Credit to Newco and Steven Gerrard. They controlled much of yesterday’s game at Celtic Park, took their chances, which on this occasion did not all fall to the wasteful Morelos, and deserved their win. For Celtic, the nature of the defeat asks many questions.
The visitors dominated the opening 30 minutes, which were a carbon copy of the League Cup Final between these sides earlier this month. Celtic played the ball forward early throughout this period but it never stuck. The front four: James Forrest, Ryan Christie, Mikey Johnston and Odsonne Edouard were practically spectators.
Kristoffer Ajer disrupted this pattern when he carried the ball through midfield for the first time in the game. This inhibited Newco, and, for a few minutes, Celtic held possession in the final third. In quick succession following this, Celtic won a corner, a subsequent penalty when Christopher Jullien was fouled inside the box and Ryan Christie saw his spot kick saved. Before Newco could count their blessings, they took the lead when Ryan Kent was given space to shoot from 14 yards. The opening goal came during Celtic’s best period of the match thus far, but it was deserved.
Scott Brown, who despite the result was imperious throughout, and Callum McGregor began to impose themselves after going behind. A shot from the latter deflected off Odsonne Edouard, wrong-footed Allan McGregor and drew Celtic level.
The second half did not provide any comfort for the 59,000 Celtic fans. Newco continued to dominate the game before scoring from a free header at a corner kick. Celtic could not hold the ball for 10 seconds.
Neil Lennon reacted on 68 minutes by hooking both Forrest and Johnston for Ntcham and Bitton, and going three at the back. Celtic finally matched Newco in midfield and were able to dominate possession. They created good chances in the closing minutes but it was too little, too late.
Steve Gerrard won the tactical battle, as he did at Hampden, where Celtic took the trophy but not the lessons.
We’ll have a State of the Club piece up tomorrow.
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ST-I actually agree with you on some of what you say about jamesy,but it’s the way you only come on to criticise him,even when you say something else you have to mention invisible.It kind of dilutes your argument.You seem to have started doing the same with MJ
Facts.
11.6 million spent this Summer.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/celtic-supporters-fury-over-chief-executive-peter-lawwell-is-unfair-says-neil-lennon-6b2hhmwzj
broonie had a excellent game yesterday
considering, as was just mentioned, that he got booked in the first half
but my issue with that is that he got booked for a totally needless foul
dont put yourself under pressure like that
take a booking when its needed for the team
but broonies was just self indulgence
Indeed Macjay. I humbly apologise for the use of the word bi polar
As someone who ex wife had the disease I know how much mental health issues effect soo many people , families , Children and loved ones
WEEBOBBYCOLLINS
That is my considered opinion and I have been thinking about this all through the summer and up until now. I guess you would call it classic nepotism. LFC are looking after a person who is idolized and will be their club manager one day so it makes perfect sense that they would do anything they could to ensure his fledgling managerial career goes well. The structured deal they were offered was awfully generous and in the print media Gerrard dropped hints about ‘Waiting to the last day if necessary’. In my view, LFC tried to look as if they were driving a hard bargain over the Kent deal with a protracted negotiation knowing that in the end it would be good succession planning to give Gerrard a wee helping nudge, whle maintaining a professional veneer. But, putting the Kent deal to one side my bigger point here is that there will be collusion from a wider network of EPL managers, ex-players and coaches to assist Gerrard because after Gazza he was considered the most talented English footballer and also he is being toute for both LFC and England job one day. What am I getting at here? Well, I dont think we should be sour or disgruntled about Gerrard getting as much help from his EPL network because that’s life and that’s business, but we should be aware of it in terms of fostering a kind of bunker mentality of everyone in England is trying to assist Gerrard stop the 10IAR. As I say let’s not get bitter about it and lets use it as motivation tool. Also, it would not hurt if we called in a few favours of our own and say Rogers gave us Benkovic on another 6 month loan. Gotta fight fire with fire my friends.
WEEBOBBYCOLLINS on 30TH DECEMBER 2019 8:16 PM
Sydneytim…”bipolar”?
