While Celtic totally controlled the first half at Ibrox yesterday, Newco’s defence held firm and largely limited the visitors to shots from the edge of the area. Leigh Griffiths’ effort from that distance was touched onto the post but over the 90 minutes there was not a single chance where an attacker from either team should have scored.
Steven Gerrard made changes at halftime that made marginally reduced Celtic’s advantage, but not so much as to permit his side an attempt on target, even after Celtic were reduced to 10 men.
Nir Bitton played well until his red card. He and the impeccable Kristoffer Ajer brought authority and control to the game as they circulated the ball for Celtic. A momentary lapse that allowed Alfredo Morelos to collect goal-side of him saw Bitton grapple his opponent to the ground. Referee Bobby Madden waved his red card in a flash.
Morelos was in a wide position, Ajer, who had already demonstrated his pace by catching and overtaking Newco’s fastest player, Ryan Kent, was covering in a central position. The Laws of the Game ask referees to make a judgement on whether he thinks the covering defender would be able to make up the ground, Madden decided to show Morelos the advantage.
Madden also showed Morelos the advantage five minutes into the game, when the Columbian stamped on Jeremie Frimpong’s Achilles in an off the ball incident. Madden awarded Celtic a foul, but used his discretion to keep both cards in his pocket when many expected a red card. The referee determined the outcome.
Celtic conceded fewer chances yesterday than in any game in months but the goal came from a familiar failing – corner kicks. A ricochet struck Callum McGregor and flew past Vasilis Barkas, who had little else to do all afternoon.
The game was lost for a few reasons: despite our control of play, Newco’s defence stood firm, we did not get into the box or hit the bye-line often enough. Bobby Madden had two decisions to make and you could bet your mortgage he was not making them in Celtic’s favour. Despite the unfortunate nature of the own goal, we again conceded from a corner.
Had we lost and played in the manner we had in our previous three games against Newco the verdict would be straightforward: the better team won and is firm favourite to take the title. I don’t think that is the case, instead, it has taken us until now to make the correct selection and formation decisions against them.
A must-win game was lost, leaving Celtic 19 points clear with three games in hand. Newco are a club who find it difficult to get trophies over the line. They are defensively solid, but I think their league position flatters them. There is work to do for both teams.
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We were in such disarray after the sending off rangers never had a shot on goal for 30 mins… Couldn’t make this pish up honestly
BadaBing – I’ve done a bit more research. If the £5m a year for Rangnick is accurate, that is equivalent to c£97 per week. We’d cover that easily through simply not replacing Brown (£25k per week); DUFFY (£45k per week); Laxalt (£22k per week) and Moi (£23k per week).
I’d suggest we’d not miss any of those 4 next year…
Larsson would have the humility to walk, that’s the difference.
James and ONENIGHTINLISBON
Ok. Answer me this
Players who have been at Celtic less time than Lenny has been a player and manager have had Testimonials.
Were they more deserving?
I thought we played very well yesterday in a game that I wasn’t looking forward too. For once Neil Lennon got the tactics right. However, instead of being 4 points behind if we won our games in hand, we end up 10 points behind because we lost. We know that Madden gave a Man of The Match performance for Sevco to ensure victory.
However, we now look to the future and changes in personnel. Lawell is going it seems. Lennon must go.
As far as the players are concerned, it seems to be a question of who will be left when the season ends?
We have the nucleus of a great midfield with Forrest, Turnbull, Soro, Henderson and I hope McGregor will stay at the club. I would also try to bring back Liam Henderson from Italy.
Other midfielders, Ntcham and Christie can go and sorry Broonie, you’ve been great but it’s time to find another role at the club. Elyounoussi back to Southampton.
Ajer wants to leave, Laxalt won’t sign permanently and I would clear out our entire defence. Elhamed, Bitton, Jullien and Taylor. None of them are Celtic class. Frimpong is a winger whom I hope we keep and try to develop.
Duffy back to Brighton.
None of our goalies are up to it. I’d retain Hazzard, give Barkas the jersey till summer and decide then if he has proved himself or not. If he hasn’t then get rid. I’d let Bain go.
Up front, Eddie will leave. I’d sit Griffiths down, give him the biggest dressing down he’s ever had and inform him that he’s out if he let’s the club down by even one slip up in his behaviour. I’d play him and Ajeti for a number of games, him and Klimala for a number of games and Ajeti and Klimala for a number of games and then decide who is worth persevering with. I’d keep Mikey Johnston.
