At 1:45 yesterday afternoon the prospects of Celtic stretching their lead at the top of the table by the end of the day appeared slight. The tide has turned in Celtic’s favour in recent weeks but leagues are hard to win and we need only think back to how many chances St Mirren peppered Fraser Forster’s goal with to appreciate the difference between winning games and dropping points.
Teams in the SPL are well organised, even eighth place St Mirren, who are on a run of poor form but apart from a couple of lapses defended well, created more chances than Celtic and played with adventure and confidence.
Celtic are the best team in the league but there will not be a single game before the end of the season in which they will be able to take anything for granted. The result from yesterday we should pay most attention to is bottom of the league Dunfermline’s 0-3 win at Kilmarnock. This is a league without whipping boys.
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TR
Fair play mate. For what it’s worth, you’ve been a good addition to the blog!
PFayr
To be fair to McCoist (Jings I never thought I’d write that line), that makes perfect sense.
“If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well . It were done quickly”.
Otherwise there is no way he will be able to spend whatever he gets back(???) on anybody.
I think we can win the league with 90 points which means we can afford to drop 11 points. Rangers can only afford to drop 7. Unless there is a complete change in Rangers fortunes I cannot see them only dropping 7 points. They have dropped more than double that since the start of November. We are doing the right thing. One game at a time, same effort in each, consistently for 90 mins.
A striker that can make a goal out of nothing would help take some pressure off.
Agreed, will be able to take anything for granted in any game and it’s not just the opposition team we have to worry about.
Some of the decisions from officials yesterday were baffling. Fortunately we were good enough to render those decisions unimportant in the end.
However, as has been said, teams nowadays are very well orgainsed and hard to break down.
Sooner or later those dodgy decisions will cost us.
I noticed yesterday that rANGERs only had 6 fouls against them whereas Aberdeen had 18.
6 fouls doesn’t seem a hellava lot for a team that are going all out for a win at all costs and they are not exactly choir boys. It’s not the first time those type of stats show up for one of their games…
In our game, it was fairly even (StM 11, Celts 13) which is what you would expect in a competitive game (however, I did notice that Rogne was yellow carded early on for virtually his first tackle… whereas a couple of St M players were putting in a few hard ones with no card…).
Whatever… we need to keep the pressure on the opposition and the MIBs.
HT
I concur.
I thought Samaras was excellent again yesterday. The decision to take him and Ki off was tactical, rather than based on poor performance.
Anyway, it was 4-2-4 wot won it. Whoda thunk it?
Roccobhoy has the mother of all Hangovers but I don’t care because my team are 4 points clear at top of SPL!!
Hail Hail
Roccobhoy
As I read CQN about this striker and that striker it strikes me we really have no idea who Celtic are after we all get told wee stories from time to time that may or may not have a grain of truth in them.However,how many of us last week had any idea that we would sign the Polish centre back? very few of us if any I think a striker will be the same we wont know until it happens if it happens who it is.The days of leaks flowing out of Celtic Park are a long time gone.H.H.
Paul67
We cant take anything for granted, but then again, there is no-one in the League to match us…
HH
roccobhoy..
….ah, a hangover, happy memories indeed!
Hope you are feeling better soon!
Celtic yesterday have Fraser Forster to thank for the points. I thought he had a splendid performance. Top Bhoy yesterday.
Also thought Scott Brown had his best game for us in quite a while, and that Kris Commons brought to our game what wee McGowan had been giving St Mirren – the ability to take the ball past the man and direct the play forward.
For an hour yesterday it was all too square, side to side, no idea of how to step forward, with only Cha getting the ball behind the St Mirren defence regularly, and even then to no effect other than a St Mirren goal kick.
We are well off in terms of midfield players who can win and keep the ball, but skint in terms of players with the imagination to create. We play in front of our opponents rather than through them. Unless wee Forrest or one of the full backs gets the ball to the bye line we create nothing.
