The one ray of sunshine in our long dark autumn was holding Lille to a 2-2 draw in France. After 13 games, the French club sit second top of Ligue 1, two points off PSG; so far, this is their season in the sun. The French club sit top of our Europa League group, a point ahead of Milan, both teams have qualified for the knock out round ahead of the final group games tomorrow.
Lille are incentivised to win at Celtic Park, there is the best part of Є1m open to them and seeding in the first knockout round to play for. Celtic’s motivation is less clear. We should certainly rest some ahead of the more important game on Sunday against Kilmarnock, but our defence needs every test it can get right now. A clean sheet is achievable and should be the focus on team planning today.
Celtic: Fifty Flags Plus One, an anthology of how Celtic won each of their league titles, is available now. Starting with our first title in 1893, it details how Willie Maley brought consistent glory, then the sparse successes over four decades before Jock Stein arrived in 1965 and the more contemporary wins since.
It will rekindle memories you had forgotten and give insight into how the leagues were won.
SPECIAL OFFER, free copy of Seville, The Celtic Movement, while stocks last!
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Dbhoy
Good man.
Prediction. Celtic 5 Opposition 0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJACPfUU3nk&ab_channel=Movieclips
Ave Ave
Genuine question
So Elhamed recent isolation in Israel with Covid contact
Was this a smokescreen to give him time with his family ?? Through the Israeli FA
The time he has gotten pretty frequently playing with Israel ??
Were Celtic party to this ? If so ??
Only asking as he is seeing his family regularly through international breaks which have been frequent this season to date
DBhoy,
The man’s incompetent and incapable of doing the job he is very handsomely paid to do. He’s turning around nothing because he doesn’t know how to. All very sad and his boss should have relieved him of his duties as per norm.
Too many people have abandoned Celtic-first for a personality cult.
HH
ST TAMS,
I agree on this point.
Some players are making crazy runs to close down opposition from playing out. This is contributing to our positional shape problems this season.
Are the players getting it drummed into them they need to work harder and intrepreting this message that they need to run more which then causes the above.
Our fitness levels don’t seem to be as good this season in last quarter. One of the benefits of good positional structure is that players shouldn’t need to run as much as reduces the gaps for opposition. Some of our players are making uncharacteristic runs throughout the game as if to show they are trying harder. Same players are then blowing out their ar*es around 60-65 mins and we get picked off in the last quarter.
As much as I like Neil Lennon and that I have a lot of Respect for him…I will freely admit that sometimes his Pressers are a real source of worry….Aside from poor selections, formations and tactics.
Ive ALWAYS said this long before I found CQN or owned a Computer etc, that PLAYERS ALSO MUST take responsibility.
If you asked to see the CV of a Celtic player right now, he will have under OCCUPATION ?
” PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALLER”.
THEY ” Class” themselves as being ” Professional” in order to sell themselves to whatever Club is willing to accept that they are what they say they are…and sign them up…with those LUCKY enough to be at Celtic Park, MUST be on pretty good wages. Wages that You and I can only dream of.
I would argue ( not with anyone on here LOL)…but to ANY of the So Called Celtic Players who ” Want to Leave” asap…that given THEIR poor performances and ” Attitude” THEY have NOT acted like a ” Professional Player”…so their wages may be looked at again..because you are NOT performing to your so called Professional Attributes, by having a poor attitude on the pitch and/or in training, and therefore IF some have a Poor attitude on the Pitch and/or in training, THEY are in Breach of Contract…?
Maybe that auld Bassa Jim McLean had the right idea all those years ago, when Dundee Utd were only paid in ” Performance Related” when it came to Wages ?
I seem to remember McLean DOCKING Players Wages after they had won a game by SIX Goals, by claiming that they didnt play all that well, and dint ” ENTERTAIN” the utd Fans ?
LOL ?
Maybe thats the way Celtic should go LOL ?
HH.
Conservative and Unionist Party colluded to murder solicitor Pat Finucane apparently?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7VDNZUcBak&ab_channel=sinclair1888
Big wavy
How much Lenny is paid is irrelevant, it doesn’t give people open slather to criticise.
You state he’s incompetent and incapable. Please tell me you’re experience in top level football either as a manager, player or at boardroom level which would facilitate such a judgement.
What makes you think you are capable in any way of making that kind of critic on Neil Lennon?
HH
Jimmy
Good point
The game you refer to was where DU led 5-0 at HT and won the game 6-0 v Motherwell I believe.
Wee Jum was raging as they had taken their feet off the gas in 2nd half and he tore them a new one at the end as he believed they’d shortchanged the support. I believe they had been playing in Europe the prev midweek.