That’s it. We will be decimated but should get good transfer fees for our saleable assets to build a squad. I’d invest in proven quality with a couple of projects and appoint a manager who knows what he’s doing.
ONENIGHTINLISBON:
Larsson has already had the sense to turn it down – because he was offered it. And he knows he’s not remotely near the requirement standard. That’s why I don’t have nightmares about the prospect.
I’ve said it before Lenny will end up a double act with the wee cheeky chap.
We really don’t owe him anything
31003 on 3RD JANUARY 2021 4:24 PM
Lennon has been handsomely paid as a manager. Love the fact that so many think he was this knight in shining armour when he took over from Rodgers. He had just been sacked by Hibs!
JAMES FORREST on 3RD JANUARY 2021 4:25 PM
Humility. That’s the difference.
It’s certainly not sentiment that makes me think he’d make a good choice for head of recruitment… Its because he knows a good player… But vitally he knows what type of temperament is needed…… Just because someone doesn’t like someone as a person that shouldn’t be a prejudice for a job!!
Theoriginal
We are not 10 points behind. We are 19 points behind, with 3 games in hand, and we average 2.26 points per league game.
31003:
You’re equating a one-off game to put a few quid in someone’s pocket with handing the controls of a multi-millon pound business and institution which he’s already sucked God knows what out of?
I’ve said already, whatever we “owed” Neil Lennon, he’s been paid back in triplicate.
At this point, he’s a drag on the whole club. We were formed for charitable purposes, but we are not a charity and if that’s all you were talking about we could give him some emeritus post which he doesn’t deserve and never think about where the money goes or what we get for it.
But you’re NOT talking about that. You’re talking about giving him another MAMMOTH role for which he is not in any way qualified to do, with enormous influence on the continuing football operation.
When’s this debt we owe him paid? When we name the ground after him?
fairhill bhoy on 3rd January 2021 4:25 pm
I’ve said it before Lenny will end up a double act with the wee cheeky chap.
We really don’t owe him anything
——-
Yep, him and Coisty on Sky talking about the old firm
aye
lennon wouldnt be getting abandoned
his final pay slip will confirm that
VINNIETHEDOG on 3RD JANUARY 2021 4:27 PM
“Its because he knows a good player”
Barkas, Duffy, Ajeti? Millions of pounds spent on just these 3, por cierto
Re the Dubai Holiday, A couple of Covid cases and we will end up with a reserve team out v Hibs,the League will tell them to GTF if they want a postponement, and I would agree with them.
LETS ALL DO THE HUDDLE:
Yeah there’ll be enough zeros on it to make your eyeballs bleed.
We’re not sending this guy broke and penniless into a cruel world.
POR CIERTO on 3RD JANUARY 2021 4:29 PM
He knows the city though…
Neil could buy a season ticket, there won’t be a waiting list next year…
James
If you read my post I never once mentioned “mammoth role”
I said we should offer him a position within Celtic if he wanted it.
Re the Dubai Holiday, A couple of Covid cases and we will end up with a reserve team out v Hibs,the League will tell them to GTF if they want a postponement, and I would agree with them.
—
i would agree with that
i dont have that much of an issue with them going to dubai but would fully understand the spfl telling us to beat it if that scenario came up
Pat McCluskey, Ronnie Glavin, Roddie McDonald, Peter Latchford, Billy McNeill, Tommy Callaghan, Andy Lynch, Jimmy Johnstone, Stevie Murray, Danny McGrain, Paul Wilson, Harry Hood, Kenny Dalglish, Jim Brogan, Bobby Lennox, Dixie Deans, George Connolly, Vic Davidsn, Jimmy Quinn, and Jimmy Bone (manager Jock Stein)
Heroes or Villains??
Seems a stupid question , doesn’t it?
Withe the possible exceptions of Latchford, Quinn and Bone- they are all heroes to me.
But, just like Neil Lennon, Nir Bitton, Odsonne Edouard et al yesterday they were called out as every kind of snake and failure, 46 years ago, when we contrived to lose the 10iar bid first time round.
You won’t find any Celtic supporter admitting to it now, but, rest assured, from one who was there, they were called everything that we are calling the players now.
Before we lost that league, we had George Connelly walk out on us, twice, having lost his best pal, the irreplaceable Davie Hay the season before. We saw the retirement of Billy McNeil and free transfers for Jinky and Jim Brogan, leaving Buzzbomb as the Last of the Lions and of our EC triumphs.