Both goals yesterday (and Rogne’s disallowed) came from set plays. Lovely strikes though both of them were, the only other chance of note before Commons came on was a 35 yarder from Hoops. 70 minutes of crabbing frm one side of the pitch to the other, with the odd long punt when we ran out of space. Looking at the match stats Danny Lennon must be scratching his napper in bewilderment.
This has pretty much been the pattern for the last couple of months, and it is inevitable that we will stumble unless some potency, imagination or inspiration appears. Commons perhaps?
Who knows, but Brown apart, our starting midfield yesterday didn’t recommend itself to another outing anytime soon.
Gordon_J backing Neil Lennon @ 13:37
What a crazy stat, that can’t happen to often I wouldn’t think.
TBB
Great post!
I hope Neilly reads the blog!
….right that’s the deccies down, now to dig a large hole in the garden……..
TBB
I pretty much posted the same views last night though not as eloquently of course.
I believe the priority is a creative midfielder but who knows the very player we need may already be within our ranks. Commons or McCourt utilised in a different way?
Aipple,
Never heard of it happening before.
Vmhan
Best wishes to your lad. Hope is not too serious.
Ever got Derryghirl to apply het intuition to a fixed odds coupon?
Let’s not allow our phenomenal form and points swing to blind us to the fact that the honest mistakes still occur with a depressing frequency.
I would love to see an objective appraisal of how many key 50/50 decisions go in their favour and how many go against us.
Take yesterday – we had a legitimate penalty claim turned down and a perfectly good goal chalked off.
Rangers ought to have had Bocanegra sent off, albeit in injury time.
Last week Goian ought to have gone, Rangers were allowed to take the free kick which led directly to their goal yards from where the incident occurred and had a player in an offside position when Jelavic scored – the only reason Rognes “goal” yesterday could have been disallowed.
sixtaeseven says:
22 January, 2012 at 13:50
In the build up to the orcs booking yesterday there were three clear fouls, the first of which left an Aberdeen player laid flat out on the centre spot. The ref rightfully waved play on because Aberdeen were attacking at pace whereupon one then another orc bodychecked the Aberdeen player on the break.
Each of the three fouls constituted a booking, but only the last player received one (who could arguably have been red-carded as it was a scoring oppo.)
I’m not for team GB but, from a Celtic perspective, we have nothing to fear from such an entity.
The SFA do, and they have never been friends to us so…maybe on second thoughts, i’m all for it.
Yet again Sky’s Super Sunday is failing to live up to the hype
Man City/Spurs is a dreadful game of football
the long wait is over,
Jim Goodwin, the St Mirren captain, was on the radio during the game and he admitted several times that decisions had wrongly gone in his side’s favour.
Thierry Henry recognises the class act that won the Champions League Final for Barcelona:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdfuyWZrCsQ&feature=related
Ghod how we miss him.
Gordon_J backing Neil Lennon says:
22 January, 2012 at 14:17
Explains a lot.
Like why there are now rumours of us being in for him.
Timmy in waiting. Obviously.
TMWTL
I turned it off – garbage.
Not falling for it ever again
Following on …here is another extract of the story about Jimmy McGrory and his return from the 1931 Celtic tour of USA ..when the liner RMS Transylvania made anchor at the Inishowen Peninsula, to allow the greatest ever goal-scorer to make an important appointment…
….every father/mother, grandfather/mother, godfather/mother, uncle/aunt , should give a copy of this wonderful biography for the young Celts in their care
A wonderful tale of the ultimate Celtic hero, from a period when centre- forwards were the kings of the game…
——————————————
Heroes Are Forever: The Life and Times of Celtic Legend Jimmy McGrory
Written by John Cairney, Mainstream Publishing 2005
YANKEE DOODLE CELTIC (from page 103)
Meantime, the touring team of 1931 had done much more than play football. They had given hope and pleasure to thousands who thought they would never know such emotions again. They had fulfilled dreams and left a lot of people happier for having been there. That is the kind of reward that can be lost among the trammel of statistics. They had touched hearts and fed souls. They were the missionaries that Maley had always wanted Celtic to be. They could go home full of memories, contented and fulfilled
They boarded the RMS Transylvania under Captain Bone on the first day of July. The same crowds gathered to see them off and many had to be forcibly put ashore before they sailed. It was heart-rending to see so many who wanted to go home with them. Celtic had obviously touched a raw nerve and there was a lot of homesickness around the wharf that day. Eventually, the autographs were signed yet again, the cameras clicked until their spools were empty and then the Transylvania weighed anchor and set off up the Hudson River towards the Atlantic.