Now, that is just naughty. Apology would be in order…
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Ignore , Bobby.
I do.
Victims of Bipolar however may not be as charitable .
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/bipolar-disorder/
Glad we are taking again Macjay
11.6 m. That little omg
We had a maybe rebuild to do and needed at least ten million just for a striker
Explains why we had over 50m left
FYI. Slavia Prague who has a turnover of about 20% of us signed one player for 10m
This year their turnover tripled due to CL
Thanks for that info
Big big changes needed at top
Espiritocelt – a very good point on Kent. He was the joker.
They expected to win at Mordor and wheel out Kent the next day as a further boot in the haw maws.
That didn’t happen so he became the squirrel.
Your post has me thinking about financing players.
I do not know the rules, but can outside parties take an equity stake e.g. say ‘Rangers’ announce a 5 million signing. Gerrard puts in a million, as does McAlister, King and a couple of others. Thus ‘Rangers’ have signed a 5 million player.
Said player gets sold for 10 million and everyone walks off with 2 million each and ‘Rangers’ get nothing.
There’s something smelly going on. I simply do not believe King, Park and the rest have pissed money down the drain.
SYDNEYTIM on 30TH DECEMBER 2019 8:20 PM
Indeed Macjay. I humbly apologise for the use of the word bi polar
============================================================
No problems , old son.
We`re all hurting after the Sunday result .
Macjay No Need to post. I know what bi polar is
My daughter went through years of hell but settled down once I won a 2 year court battle
I could write a book what bi polar does to victims friends and family
SYDNEYTIM,
We all get it. You hate James Forrest and Peter Lawwell and are generally absent from these pages when Celtic are winning and doing well. If my affair with Celtic caused me so much unhappiness I would certainly find another interest.
Was PL to blame for Ryan Christie’s red card against Livi, early in the game, and the referees decision not to award 2 stonewall penalties against Hibs?
Guff.
Broony took the booking to show the rest of the kittens round him what was needed.
He led by example and still remained head and shoulders above anyone else on the park for the rest of the game even when on a yellow.
Pig math thing
11.6m. Wow. Thanks for macjay posting that
Woeful investment considering the money we have in the bank. The financial gulf is massive and with a proper football director we would be streets ahead
Ps I was missing for years due to protecting my 7 year old daughter from abuse.
You are a fud
THE BLOGGER FORMERLY KNOWN AS GM
Thanks for the reply. I hate to admit it but Kent when is ‘on’ is a superb talent, but and he really made a big difference against us. In terms of the specifics of how his deal was financed then I have no details on that, but we could wait until ranger publish their next set of accounts. It’s not so much that I think that he was purchased via a combined conglemarate of wealthy ex-players who are all huns, but the point I make is that from very early on I think his transfer process was designed to strategically put one over on all Celtic fans. Murray and Souness were masters of those dark arts and did this many times to us during the 90s. So essentially get a basic agreement that he will be sold on the last day of the window 2 months before that date then ask LFC to create the illusion of a protracte and an difficuly deal, and then when they unveil him on the last day of the window its a triples win: Golden boy Gerrat delivers a big talent who is effective against Celtic
So, did Morelos’ gesture actually mean it was the end – of his time at The Rangers?
As for racial abuse, excuse my ignorance but I’m unaware of any Colombian specific abusive terms or gestures. Or does he belong to another race?
We bringing illnesses on to the blog now to win arguments
Meanwhile Sevco present a united front while using any means necessary.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/celtic-fans-bitter-feud-mussolinis-21187259
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so the daily records headline is about a feud between celtic fans and mussolinis daughter
why is it not about celtic fans against fascism?
which was the whole point of the GB’s banner
fascism should be oppossed in all its nastiness
fuk mussolinis daughter and all who ride in her
and same for the daily record
Peter Adam Smith the true blue shown up for what he really is.
“f**k off you, ya black bastard” shouted at Moussa Dembélé at Ibrox.
