Celtic arrive in Prague tomorrow for a game many of us consider a dead rubber. The thumping Sparta inflected at Celtic Park still smarts and almost certainly ended the competitive element of our Europa League campaign. The most we can hope for is a cohesive performance and an injury and illness free trip. A defeat, even a heavy defeat, will not resonate as much as the draw at Easter Road.
For me, the pace quickens at the weekend, when your clean sheet domestic record goes on the line for the 36th consecutive time. We can only hope the week will be used productively.
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Happy Wednesday eve all as we hurtle towards a 4 day weekend (turkey, Thanksgiving etc) over here. Not that I partake.
Some refreshingly good chat on here yesterday for the most part. Good to see. The name calling, not so much. Not terribly keen on the Shaun Maloney chat, not the place to cut your teeth I’m afraid.
HH all.
I know how it can used productively !
Why not just concede the Sparta game right now, and save the flight
After the Sparta thumping
Why are we accepting this level of performance 😡
None of the past few months makes any sense whatsoever, especially retaining a manager who has clearly lost the dressing room. Unless we look at it from a completely opposite viepoint of a”‘well run football club”. Indulge me.
The board know Lenny better than anyone. As such they knew he gives a good year or so of full commitment and then it unravels somewhat. They also knew fairly quickly that Covid would have a huge impact on our finances and that we were entering unchartered waters. Our recent half years show how bad things really are and it seems for them the best option is keep Lenny, lose the 10, lose the financial bounce of that ,fail to qualify for the CL ( £100m lost over 3 failed attempts) and run the finances down so badly we become unsustainable at the current level of outgoings. Admin then becomes a real possibility. Redundancies galore.
Huns and Hearts have set the precedent.
Now this seems a strange way to me to run a business but given where we have been this past 6 months and the Tories who pollute our PLC it begins to make sense. Certainly a method in their madness in keeping Lenny on to lose the 10 .
Need to go and look out this 36th consecutive clean sheet record as well 🤔
I see a lot of dead rubbers on the horizon
The week should indeed be used ‘productively’……..to recruit a new management team.
So the league cup is more important than Europe now.
It gets worse by the day.
Paul 67 et al,
Giving up, capitulating or running up the white flag in European football will not help our prospects in the longer term.
Purely domestic football does not give us the profile to attract players or indeed managers of the calibre we all want.
It sends out a terrible message of complicit defeatism and downsizing.
HH.
Hope ? Is that what we are reduced to?
Can I add
Sean Maloney, an individual we have employed is it 3 times ?
(including an introduction to coaching)
And he has left each time, at first opportunity
Not for me, and definitely Not as No1 in our set up
If he was being considered
Thing about Prague is that the pressure has moved to them… They are back in the group especially if they beat us and lille beat Milan…. Funnily if we happened to win in Prague and same result in France….. We are back in the group!
SAN LUIS on 24TH NOVEMBER 2020 12:13 PM
Is it not more credible that the board’s priority is just to ensure that the huns survive, and losing out on 10 in a row is a price worth paying for that?
It’s a high risk strategy though because there’s only enough money available in the Scottish game for one big club and things can quickly spiral out of control.
Anybody wanna buy a BT Sport subscription off me?
Also, check back with me on Friday. I might have a Premier Sports sub also up for grabs.
I mean, who pays for Europa and League Cup dead rubbers?
Paul sounds as depressed as most of us on here are in today’s lead.
I still cannot fathom what the board are doing?
Maybe just don’t want the financial cost of sacking the manager.
However look at how much we will lose if the ten is not achieved, all those ten in a row bed spreads etc….
Still, the blue pound and “old firm” will be back to make up for that.
I Can’t believe we are in this mess !!!!! Then again we have the highest paid C E O in the UK so he will sort it out ?, Won’t HE !!!!
Thanks’ again to res 12 boys
Can I add
I have stated for years
We should be forgetting the league cup, it is a meaningless competition
Play our youths or reserves in it
We have a treble treble
Hopefully to be a quadruple treble
Let’s now forget this meaningless completion, focus on the league and Europe ( even though we are now in dead rubber category – given up with 3 games still to play)
ERNIE
That’s exactly my worry . Let them replace us as top dogs and we’d be lucky to get back on top in the 8 years it will have taken them .
Paul67
Dead rubber indeed, in a dead tournament.
The 36 is much more important for Celtic right now but few in Europe will see the result against Ross County
but will verse Prague.
NL should be using the trip to find a best team and formation.
Incidentally
Do we Not get more money for 1pt ( definitely for 3 pts) in Europe,
Than we would get for winning a League Cup ?
Or is that just the champions league, where we blew it at Celtic Park
2021 is shaping up to be a wonderful year.
CV vaccine, fans back in grounds, life returning to normal and the club finally getting shot of Lawwell.
One Night- NL will be on a 1 year rolling contract, so not much compensation if required…..
Paul67 does sound like he is not holding out much hope on NL turning this around either, on a par with mood of Celtic cyber world. Its been said to death but this comes down to tactical approach and football philosophy. NL is generally good on this against superior European teams in restricting the space and playing on the counter. He fails against less individual quality teams but who are structurally and tactically astute. This comes down to NL’s tactical ability and whether he can correct the structural issues. He does this, then we have a chance especially considering our player quality. However there is little evidence of this so far to be optimistic for weeks ahead. Talk of culture sea change, player laziness etc doesn’t install confidence that he sees his own failings. Its a gamble they board seem to be willing to take….
!!BADA BING!! on 24TH NOVEMBER 2020 12:33 PM
Fair point…..
