Neil Lennon has been fluid with his team formations in recent weeks. As a result, three central defenders, Efe Ambrose, Kelvin Wilson and Charlie Mulgew could each be regarded as first choice picks, although Ambrose and Mulgrew have also been deployed in midfield. Ambrose has featured in all nine games since the beginning of December, while Wilson has featured in eight and Mulgrew in seven.
Add to the picture the fact that fourth-choice central defender, Thomas Rogne, has appeared in eight of those nine games, missing only the replay against Arbroath, and our central defenders look curiously stretched. Much has been made of the proximity of Efe Ambrose potential involvement in the African Cup of Nations to Celtic’s Champions League tie with Juventus, but the numbers suggest a vacancy exists beyond this tie, hence the recruitment of Rami Gershon, who will join on a six month trial, pending a work permit, with a permanent transfer agreed in principle, pending performance between now and May.
Gershon, 24, has kicked around Standard Liege for three years without making a discernible impact, but he is an experienced international who fits the profile of a non-critical recruit, competing as fourth of fifth choice central defender. His six-month objective will be to secure Thomas Rogne’s place in next season’s squad. The try-before-you-buy strategy we discussed earlier this week will ensure Neil Lennon has a player keen to impress whenever he gets an opportunity. Sound squad management.
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New league structure 2014/15
The Battered Bunnet
15:44 on 8 January, 2013
There’s a time lag between the Tory vote falling and the Nat vote rising, which is exactly what you would expect.
Would you agree that the SNP solid seats, the ones they’d expect to win, are predominantly former Tory strongholds?
I sincerely hope that new home strip for next season is a wind up.We don’t get to see the proper hooped strip often enough as it is. With that proposed abomination we’ll never get to see it.
timhorton
Not only do I not have a problem with Dundee…. I would go as far as to say that the Lochee accent is my second favourite Scottish comedy accent, falling somewhere in between Stranraer (3rd) and Orkney (1st).
a wee glasgow picture quiz to pass the time.
if there are any questions on you deid club i apoligise in advance.
http://www.scotcities.com/quizzes/
Gene’s a Bhoys name
15:49 on 8 January, 2013
‘Just logged on – thought I’d got the wrong site as the vast majority of post are to do with Scottish independance
Must be Celtic Slow News
I’ll try again later’
You must have missed the posts about the new top.
It’s got horizontal pinstripes.
I always though pinstripes had to be vertical, so it’s a bold, almost iconoclastic development on the old fashion front.
I’m still not sure what to make of it though.
Gene’s,
it was inevitable, trying more obfuscation, there should only be one body operating scottish football, its no big enough to support any more.
The elephant of corruption is going nowhere as long they pussyfoot with the fiddle
St Stivis
Where exactly on the bus does the disenfranchisement and ultimately alienation of the back of the bus begin?
Please be accurate as it will info my choice of seat from now on,
timhorton
15:57 on
8 January, 2013
johnnyclash
you have a problem with dundee??
================================================
Ther is no Dundee. It was wiped off the face of the planet between 7.30 and 9.15 pm on Boxing day?
Perhaps the Proclaimers can now include it in A letter from America.
Two `e`s in there and Dundee
Was there not an English club that brought a new jersey out every month?
Or something.
That would certainly help kick start the economy.
At least in Vietnam or wherever they’re made.
Maybe it was Maynard Keynes Dons?
That would have been appropriate.
Anybody else just find all this depressing
Scotland’s senior football clubs will vote later in January on proposals to merge the Scottish Premier League and Scottish Football League to introduce a new league structure.
At a meeting at Hampden on Monday between Scottish FA, SPL and SFL representatives, agreement was reached on the proposal that would create three leagues from the existing four and introducing a new split for promotion and relegation. Scottish FA Stewart Regan confirmed the plan following the meeting.
The move would also see one unified governing body for the professional league set-up. Efforts will be made to push through the new leagues by next season.
The plan is to implement a top flight “Premier League” of 12 clubs, a 12 club “Championship” beneath and a third tier “National League”of 18 clubs.
After two rounds of games, the top two tiers would split into three sub-leagues of eight teams. The top eight would contest the league title and European places with the middle eight settling promotion and relegation.
That middle league of eight, made up of SPL1’s bottom four teams and SPL2’s top four, would see their points reset. They would then play 14 matches, facing each other both home and away, with the four highest placed sides at the end of the campaign playing in the subsequent season’s top division.
Supporters have voiced their unhappiness at the plans, which were unsuccessfully experimented with in both Austria and Switzerland in the late 80s and early 90s.
Googy
from the bad bhoy greenock shammy days, the back of the bus was always the last 3 rows, technically defined as the area that an upturned double seat could fit into the passageway to become a makeshift poker table.