Don’t remember Rangers making a statement about their own? https://twitter.com/p_bov1/status/1211719877775499264/video/1
Where was his voice when this happened ?
Huddle
No idea why bhoys buy that rag, occasional look on line yes but a pound or whatever it cost for the paper naw. Ps online looks are pennys btw before anyone starts😱
£11.6m? Sevco spent around £10m on Kent/Helander this summer. They will also be paying their manager a lot more than we pay ours.
Couple of questions:
Can anyone explain why we need £40m in the bank? We have been knocked out in the CL qualifiers in the last two years, so we clearly need investment. What is the money being banked for? It will all fritter away if we lose the league as our revenue will decrease significantly.
Can anyone name a club where the CEO earns more than anyone else?
Still sick as the proverbial parrot.
Can’t really say anything except that I concur with whoever suggested that we ban the media from Celtic Park, apart from our own. They constantly promote the deid team at every opportunity and denigrate us when ever they can. They can’t be challenged; so, let them stew in their made up guff. Trying to excuse Morelos’ disgusting gesture ought to be the last straw.
Please encourage everyone you know to stop buying the rags and SKY (BT is a bit better but it is stopping its coverage of Scottish football, I believe). They have made their bed; let them rot in it.
Sydneytim…good man!
Espiritocelt…thanks for response. I agree he’s a favoured son though I have no idea re the Kent deal conditions.
Espirito – thank you.
Sevco Scotland Ltd or whatever name under which they are now incorporated is a private company. Therefore the level of disclosure is less than a PLC. I’ve not looked, but I do not think the granularity will be there. For a PLC it should be in the notes under related party transactions.
For me their sums do not add up and I smell doo-doo. Rich people do not piss away millions.
It will come out in the end. Hopefully sooner rather than later when Celtic win the 10 and the whole thing implodes.
THE BLOGGER FORMERLY KNOWN AS GM
Yep, in my view the Kent transfer was a form of collusion between LFC and the Huns to make what was in fact a guaranteed transfer appear protracted and unlikely thereby giving Celtic a massive psychological kick in the balls when the player gets ‘miraculously’ unveiled on the last day of the window. Moonbeams, Souness and Smith were masters at delivering transfer deals designed very specifically to deflate us in some way such as Flo, Novo, Mcann, Judas etc.I have no opinions of the financing of the deal, nor am I suggesting a wealthy consortium of ex-huns players helped finance it but we might get more details on the structure of the deal when sevco publish their financial accounts. It is more the generous nature of the finance deal of the transfer fee from LFC that raises the bells plus Gerrard was dropping hints in the press weeks before the deadline day, about trying to complete the Kent deal on deadline day. When he made those comments Gerrard already knew that the deal was rubber-stamped.
What was fishy to me was that Liverpool hardly received any serious interest from smaller EPL or Championship clubs for the services of Kent.
I think my bigger point here is that Gerrard and the Huns have totally got their act together in terms of the darker arts, but we need to call in a few favors of our own such as the good relationship with Man City and also perhaps dare I say it by asking Brendan for a loan deal for Benkovic.
Huddle
No idea why bhoys buy that rag,
——
i dont
just came across the headline online so thats how i had the headline text posted
didnt realise it would appear as an actual link into a story
i havent even read the story behind it
my point was about the headline
Why would any Celtic supporter post a hyperlink to a Daily Record story.
Let’s ignore the fact it gives them money.
Why??
Why would any Celtic supporter post a hyperlink to a Daily Record story.
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i didnt
i posted the text of the headline
didnt realise it would appear as a hyperlink on here
fuk sake man
did i not make it obvious enough that my point was the headline and not to do with the story that lay behind it which i havent read and is not relevant to my post???
keep up man
Some celtic fans on twiitter saying we shouldn’t get involved in whataboutery regarding racism of morelos!!ffs.
What racism? I’m in fs5 behind away dugoot, heard nothing absolutely nowt.
Listen we where shite, THE rangers outfought us end off.
But honestly yesterday i thought both his and Kent’s gestures where outrageous.