I don’t want to go to Prague, not care and get humped.
Sorry, not having it.
Peter Lawwell has appointed Mowbray, Neil Lennon, Deila and Lennon again. That’s quite scary. It’s well known that Desmond coveted Rodgers and setup a meeting in London. Desmond also left Lawwell to deal with Keane and Pete scared him away. I do not believe PL is capable of recruiting a manager on the qt while Neil is incumbent.
As for Eddie Howe, you can bet your last dime that he would give Brendan a call before entertaining the notion even in the unlikely event he was approached. It’s a non starter. You can only imagine how that telephone call would go.
Neil will remain in post because there is no plan B and there is no capability to put a plan together.
Peter and the board went all in for the blue buck and buried 10 years of cheating in the process, lying and misleading their own shareholders. In all honesty blowing the 10 is the legacy the board deserve.
On Sunday we aim for our 36th consecutive domestic Cup victory.
Some weeks ago the BBC asked whether The Quadruple Treble still mattered to Celtic fans? They’ve had their answer in spades these last few days.
I never thought the SMSM would ever be a better barometer of the Celtic support than me.
Every day’s a seminary day.
WinGlut
i have little interest in our EL game on Thursday – other than a creditable performance
i have little interest in assessing our performance in December (obviously i am keen to win every league game – and the SC)
I would need to see a monumental change in our performance to change my mind about the need for change
In the meantime i can only assume (dangerous I know) that behind the scenes work is in progress to change our management structure
Various reports (fake news – realistic info – who knows) suggest work is in progress
But it is, being discussed – I think it’s a failing, that it is not a lead on this site
its as if all is well – and that is very far from the truth
67ECW
We’re being conditioned to accept a thumping from Sparta. It’s disgraceful how our standards are falling. Note the use of the word falling, not fallen, because this will get a lot worse.
The huns will beat Benfica on Thursday while we make fools of ourselves in Prague and we’re being told to focus on Ross County.
I genuinely despair at how our club is being run right now.
What I read into today’s piece is another excuse for Lennon. It’s Paul67 telling us not to worry if we get a pasting on Thursday because it won’t have the same impact as drawing with Hibs and the tournament isn’t one we should take seriously anyway.
It’s just a shame that the story isn’t in lock-step with the one from Celtic Park for once; Lennon himself says we can stil qualify from this group and presumably will play his “strongest team”, shirkers, wantaways, heartless players and all.
But yes, if we get done not to worry. The game didn’t matter.
Effinell !
When even Pravda pronounces that the proles need to lower their expectations of the once mighty empire, things really are deep in the shitter!
Paul; sounds like you’re hurting bad but I’m struggling to fathom how, after 91AR, 3×3, a pretty sterling transfer window with Greek, Tally, Swiss and Uruguayan internationals recruited and a mibby 4×3 you conclude that:
‘…Our best hopes are a cohesive performance and an injury and illness free trip. A defeat, even a heavy defeat…’ This club, with these players and all our logistical operational ‘might’ is the BEST we can expect??
I’m seriously disassociating from this expectation-setter. Embdy else getting a parallel universe feeling!
FFS
LARSSONSE7EN
Nice to hear from you my Bhoy, 40 years since The Tommy Gemmell headed for Highbury. Tempus most definitely Fugits. Hope you and yours are well.
SFTB
Thanks for the heads-up re JagsTube. The huns were waxing lyrical over their recent Youth Team win over us. All part of the current pressure. Venceremos.
WG, ML2
I don’t understand what the board are up to. It doesn’t make sense to me. The financial success of the club correlates with the success on the field. Why have they let sevco back on level terms? Why have we been sitting with tens of millions in the bank? The huge financial advantage we had has evaporated and very soon they could be ahead of us.
The board have obviously been prioritizing the financial side over the playing side. This strategy doesn’t look very clever now.
It’s not too late but it’s getting there.
WESTCRAIGS on 24TH NOVEMBER 2020 12:50 PM
The board have obviously been prioritizing the financial side over the playing side.
Was always so…..
I really can’t believe what I have just read Paul67. You would accept a doing in Prague, as long as we get back on track in the League Cup on Sunday. Really?
A shame the level both Celtic and CQN has fallen. Extremely sad to witness. 😔
DAVID17 on 24TH NOVEMBER 2020 12:44 PM
i have no evidence to challenge your words
but you have depressed me
i have to believe there is a plan B
I cannot believe PL and/or DD cannot see there is a serious problem with the way we are playing
But your big point should never be underestimated – getting someone to work with PL is an issue
hail hail my friend
67ECW
Neil Lennon has actually done quite well away in Europe over the piece, in CL qualifiers, EL group matches and even in two tricky one off EL qualifiers this season albeit without great performances in the latter two. Where he has failed miserably in the last two seasons has been in turning good away results into qualifying for the group stages of the CL or the next round of the EL against the likes of Cluj and Copenhagen. I always want Celtic to do well and play well whoever is in charge, against whoever we are playing and whenever and wherever we are playing. That’s not about to change. Not now, not ever.
WESTCRAIGS on 24TH NOVEMBER 2020 12:50 PM
‘I don’t understand what the board are up to. It doesn’t make sense to me. The financial success of the club correlates with the success on the field. Why have they let sevco back on level terms?’
###
Because otherwise the huns are heading for extinction.
And while one death can be ignored repeating the trick wouldn’t be so easy.
So no more Old Firm revenue. Bad enough in normal times, but in a season with no fans in grounds, and for a while the possibility of the same next season, a potentially ruinous outcome for Celtic.