What do the stats say Ernie?
Certainly at Holyrood, the SNP’s current majority was paid in large part by winning formerly Labour seats.
We can’t overlook the changes in society either, which during the period in question have been quite profound.
For example, Castlemilk, once the largest municipal housing estate in Europe, had a Tory MP until 1979.
The area, its social character, and its politics have been transformed in the intervening 30 years.
The same holds true for many areas of Scotland, whether Glenrothes or Stirling. The World moved on. Shocker eh.
Did the current home top not come out last summer..? Which means we are not due a new one…
gene’s a bhoys name
15:57 on
8 January, 2013
SFL and SPL agree to merge
__________________________________
Do you have a source for that Gene?
I remember this time last year, we saw this season new top for the first time, and the away one with the green collar, one green sleeve the other orange, never saw it in the shops though, just sayin, MSM with Celtic exclusive!
VerybeleivableCSC
BBc and SKY
My Dear Kojo…
In Your November Election….
Your Compatriots,Illegal Immigrants,And Phantom Multiple Voters….
Decided By A Slim Majority….
To Abolish And Dismantle The United States…
And Now Big Zero Has Nominated Kerry,Haiger,….And Brennan…..
For Key Positions In HIS Administration..
These Clowns Are The Enemy Within…
(And Brennan Is Soitenly Not Still A Good Catholic Boy….After His Time Studying Arabic In Cairo)
It Will Be Interesting To See What The Magnificent Frank Gaffney Jnr.
Makes Of It All On His ‘Center For Security Policy’ Website…
http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/1231.xml
From sportinglife.com, the last line is important, not all clubs have been consulted.
Only around a third of clubs were represented, hardly consensus.
Scottish restructure agreed
Last Updated: January 8 2013, 16:04 GMT
Both Scottish league bodies have agreed in principle to a restructuring plan that would see the organisations merge in a 12-12-18 structure.
Scottish Premier League. Click here to bet.
Stewart Regan: ‘Delighted’ with agreement
Related ContentFootball Transfer CentreThe latest football newsFollow us on TwitterFree £10 bet on football
Both sets of clubs have still to vote on the proposals but major breakthrough was made on Tuesday during a meeting of the main decision-makers in the Scottish Premier League, Scottish Football League and the Scottish Football Association.
SFA chief executive Stewart Regan said: “We have had a very productive meeting of the Scottish FA’s professional game board at which we had board representatives from around a third of the 42 senior clubs in Scotland.
“I’m delighted to say that we have agreed a set of principles to restructure Scottish football.
“That will include a single league body, subject to club consultation.”
gene’s a bhoys name
16:19 on 8 January, 2013
Thanks, got it now.
The point I was making on previous blog was that inter-faith relations have improved since the 1950s and 60s. John Reid spoke of remembering the school giving them a day off as a special reward the day a Catholic got a job in a bank. That isn’t the Scotland I recognise. It’s a million miles away, in fact. Attitudinal discrimination will never be eradicated, but it is undermined as the insitutional discrimination which was manifest of it is itself eroded. One supports the other.
Things aren’t perfect, but in my opinion attitudinal discrimination and hate crime is a residue of what used to be the norm in Scottish society-institutioanl discrimination. I am not content to wait for things to get better. The Rowntree report is clear that the Irish Scots do not do as well per capita as their peers. However, I don’t see a link between that and anything more noteworthy than the difficulty in securing an escape from generational poverty in the generality. The ancestors of today’s Irish Scots were more likely to be impoverished than were their peers. Their children were therefore less likely to succeed, and so on. However, things are improving in this respect(doesn’t the Rowntree Report recognises this?). I don’t see a particularly Catholic difficulty in escaping inter-generational poverty, either in the Rowntree or elsewhere. I think Government absolutely should make efforts to secure, as far as possible, equality of opportunity regardless the economic position of one’s parents. However, I don’t think that those efforts should necessarily have a particular Catholic focus. Glasgow has a far bigger poverty problem (cutting across religion and ethnicity) than it does with anti-Catholic/anti-Irish bigotry.
While being incontent for things to improve, I think it is equally important that there is no overstatement of the position. Apologies to anyone for whom this is not the case, and particularly I would like to emphasise that I don’t want to trivialise anyone’s personal experience of prejudice, but I have never felt in the least degree subject to any disparity of treatment or access to opportunity on the grounds of my religion. Would be happy to look at any evidence to contradict this, but I think that is far and away the experience of most of Scotland’s Catholics.
So there we are……a ‘merging’ (stitch up) of the spl/sfa to ensure much needed reform (fast track for MoneyLaunderers F.C.) of Scottish football (WWF).