A drinking acquaintance of mine at the time hung about with a DU player of the time. The story goes that Wee Jum told them they had all to wait in dressing room till he came back to dismiss them. Experience suggested this could be literally hours later.
The DU loyalists of the time all sat and took this while – allegedly – our mole decided he was not having his Saturday night wasted and made himself scarce.
DBhoy,
Really?
In a results business here’s your current KPIs:
LLDDWLWDLLLD
Conceded 30 goals
Papped out of Champions League, Europa League and League Cup.
Trailling Huns by 13 points and 21 goals in league.
I have plenty of qualitative data too but maybe we should just stop there…for all our sakes.
HH
DBHOY,
I agree with you on the levels of abuse our manager is taking. It is unedifying to put it mildly. Oh how our enemies are revelling in it.
HH and COYBIG tonight.
Note the difference between Celtic having a commanding goalkeeper and not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqB8Dm65X18&ab_channel=johnlennon
Ave Ave
BIG WAVY on 10TH DECEMBER 2020 11:28 AM
You statistics are correct and cannot be argued against.
As a section of our support gleefully mount another protest on Saturday prior to our must win game, can you give me one more statistic ?
On the eve of a historic national cup final, how many managers have been sacked prior to the game ?
HH to you.
GREENPINATA on 10TH DECEMBER 2020 11:29 AM
DBHOY,
I agree with you on the levels of abuse our manager is taking. It is unedifying to put it mildly. Oh how our enemies are revelling in it.
###
Every drop of vitriol aimed at NFL is one less drop aimed at the real miscreants.
There’s a difference………………………………
Hmmmmm, it’s no’ even that subtle.
..but there is a difference between the genuine and the manufactured………fears.
We as a Club and as a Cause find ourselves more often than not in some kinda conflict within scoddland whether it’s self inflicted or more normally imposed by the hostile environment we operate in – there’s usually some rub thats again us……..
Our current position does look bad and all of us will be looking at the telly with trepidation tonight…….That reasonable anxiety should imo be tempered by a little less pessimism than is being resolutely and lavishly doled oooot by very commited individuals. Incessantly. Unstintingly.
There’s a rush to engulf Celtica in funerial garb from some quarters that I can’t see as anything more than sleekitry poorly draped in the historical robes of our past.
To my eyes they have no Love for Our Club and feel no hurt for our predicament. Instead a sly bitterness and point-scoring would seem their primary motivator.
Greenpinata,
I would refute anybody in the Celtic support is ‘gleeful’ at this time but actually the opposite.
And as for your question, and in these bizarre times, I don’t recall ever playing a cup final from the previous to this season, so I suspect all precedents are off the table.
The direction of travel is one of mild decline turning into falling off the cliff. Those advocating some kind of testimonial season for our manager whilst planning for victory on the park are in deep, deep cognitive dissonance mode.
Finally, he should have been sacked at the start of the season, allowing us to avoid this conversation. The fact that we’re in this place, on an eve of a cup final with an underperforming setup, is actually proof of the incompetence across the club.
HH
apparently the world’s scientists were getting nowhere with a COVID vaccine for ages and then it just ‘clicked’ and we got hunners 😉
Ah jaysus, someone’s stirred CQN’s very own Clinton Baptiste….
“I’m getting the word…….”
:)
…btw, Im deffo in the ” panic early” cohort and I’m especially concerned about the team’s direction of travel with Neil ( never my preferred choice to lead the team) while there is a time to throw baby and bathwater out. To me that time has no=t been reached yet. ( Too many reasonable excuses still in the hat for me).
The Cup Final / huns game being that time methinks.
HH.
The assimilation process was well documented by Billy Connolly, “Bobbbbbyyyy Evvvvvannnns!!!!!!!!”
A section of our support nowadays think like der hun, acts like der hun and are no better than der hun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoJQAyrUHhA&ab_channel=johnlennon
old school
DBHOY
If he was hurting as much as I am watching the team , he would do the honourable thing and
walk.
Big Wavy
You forgot the bit where he – understandably- threw half the dressing room under a bus, and a couple of games later, tries to take the heat off them by saying how hard they’re working.
Agreed Bankie, as I said the other day, ‘it’s time to put the pitchforks away’.
Big Wavy,
Thank you for your reply.
Neil Lennon will go, of that I think there is little doubt.
The vast majority of us agree he should not have been appointed on a permanent basis. However let’s hope that after the cup final we have a feasible contingency plan.
As for gleefully , I refer you to the chasing of the busses.
Cheers and HH.