Tom Maley was on the homeward trip with the team this time and he proved himself to be a better sailor than his brother. He had also been useful on the tour in addressing civic bodies and meetings of the American Football Association and now he became the unofficial Master of Ceremonies for most of the social activities on board. Their fellow travellers were the Student Travel Union, whom he described as “a jolly lot” and they vied with the players on the nightly sing-songs. There is no evidence on this occasion of a formal concert but Tom also enlisted the help of Chief Steward Alexander, setting up film shows and in seeing that Bertie Thomson was refused alcohol for the duration of the trip.
Poor Bertie had once again gone beyond the mark on the voyage and was placed on the wagon for his own good as much as for the comfort of the other passengers. This was such a pity, for Bertie on form was great value both on and off the park. He was a McInally without Tommy’s likeable elan, but he was a good singer and great fun at a party. Unfortunately, the drink was beginning to bite and gradually it pulled him down so that his fitness suffered and his game declined. Now, on the ship home, Bertie was bored. Not even the sing-songs, which he had liked to lead, could cheer him up.
Tom Maley arranged things like visits to the ship’s engine rooms and to the telegraph cabins, where the players could send messages home to Scotland – and perhaps receive them. This last thought occurs because events in the latter part of this voyage could only have been accomplished given some degree of planning and aforethought on the part of the ship’s officers and other parties involved. If the tour so far reads like something out of ‘Roy of the Rovers’ –Irish Rovers perhaps- then this next section is like a scenario for one of the romantic films then being made in Hollywood for the huddled masses of the world, cocooned in their cinemas.
Jimmy McGrory’s final entry in his tour diary is dated 10 July 1931 and reads:
“The ship arrived off Moville, County Donegal, Eire. I disembarked on the Custom’s Officer’s boat, and that morning, around 08.30 a.m., I started off on a life-long standing journey. I got married.”
It was all in that laconic last sentence, but what was the real story behind those three little words? The Glasgow Daily Record and Mail carried the story the next day:
“ A motorboat went out from Moville to take McGrory off the liner. His bride, Miss Veronica (Nona) Green had travelled to Moville from Glasgow a few days previously. She is the daughter of the late Mr George Green and Mrs Green of Glasgow. The family were proprietors of 13 picture houses, including picture theatres in Europe. The Nuptial Mass, in St Michael’s Church, Moville on Friday, July 10th 1931, was celebrated by Reverend J.A. Shields, Falcarragh. The best man was Mr A.T. Mullan, Glasgow and the bridesmaid was Nona’s sister, Marion.”
After the ceremony the group travelled to Londonderry (sic) and proceeded later to Lough Derg, the famous resort for pilgrims. Generally speaking, Catholics went to Lough to do St. Patrick’s Walk over stones on their knees, which doesn’t suggest the ideal honeymoon activity, but they seemed to have made an amenable foursome because Marion Green later married Tony Mullan. Contemporary reports had it that Moville itself went ‘en fete’ for this wedding of the famous footballer to a cinema heiress, but very little noise was made of the event back home- which was just the way the young couple wanted it.