The death knell.
For whom the bell tolls.
Us.
Bad enough just now being treated like a second class citizen in Salmondland whilst they delete sectarianism from all official records and attempt to wipe out our Irish heritage and expung us from the history books.
God help us when they have full control…
“most of Scotland’s Catholics”…..of my age. I’m 28.
Scunnered? We soon will be.
This is godawful.
There is only so much you can do with the hoops – we’ve had thick, thin, different shades, motiffs running through it -why not pin stripe -from a distance you won’t see the stripes
Having said that -don’t like it much
Scotland’s senior football clubs will vote later in January on proposals to merge the Scottish Premier League and Scottish Football League to introduce a new league structure.
At a meeting at Hampden on Tuesday between Scottish FA, SPL and SFL representatives, agreement was reached on the proposal that would create three leagues from the existing four and introducing a new split for promotion and relegation.
A pyramid system would also be introduced to allow a flow of current non-league clubs to compete for a place in the senior setup. Details of that plan have not yet been outlined.
Scottish FA chief executive Stewart Regan confirmed the plan following the meeting. “We have had a very productive meeting of the Scottish FA’s professional game board at which we had board representatives from around a third of the 42 senior clubs in Scotland.
“I’m delighted to say that we have agreed a set of principles to restructure Scottish football. That will include a single league body, subject to club consultation.
“The next stage is to take a worked-up plan to clubs and we hope to do that by the end of January.”
“Ultimately it will be the clubs that decide but we have seen today a willingness to make change happen and a recognition that Scottish football is crying out for a new dawn and we have now got agreement to take to clubs for a single league body.
“That is a huge step for the game in Scotland and it shouldn’t be underestimated.
“The clubs will decide what can be delivered by the start of the coming season, but that’s not something we are going to get hung up on.
“We will deliver the change, as a collective, when we believe it’s the right time for the game.”
The move would also see one unified governing body for the professional league set-up. Efforts will be made to push through the new leagues by next season.
The plan is to implement a top flight “Premier Division” of 12 clubs, a 12-club “Championship” beneath and a third tier “National League” of 18 clubs.
After two rounds of games, the top two tiers would split into three sub-leagues of eight teams. The top eight would contest the league title and European places with the middle eight settling promotion and relegation.
That middle league of eight, made up of SPL1’s bottom four teams and SPL2’s top four, would see their points reset. They would then play 14 matches, facing each other both home and away, with the four highest placed sides at the end of the campaign playing in the subsequent season’s top division.
Supporters have voiced their unhappiness at the plans, which were unsuccessfully experimented with in both Austria and Switzerland in the late 80s and early 90s.
If they push this crap through for next season and Sevco getting into the top league I will never attend another game in my life.
asonofdan
16:25 on
8 January, 2013
Are you just copying me ?
ASoD
Yip, as will many others. I think it is unlikely though.
johnnyclash
nothing wrong with the lochee accent,used to have a huge celtic club in lochee.
you must be from fintry.
St Stivs @15.43
Regarding your point about the CQN demographics, don’t get me wrong here sir, this is a top notch and well run celtic web site and all that good stuff, but I do recall laughing to myself when some witty poster called CQN the heated seats of the timternet. Sometimes it seems like that.
Anyway men carry on, snp and labour and tories and all that. (the same guy with a different tie)
Afternoon bhoys from a cold hun free mountain.
So the spl/sfl are to merge, and they will endevour to push for reconstruction for the start of next season.
The fix is under way.
ASonOfDan,
I’m pretty certain this will happen for next season.
The Rangers should be in the new bottom division, or the National League as it seems to be called, – but I think they will find a way to promote them to the Championship.
Can’t see they being brazen enough to go straight for the Premier League – and it wouldn’t really help them anyway as they still need to strengthen once the transfer embargo ends.
The Battered Bunnet
16:12 on 8 January, 2013
‘Certainly at Holyrood, the SNP’s current majority was paid in large part by winning formerly Labour seats.’
A one off, caused by the collapse of the Lib Dem vote.
In any case I was referring to Westminster seats. They give a truer picture of how Scotland votes, not least because consistently 10% more of the Scottish population vote in UK General Elections than in Holyrood ones.
As football seems to be on the back burner today, I thought some of you political/financial buffs might find this interesting. It is about 10 mins long, and I did not watch it all yet.
http://www.pierremp.ca/budget/
Gordon_J backing Neil Lennon
I thought the SPL required a 2 year notice period to either quit it or for it to disband. If they manage to push it through then it means all the SPL clubs agreed.
Pushing it forward for next season benefits ONE club only and every other club is complicit in helping them.