Congratulations to Ronny Deila, his players and supporting cast on becoming Scottish champions, season 2014-15. The man from Norway has got his team playing flowing, attractive, football, he has improved players throughout the squad, and should be delighted with the shape of the club at the moment.
Congratulations too to the Celtic fans, who recognised the manager and team needed their support, which has been delivered solidly throughout the campaign.
I’m delighted for Aberdeen, who have matched Celtic toe-to-toe against the rest of the league. It has been a stunning season for a team with comparatively meagre resources. Motherwell were best of the rest for the last two seasons, but they were miles off the pace, and never reached the consistency of Aberdeen this season.
It’s four in a row for the third time in our history, matching Willie Maley’s team’s achievement in 1908 and Jock’s in 1969.
These are great times to be a Celtic fan, enjoy being champions!
1,808 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- ...
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
Tbj
;-)
HH jamesgang
In Yorkshire Sunday drinking was known as “12 while 2”.
Then the pubs n clubs opened again at 6.
Was very strange when first encountered it.
Serie A
Napoli 3 – AC Milan 0
Milan’s De Sciglio red carded after 49 seconds – Earliest ever in Serie A
Proper scorchio – way down south.
JJ
I’m astonished that Jimmy Johnstone, probably the most talented footballer Scotland has produced, never won POTY.
One from Jungle Jim’s scholastic satchel.
Read this carefully, then ask: What’s the purpose of the Writer? What message is he conveying?
——-
Martin Hannan: Give King a chance to help end Celtic’s rule
May 4th, 2015
CELTIC’S fourth successive title should have everyone in Scottish football worried. It is surely not healthy for a single club to be so dominant, and can anyone seriously doubt that Celtic will go marching on to win championship after championship?
Seven or eight titles in a row is not just possible but probable, because Rangers could take years to get back to their best.
If ever there was going to be the semblance of a chance that the Parkhead juggernaut would be derailed, it was this season. Neil Lennon’s departure robbed the club of a legend, and the signing of an inexperienced manager had more than the fans saying “Ronny who?”
Ronny Deila’s arrival did indeed see Celtic wobble at first with their dismal exit from the Champions League a real blow. The other clubs in the Premiership had to pounce then and make Celtic’s job more difficult.
To an extent that happened, but despite a fine showing by Aberdeen in particular, Deila got his squad to buy into his philosophy and the sheer strength of the playing resources at Parkhead saw the inevitable happen. You could argue that only the outstretched arm of Josh Meekings stopped Deila winning a treble in his first season, though that would be unfair to Inverness Caledonian Thistle whose manager John Hughes has worked miracles with scarce resources and should be named the Premiership’s manager of the season.
Nevertheless, with the League and League Cup in the bag, Deila can now look forward to next season with relish, though it is likely that he will need to replace Virgil van Dijk and Jason Denayer – no easy feat.
He will have the luxury of adding to the squad with quality players, though when you consider that five of the seven substitutes on Friday were full internationalists, as was every one of the starting XI, while Charlie Mulgrew, Adam Matthews, Callum McGregor and Mikael Lustig are waiting in the wings, he doesn’t really need to sign anyone.
To make progress in Europe, however, Deila will need more quality players and the chances are he will get them.
Who can possibly catch Celtic domestically? Aberdeen, Dundee United and a resurgent Hearts have the best chance of doing so next season, but it is all so different from the 1980s when the New Firm briefly broke the Old Firm’s stranglehold on the Scottish game, and proved potent in Europe, too.
With all due respect to Derek McInnes and Jackie McNamara, they are not yet Alex Ferguson and Jim McLean. Nor do they have the class of player that Aberdeen and Dundee United had back then – what an XI you could have made from the New Firm in the 1980s (try Leighton, McLeish, Miller, Strachan, McGhee, Narey, Gough, Malpas, Bannon, Sturrock and Gallacher for size).
So Celtic will march on, unless the only club comparable in size and resources can resurrect itself. Rangers need to get back into the Premiership before the destination of the league flag stops being inevitable into the 2020s.
You may think that a duopoly is not much better than a monopoly, but it will make for excitement in the Premiership again – that is if Rangers can get past Queen of the South, Hibs and probably Motherwell to qualify from the play-offs.
All of which leads me to say that the SFA is shortly to make a very important decision indeed. The Professional Game Board of the Association has already cleared Paul Murray as a fit and proper person to sit on the board of Rangers, despite his involvement in the club prior to it going into administration.
A much bigger decision awaits the Professional Game Board – will they allow Rangers’ main shareholder Dave King to also be a director and chairman of the club?
When you consider some of the people that the SFA has allowed to operate in Scottish football already this century, you would seriously have to question whether the fit and proper test is in any way sensible.