Big wavy
Zero experience then. This makes your judgments and proclamations on Lenny’s managerial ability seem hollow and rather silly.
It appears that you have also asserted that all our poor results and performances are solely the responsibility of the manager, thereby absolving the players of any blame. Is that correct?
If so, can this be in anyway proven beyond reasonable doubt? or is it just more uninformed musings from someone in the internet with little to no experience in which they are critiquing, typed as a fact?
HH
ST TAMS on 10TH DECEMBER 2020 11:49 AM
You wouldn’t resign if it meant giving up a year’s wages.
QUADROPHENIAN on 9TH DECEMBER 2020 9:26 PM
re Moneyball: Turnbull, Soro, Afolabi, Ajeti, Klimala, Afolabi, Perez, O’Connor… all 23 or under.
_____
I gave you a list of international players signed on big wages and in some cases big fees. International players from top 5 leagues.
Ajeti isn’t Moneyball. He was signed from and EPL team on big wages and a massive fee. He isn’t some speculative signing.
Turnbull at 3 million is also a significant outlay on a player proven at our level.
O’Connell, Perez, Afolabi, O’Connor etc. were all development signings. Picking up young players, who in many cases were free agents isn’t really something that affects the first team.
I’d agree that Soro and Klimala are punts. With the exception of these two I don’t buy the narrative that Neil Lennon has been forced into taking punts on unproven talent. I think he’s been backed with Ajeti, Duffy, Laxalt, Barkas, Turnbull, Jullien, Elyounoussi etc.
The point is, the manager cannot get performances out of a squad that’s paid handsomely.
ERNIE LYNCH
So money matters more to him. A guy who was earning £28k a week , 20 years ago.
GREENPINATA,
He should have been replaced weeks ago. The board of directors in their wisdom , actually thought we had an easy run of games in December and would get full points up to the hun game. How arrogant and out of touch these people are.
TIMMY7_NOTED on 10TH DECEMBER 2020 8:50 AM
Just read the El Hamed article. Seems we signed an 8 yr old kid rather than a professional footballer.
Who scouted him?
There are hundreds of thousands of people in the UK right now missing relatives and friends difference is we are not getting paid footballers wages, so man up or GTF.
____________
Bit harsh. It’s not as if Elhamed has went on strike and is refusing to play.
He wants to move back home to be with his family. I don’t blame him for that. I expect him to give his all for Celtic while he’s here. He’s done that.
Dbhoy,
For as long as you continue to make your informed judgements without recourse to a coaching badge, I’ll do likewise fella.
Until Paul67 changes the criteria for posting here, I’ll continue to offer my tuppence, even to those who decide to take me down rather silly rabbit holes in the process. Until I get bored and then I’ll scroll by.
HH
Blogger…………….
Aye.
I think anyone with a Pitchfork at this time should hold onto their receipts………
;)
In all seriousness better Tims than me have much greater insight to these things tbh, I just have a real sense that scoddish huns and thur confederates ( here, there an; everywhere) are really keen to cement our decline as quickly as possible. And with some ( who have not as yet joined in the positive aspects of Celtica) thur’s more than a whiff o’ hunnery.
The problem as well they know – is it can be hidden in plain site on platforms like these cheek by jowl agin genuine Tim concerns.
HH
So at the start of the season, sack your manager who in his current spell has a 100% hit rate in terms of domestic trophies.
Even sillier.
HH
Don’t say I didnt tell you so, all that’s missing is the elephant in the room, a commanding goalkeeper.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoJQAyrUHhA&ab_channel=johnlennon
Ave Ave
Greenpinata,
I don;t agree with young lads chasing team buses or a unfolding blankets that suggest we shoot the board (WTAF was that all about) but I do think those outliers are missing the general point about the vast majority protesting sensibly or the period this season where they actively showed up to encourage the team.
We need a bit of leadership across the Celtic fan based at this team to co-ordinate the message. Where are the CSA these days? This mexican standoff by the board is a poor reading of the room in my opinion.
HH
DBHOY on 10TH DECEMBER 2020 11:52 AM
——————-
Are you saying that we can’t criticise any top level manager because we ourselves have never been top level managers?
And Lenny doesn’t currently have a 100% hit rate in terms of domestic trophies.
ST TAMS on 10TH DECEMBER 2020 11:58 AM
ERNIE LYNCH
So money matters more to him. A guy who was earning £28k a week , 20 years ago.
###
He’s doing what anyone would do in the circumstances. Including you.
St Tams
What he did with his £28k pw of 2 years ago is his own business.
He’s entitled to have the Board face up to their decision and make them sack him.
You can’t eat principles.