We lost to Livingston in October and bounced back with 11 league wins on the spin. I posted after that game that we would respond because the evidence is that we always do. We have a team of winners, i know that is hard to believe after yesterday but we do. This time we will bounce back again, i’ll bet every player cannot wait to get going again and get this out of our system.
Lenny has made mistakes, as everyone does in every walk of life. He is resolute and i have confidence in him to learn from his mistakes going forward. He has good guys around him and an absolute warrior as his Captain. Btw in full agreement with earlier, posts, Brown was outstanding yesterday.
Nicky Hammond has unearthed some good players since he arrived. Frimpomg is a wee gem and Elhamed, Elyonoussi and Jullien are more than good enough. Boli i am not sure about and Taylor is a work in progress. Hopefully Nicky has been working hard in the background.
I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, what we need now is a sign of intent. Another striker is a must to reduce the load on Eddy and to cover for him. An injection of quality and power in midfield and an additional defender are also needed. The current squad may or may not be good enough to get the job done this season, but not helping them or Neil, is not an option.
Neil commented at the AGM that Peter Lawwell ‘is the best and we have to pay for him’. We need to see evidence of this over the next few months – strong and decisive leadership on all fronts. Mr Desmond may also like to appear from the shadows, he has apparently personally funded loan deals in the past, perhaps he might like to step forward. The Board let us down with Res12 and other associated matters. As far as 9 in a row is concerned, we are about to find out who is really up for going all in.
Sidney, You through out a figure earlier that failure to qualify for Group Stages cost us 40 million.
That is not true Qualification for Group Stage earns you 15.25 million. To earn bigger money you need to start winning games 2.7 million a win 900k a draw. If we lost all our games we just get the base figure. Give us a very good run say a win and 2 draws we would come in with less than 20 million.
Now as we actually qualified for Europa Cup you can deduct what we are making there from the 20 million.
Think we have about 8 million earned so far, now that we are out of Group we have 2 extra European games, so we have extra gate money.
If we beat Copenhagen we get an extra million, plus 2 more games.
We are highly unlikely to make more than if we qualified for Champions League but the net cost to the Club is nowhere near 40 million.
If we had ended up losing all our Group Stage Champion League games which was very possible, we might get as much out of Europa’
Espirito – for sure they are very well versed in the dark arts. They always have been because they have willing friends in the SMSM Who are more than happy to ‘report’ anything they are told.
It kind of goes to my point above as to why a Celtic supporter would post a hyperlink to anything written by the SMSM, let alone the Daily Record.
Makes me wonder.
All the best to you and may 2020 bring what you deserve.
ESPIRITODECELT @ 19:47
SYNC & SINERGY
I agree with what you write – I have watched the game twice. The movement off the ball by them is quite uncanny, at times they move in perfect sync – accross the field 3, 4, & 5 together, forward the same, defending the same – almost as if they were tethered together, always keeping the shape whilst hunting for the ball.
The unit is uniform and mobile – there are no great feats of skill, or, trickery. These players are individually inferior man for man to most of ours, but they perform better together – synergy in action.
So, sync & synergy, how does it happen? – quite simply coaching and hard work on the training ground.
We always appear to be playing solely in the moment, ‘off the cuff’ With better coaching I’m sure we could get 25% more out of what we have – what is stopping us?
If Liverpool taking 7million off Sevco for Kent was a favour to Slippy, then let’s hope he has a lot more friends in the EPL.
If Desmond has personally financed any player at Celtic could someone point me in the direction of the year end accounts that show this ?
Calm down Huddle lest you change your name to Hamlet…Me doth think the blogger protests too much.
In fairness I should have acknowledged that the TV money for coverage of Champions League would be more than you could expect for Europa Cup coverage but then again if we could make last 16, that would be 4 extra games so that would level that out.
You would also get another 1.1 million Prize money if you make last 16.
MACJAY
So you think that my post was gutter talk, I will take that as a compliment coming from you, you really need to get our more and make sure you take those blinkers off.