Giovanni di Stefano at Dundee, Vladimir Romanov at Hearts and Craig Whyte at Rangers were all permitted to operate in their various clubs even though their track records were, to say the least, rather dodgy. Di Stefano, who is now a guest of Her Majesty for the next dozen years or so, was never subjected to the test even though I personally proved he was a convicted fraudster. Romanov’s unsavoury conduct at Hearts should have had him flung out of Scottish football long before his debt-ridden empire crumbled. Whyte was only found to be not a fit and proper person by an independent inquiry AFTER Rangers went into administration, even though there was plenty of evidence against him long before he drove the club to the brink of extinction.
Dave King would be a certainty to be passed fit and proper if the SFA applied the old criteria to his application, but the Association is much more conscious of public opinion and at the very least will give King a severe grilling. Since he has settled his tax debts in South Africa some time ago and is allowed to be a company director there and in Britain, I think the SFA will give him the nod.
The fear is that if they don’t, then King will rein in his millions – and believe me, he has oodles of them – which will prolong Rangers’ woes and mean they won’t be able to challenge Celtic for, say, a decade or so. That would not be good for Scottish football, including the national squad.
It’s time to stop giving Rangers a battering for the sins of past custodians. Let King and Rangers have a fresh start, otherwise be prepared for Celtic to certainly dominate the game here for the foreseeable future.
Agree Gordon64 fundilymundily is the greatest word I’ve never heard.. I listened to Ogdens Nut Gone Flake after reading because I could only hear Stanley Unwin in my head!
(Hope you get that reference)
Hubris at its best.
Numbnut English cricket suit calls the West Indies cricket team – mediocre – .
Cue the mediocre West Indies winning the game.
Some people seem to be incapable of learning.
Cricket , lovely cricket -way down south.
5 hours spent shelling this year’ s pea crop.
Boring !
TBB
Ans – ‘how can we make sure that w’ur Ragers (sic) are up there cheatin n competin with yon green mob as soon as possible. Please all this level playin field stuff just isnae fair.’
About right?
HH jamesgang
Looks like I’m having the leftovers of last nights Chinese, if only I could remember buying it…….
I agree with your main point but you live in Scotland and you are astonished ? ! 0:-)
Jimmy`s talent was recognised by those who count and I think Jimmy knew that and was content with that recognition.
JJ
Above was to HT !
new article posted.
Lennon n Mc….Mjallby
10:55 on 4 May, 2015
When I moved to Yorkshire in the early 90s we got over the 2 till 6 Sunday drinking abyss by getting the KWVR steam train at Keighley.
It had a buffet car and was allowed to sell booze all afternoon.
So you’d buy a return ticket and just go up and down the line to Haworth all afternoon while enjoying the scenery and getting pished.
TBB
The hurt is palpable throughout that article.
Just seen on the news that Jimmy Greaves has had a major stroke and is in hospital.I loved “The Saint and Greavsey” in the early 80’s,forerunner for every comedy/football show. Wishing him a full recovery.
Hun Media in a right tiswas today.They have an article about Lennoxtown,and all the connivance,and graft that has gone on between Celtic,and “The corrupt Taig Glasgow,Dunbartonshire,councils”.All slabbering congratulations to each other for bombarding the authorities with complaints.
Another post about the “Investigation of the Huns”,the one that was posted yesterday,is classed as “Obsessive Tims”at it again !!!!!!!!!!.
Their stupidity,lack of any sense of irony,gets bigger by the day.
Truly the most horrible,detestable,group of almost human entities on this planet.
JungleJim hot smoked.so them players you mention are they good enough for a good run in the European Cup.and don’t forget there will be a few of them no longer at the club.
TBB
I would only have given that particular piece as a very easy introduction into critical analysis. The author does if for the Reader:
Martin Hannan: Give King a chance to help end Celtic’s rule.
0:-)
JJ
Martin Hannon with some pulitzer prize winning stuff there.
‘settled his tax bill’
‘oodles of ££££’
Deary me
timbhoy2
We can neither afford nor attract the kind of players required for ” a good run in the European Cup.”.
Possibly, an exceptional Manager could effect such a run and we may have one in Ronny Deila.
As regards ” a few of them no longer at the club.”. Time will tell. Currently, only Denayer is almost certain to leave. I believe all the others I mentioned above will still be here. Again, time will tell.
Cheerio for now,
JJ
Jimmy Johnstone never won POTY… Proof positive of what a load of crap it is
As for the manager of the year … How many times did the tactical genius Walturd win it ?
https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10206944185630109&id=1442479492&set=a.1972028027349.115015.1442479492&source=48&refid=7&_ft_=qid.6146393880380692439%3Amf_story_key.-4412076384943324333&__tn__=E