———
The story continues describing the wedding plans and what might have happened if wedding took place in the Garngad, supervised by Cannon Lawton …and attended by several thousand Celtic fans ;-)
A superb story of a Celtic giant:
There is a description of how Jimmy helped create the famous Hampden Roar and his role in the Coronation Cup victory…plus more …If you want more samples let me know
better still… buy the book for a young Celt and they will grow to love their history
HH
M
**Again**
Succulence – I for one will mildly enjoy watching the Republic (sic) of Ireland playing in the Euro finals this summer, but if international football were scrapped it wouldn’t bother me one iota.
In fact I think it should be finished with or become an exclusively U21 event.
Never as bored watching football as I am when international ‘friendlies’ take place. In close second is watching the like of Scotland v Estonia or Northern (sic) Ireland v anyone, ROI v San Marino – the list is endless. So a GB team would have my wholehearted lack of support just as the land of my birth, Scotland, does just now. My passing interest in internationals will die. And I won’t miss it.
Club football is where it’s at. I’m kinda off topic there but I agree with what you are saying.
PF
Strikes me that the fat, bald, halitosis ridden, bed wetting Paul Le Guen is kicking off his own wee damage limitation exercise.
We look at targets but it’s Craig Whyte that gives the yeah or nay?
Nightmare scenario is Nikica being sold on the last day and him (TFPLG) not having enough time to do business…
So, basically it’s not his fault if he fails to bring targets in, not his fault if Jelavic is sold… It’s not his fault…
Ally McCoist is this years ‘I didn’t do it’ boy.
U
It’s also a good way of disguising the fact that you’ll not get any money from a potential sale – but possibly 34 year old Helguson… Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear…
TLWIO
I can give you one stat – at 16.54 yesterday there was only one game still playing in the SPL going by the BBC live updates – can you guess which one?
U
hamiltontim,
Overlooked your post at 13.28 and you are correct.
My apologies.
Any news on when our new Nigerian bhoy work permit will be decided? From what I can glean he is seen as our new lubo. Personally I thought Kris Commons brought that until injury and west coastdiet took over. Good to see him back. Maybe we have the more mature Islam Feruz in this lad.
Maybe that is why he didn’t play in the development game against Spurs in case they were alerted to his availability.
We need to keep hold of James Forrest £20m wouldn’t be enough.
TLWIO,
The MIB are much maligned in my opinion.
The real danger is the AMIB …Assistant Men in Black, and particularly at midweek away from home games, when they are often locals.
Whilst yesterday’s referee was poor, some of the decisions by his AMIB were truly shocking.
PS good to see Fraser Forster getting a bit of praise, and deservedly so.
Not one for any kind of gossip at all normally, but a friend of mine who works at the BBC in Manchester says Celtic intersted in Bobby Zamora.
I promise not to gossip ever again but , good authority and all that. I can’t square the circle myself but you never know,
KINGLuBO
http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/clubfootball/news/newsid=1567609.html
forrest one of fifas players to watch this year, puts a couple more 0s on his price tag i imagine
Philbhoy
Cheers. I just looked at what Hamiltontim had written yesterday and added some of Bournesouprecipe’s eloquence :¬)
On Friday night on here I predicted a wee 4pt advantage come 5pm yesterday. Some were being greedy hoping for a 5pt lead but I think they are dreamers.
However.
Come 5PM Saturday I predict our wee 4pt advantage at worst will be cut to a 3pt advantage.
MWD
Don’t know if anybody has posted this before.
Izzy talking about Broonie’s role as captain.
“He is crazy, crazy,” says Izaguirre, the phrase the only one he provides in English in the course of an interview otherwise conducted through a Spanish interpreter. “Scott Brown, Kelvin Wilson, Mark Wilson, we were all in the gym together most days and we got support from each other. Spending time in the gym with Scott was crazy. He is very funny, but I think he is a very good captain, he gives us all a lot of support.
“He is always a happy person and is one of a kind in a way. He is always first into training and first to show the rest of the team the way. He supports everybody, and the experience he has of playing here with Celtic and knowing other big players helps. The leadership he shows and the charisma he has is contagious in a way.”