We told Quinn Davidson, Bone and Lynch that they could leave on frees too as they were not thriving. Our only major recruitment was Ronnie Glavin but we retained our 2 prominent lightning-rod scapegoats for the support to berate, in Tommy Callaghan and Harry Hood.
We lost a pre-season friendly 4:0 to Schalke in Germany.
We won the Dryburgh Cup on pens from the Huns
We got knocked out of the EC in the first round to Olympiakos
We beat Hibs 6:3 in a classic LC final
and we ended the season with a 3:1 SC win over Airdrie
but we finished our bid for 10iar with a 3rd place in the league, 11 pts behind Rangers and 4 behind Hibs. We shipped 13 points in 10 games at one point.
So, we have been here before.
I am not naive. I know that the foolish approach to management that we have in Sports, requires the regular bloodletting scarifice of players and managers and coaches. This season will demand the same.
We won’t be saying goodbye to quite the calibre of player as JJ or, even Billly McNeill but we are likely to lose a fair bit of genuine talent in Edouard, Ajer and Ntcham, as well as guys who are very bit as good as John McGinn, in Ryan Christie and, possibly Callum.
The bid for 10 kept them here and now they have nothing to prove in Scotland, they will look for new pastures and challenges. We will have a major re-build.
We are also, highly likely to lose a genuine Celtic hero in Neil Lennon, probably at a quiet time when we have had a proper wake and set some distance between yesterday and his firing. Neil won 5 titles of our recent 9iar , 4 of our SC’s and 1 LC. He has sacrificed his health for this club and damaged his rep as a person and as a manager as Scottish Society had to learn to deal with a genuine unrepentant fenian. And many of our own have rushed to tarnish him, swallowing the hun and SMM narrative , as to what kind of man he is.
No, for sure, Neil will leave but he wil leave with more dignity and honour than many of our support still retain and like the guys named from 1975 will always be welcome back at our club . In 15 years time, you will find no-one admitting to the embarrasing vitriol that was spouted at this time.
I wish it was reserved for our custodians and their moral failure in handling res 12 and the events of 2012, but, when we can find no way to get at them, that does not also harm Celtic FC, we will slate our blood lust on a cull of the players and coaches.
Well, as I said , yesterday, fill your boots, but it’s not for me.
Today I want to thank Neil Lennon, Scott Brown James Forrest, Callum McGregor, Mikel Lustig and all of the 117 players who gave us 9iar (even forgotten cameos from Atajic, Berget, Ciftci, Fisher, Gershon, Herron, Ibrahim, Janko, Kouassi, Loovens, Mouyokolo, Nouioui, O’Connell, Pukki, Rogne , Scepovic, Toljan, Van Dikl, Watt and Zulaska.
Not all of the 117 can be counted as heroes but there are a good 40-50 players plus 3 managers who deserve to be so remembered.
And I don’t care if Brendan is the superior manager of the bunch, the one that delivered most to my club, was Neil Lennon and he has my fullest gratitude now and when he leaves, and forever after.
TOSB
Add Bolingoli, to those in the get rid list
We have Mikey Johnstone, and will have Scott Robertson and Kerr McInroy back in the summer
Mikey can replace Elyanousi
Make Scott and Kerr Squad players to see if they can make it ??
Should Shved, Bayo and Hendie be given a chance ( probably not Hendry, I thought he could have been coached as a right back, he played there often at Dundee)
Uncle Jimmy
I know but I was assuming that we win our games in hand. You might not think so but I’m optimistic about Celtic. I think we will win them.
If Shved could buck up his ideas I think he could be a player……that’s going by previous video footage
Sftb
I have to ask
Latchford, Quinn & Bone?
100% James. Our board knew we would be divided on Neils lazy appointment and I can’t for the life of me a reason why he was given the job with so many question marks over his personal life and track record before he left and after he left the first time.
We were sold a pup, sentiment backs him and logic can’t come up for a reason to bring him back in the showers, but here we are.
Squad full of talent and confidence now with neither in a very poor 12 months at the club with one bad decision after another.
If DD and PL had done due diligence on NL I would like to have seen the pro column.
Soldapup.csc
KLV
Might have been a better idea to try and play one of our three days in hand rather than bugger off on a jolly!😈
31003 on 3RD JANUARY 2021 12:38 PM
Things I’d personally forgotten about but are now coming to the front of my mind.
1) Signing a professional manager and back room team who had presence and tactical awareness
2) Our own players trumpeting the fact that how professional the set up was
3) Our own players fitness levels going through the roof
4) Players treading water who became all in
5) Players who were deemed mediocre who became undroppable
6) An insistence for a proper pitch, duly delivered and now resembling a ploughed field
7) A manager who ate, slept and breathed football
8) A manager that refused to become someone else’s stooge
9) A manager who’s idea of a night out was with family at a nice restaurant
Those were the days
………………………
An excellent post.
