we look at some of the ones that we remember from various seasons. Just pick one out of the millions of opporchancities that the SFA have screwed us on.
I will start off with John Hartson’s never offisde goal against the Huns in the cup final. At least onside by 2 yards and not even a redneck from the officials, (honorary mention to the handball from Lee Grifiths shot vs Caley in the Scottish Cup with all 3 refs and the one behind the goal staring right at it.
Sean
The club announced a £17.2m loss for the year to June, despite revenue of £88.3m.
if only they got var to work in their favour.
Best wishes to all Tony’s family and friends on this sad day.
cadete
As I said earlier expect a lot of Tavpens in the future!!
BIGBHOY on 18TH DECEMBER 2024 1:02 PM
Spurs operate with a Technical Director who is in charge of recruitment, Daniel Levy makes the big strategic decisions with a chief football officer, but its pretty much accepted that Levy will get involved in some of the transfers as he sees fit to do
The new guy, Johan Lange, had this to say in the Summer after signing a bunch of 18 and 19 year olds:
“We see every transfer window as an opportunity to progress and build the squad in the direction we want to take it… It’s not a one or two window job but the Club has taken some very important steps.”
“We want to be a natural destination for the best talent out there.”
Ange said he same last season
Regarding the CCV tackle…. How on earth did we end up with a “four on one” situation, think our defensive coaches need to look at that !!
“The Var Review” on YouTube on shirt pulling in the box and why they are not keen to give them as penalties.
He states that the stakeholders ( The Clubs I think) have indicated that shirt pulling is not for VAR.
THE STAKEHOLDERS HAVE INDICATED THAT SHIRT PULLING IS NOT FOR VAR.
https://youtu.be/3YZZgquXDig
Willie Collum might just be about to be consistent and say “that decision doesnt go to VAR because the referee called it on the park as a free kick, there was no obvious error and the clubs dont want that reviewed by VAR.
the st mirren v ross county, you could argue that all the defenders are holding all the attackers, but the one punished is the one for the person most likely to get nearest the ball.
eratic on 18th December 2024 2:39 pm
Regarding the CCV tackle…. How on earth did we end up with a “four on one” situation, think our defensive coaches need to look at that !!
we dont have defensive coaches, we have coaches.
the players were all too far forward and to far apart when they lost the ball.
alternatively we were the attacking team, and taylor might have passed to a celt with 3 rangers players too far forward.
I witnessed the most surreal game against our city rivals on Sunday.
It is all sinking in with the euphoria of winning now flattening-out.
The above picture in Paul’s article says it all – four on one thirty yards out, with the next nearest Celtic player ten yards away. How they never scored is crazy. CCV’s part in denying them was astounding.
We have displayed so many different facets to our game in the last five months and sit in position A with everything possible as we approach the new year.
It is very hard to justify criticism of the players and/or management with a record like that.
We took heed from Dortmund that our away CL ties had to be approached differently – lessons were duly learned and implemented.
I’m sure we will give Sunday’s clash much thought and will approach the Ibrox fixture wiser and sharper. HH
unusual a video from ra ragers end.
worth a watch for our celbrations,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96Njkj0VM14
Re CCV photograph and how it came about?
Simple view from me.
Two consecutive mistakes.
Impact at this level is huge.
Root cause of many goals in top flight (excludes the things of beauty, set pieces, wonder free kicks)
Unbelievably difficult for the second guy (acting under pressure) not to compound the first mistake.
In this case, Greg’s newborn fawn routine under the slightest pressure followed by Liam going to ground (albeit unintentionally).
Similar situ in first half put us under pressure.
Greg lost the ball when Paulo B was beyond him .. and Callum rushed in and didn’t get it done.
“Proper” defenders embrace this situation.
CCV’s body language is terrific.
Relaxed but all business
He is almost saying
“Go on then. Your move. Show me what you’ve got”
CCV is what he is. Will go down as one of the all time great Celtic CB’s. That said, 4 on 1 should always result in a shot on goal – they’re incompetence proved decisive in that situation more so than CCV.
For all the talk about Celtic needing to change tactics for Ibrox, I don’t see how they can possibly play at ibrox like they did at Hampden.
They won’t be able to stay in their own half and wait for us to come forward so they can spring counters. They’ll be forced to push up on our CBs – that’s a completely different game from Sunday.
Re the rainjurz penalty claim. When I player, we were told to play to the whistle. As I saw it on Sunday, the ref blew for a foull outside the box, hence the game was stopped after a couple of seconds, so no penalty.
Simple application of the laws of the game, whats so difficult to understand,ffs
KINGLuBO
Penalty to newclub! 😂😂
TIMBHOY163 on 17TH DECEMBER 2024 11:51 PM
Tierney to many injuries,along with big wages ,once you leave then there is no comeback ,look at Lennon coming back .
—————–
Clearly a photoshopped/ai pic of lennon….
https://scontent-lhr8-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/470200711_122151080756326979_6138907870887759641_n.jpg?_nc_cat=107&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=aa7b47&_nc_ohc=TgTGq5Y9ubQQ7kNvgHT0ZB-&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-lhr8-1.xx&_nc_gid=AhNJoQ6_8L3yyGhX7d2uk5-&oh=00_AYB1I0vI_WN6muRMMr55xtc732Oov487cfTQWwqI8Db9kw&oe=6768DB6E
Think their tactics when we play them at Ibrox… same again , long ball, miss out the midfield….
Last 3-3 draw at ibrox was an outstanding moral victory for thems…. Aye right!!🤪😂
BRRB
some Rory
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=xoQUwfIRcQU&si=v9kj_1l-puPwjKdR