I would add one more to make it 10 in a row…
10) A manager who refused to select a player for sentimental reasons or because he was a friend.
There’s one word to summarize those 9 points & you used it in the second on your list.
Professional, Professional, Professional.
Just watched a team in blue win with 2 excellent goals…
HH
NORRIEM on 3RD JANUARY 2021 4:38 PM
TOSB
Add Bolingoli, to those in the get rid list
We have Mikey Johnstone, and will have Scott Robertson and Kerr McInroy back in the summer
Mikey can replace Elyanousi
Make Scott and Kerr Squad players to see if they can make it ??
Should Shved, Bayo and Hendie be given a chance ( probably not Hendry, I thought he could have been coached as a right back, he played there often at Dundee)
……………….
I don’t really know our youngsters too well but I have seen McInroy, Welsh and Robertson and I think they are due a chance to prove themselves worthy of a place in the squad. I don’t know about Shved but his manager in Belgium recently slaughtered his bad attitude. I would give Hendry six months or a season to prove himself and too be honest, I just don’t know about Bayo. He hasn’t been given a real chance but what I’ve seen of him didn’t particularly impress me.
If we are looking to sign another defender,I hope Neil Lennon isn’t involved,his time is up along with some off the Celtic Directors,I can’t believe for a minute that fans like Willie Haughey and McDonald were happy the direction the club were going ,or are they like The Celtic Supporters Association on the freebies and Hospitality that goes if you agree with Peter Lawell and Dermot Desmond,Celts for change needs to happen with a really Good Celtic Man or Women who will get rid of these cowards inside Celtic Park ,and stand up for justice.
Pat McCluskey, Ronnie Glavin, Roddie McDonald, Peter Latchford, Billy McNeill, Tommy Callaghan, Andy Lynch, Jimmy Johnstone, Stevie Murray, Danny McGrain, Paul Wilson, Harry Hood, Kenny Dalglish, Jim Brogan, Bobby Lennox, Dixie Deans, George Connolly, Vic Davidsn, Jimmy Quinn, and Jimmy Bone (manager Jock Stein)
—
Ronnie Glavin
used to have a sports shop in ek
it got burnt down in a mysterious fire
he was cleared in court of deliberately burning it down himself to claim insurance
libel laws prevent me from repeating the locals thoughts at the time
😄
Extremely disappointed by yesterday’s especially given the team’s performance up until the sending-off. In other season’s, a one-goal defeat at Ibrox was not the end of all things. It could be clawed back and often was. But this season …..???
But you have to place results in perspective. Celtic have won the league 32 times since WW2. Eighteen of those titles were won from two separate 9-in-a-rows. MON won only two consecutive titles whereas WGS won three. We have won numerous cups, a European Cup and we’ve reached the finals of three European competitions.
Given that record, some of our supporters – or rather bloggers – reek of entitlement and hysteria. You cannot win everything, year on year in professional sport. If it’s not competitive, it’s not sport.
Incidentally, I know Morton supporters and a Raith supporter who follow their teams through thick and thin – almost exclusively thin – and they win nothing. One last thing, and I hope I’m wrong, I can’t help get the feeling that some on here hope that Celtic lose games. That would vindicate their stated positions and possibly precipitate change.
31003
I do not rate Jack Hendry at CH,
He would not have been beaten for pace by the Columbian though
Theoriginal
No problem, I’ve just seen a lot of mention of 10 point gap and try to point out the true number- albeit caveated
I think 7 points is a reasonable expectation from our games in hand and is in keeping with our average ppg thus far.
All posters can consider the points gap as they see fit I suppose.
SFTB 4.37
A great summary.
I was there,lived through it, but could not have summarised in that detail.
Well done.
HH.
Aaaaargh! The thought of Lenny having ANY influence on a new Celtic pool of players horrifies me. He’s a huge problem as it is, don’t give him any form of influence. He simply needs to leave the club.
Ach Dubai will be a nice rest for our
tired over paid huffy bhoys.
This season has not been an accident, we have constantly zigged instead of zagged everytime, taking the easy way out and make up an excuse when it eventually goes wrong.
Our board of multi Millionaires are all successful in their personal lives I find it very hard to believe that this season has not went to plan, unfortunately they have a different plan from us.
Stage managed off a cliff.
KLV