A look at the fixture list will not provide immediate comfort, we have away trips to Sparta and Milan ahead in the next 10 days, both of whom won comfortably at Celtic Park earlier in the campaign. The principle positive is that after the team arrive home in the early hours of 4 December, the farthest we travel from Glasgow for the rest of the month is the 10 miles to Hamilton.
We have a meaningless home game against Lille on 10 December and the Scottish Cup Final 10 days later, but that Hamilton game is the only league match in five away from Celtic Park. This will be our least taxing month of the league campaign. It is an opportunity to get things right ahead of the Ibrox visit on 2 January, but as we saw with Newco last season, even easy looking games can result in defeats when the heads are down.
If arrive at Ibrox solid in defence, controlling I midfield with an additional 15 points and a fourth consecutive Scottish Cup win, it is game on again, but I doubt any of us are complacent about those 15 points.
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Sorry Greenpinta and RC but Lapland is only Tier 3
So Santa’s not allowed in.
Naff all for your Christmas Lhads……sorry
Just have a look at the starting line on Saturday.
Last years 3rd choice goalkeeper in goals.
A midget at right back who can’t defend and every opposing team targets. A midfielder who in 7 years has never been able to cement a permanent position in the team and big Rogic who we tried to punt to Qatar.
Oh I forgot the 2 loan players. One who can’t speak English and has been mom, nearly every game that he has played in.
But I’m sure Neil will turn it around
ADI_DASSLER NOT FOR 2ND BEST
first time I’ve laughed since sat
…..and our best player, who isn’t actually ours…..
The Okoflex video is very worrying on many levels. Young players like him and Dembele are not being given a chance. But it also suggests massive indiscipline. The club is simply in a mess.
MARKIEBHOY
oh no , what will I tell the grand wean.
St Tams
No need for that
Frimpong isn’t very tall – and whether Laxalt can speak English or not is irrelevant.
RC
We can tell the wee one’s that Santa’s special elf Uncle Peter
is going to come round instead. He will take away all the presents
and sell them to a house in England, pocket a lot of the cash, buy a load
of replacement presents without asking anyone whether they actually want them,
then set fire to the house.
sounds about right
Get WGS in till the end of the season.Forget fantasies for the meantime.A hand to steady the ship is what’s needed.
Use Europe to get a cohesive unit together.The SPFL games should be points in the bag.Get the Cup won,give the whole place a lift,and get ready for the Hun game.Still everything to play for at the moment.
ST TAMS
JF is a lad that is not to tall your language is out of order.
This week is an ideal time to start new coaching staff. A few less important games to bed in a bit before vital league games.
Lambert 14,
You are a right fekin barrel of laughs .Away and try to lighten up.If its not the Board,its Paul,you are on your rant about.Boring and fekin repetitive whinge.
Frimpong is the biggest victim of the utterly stupid formation.
If he plyays you have to play 3 CB’s then allow him and Laxalt
the freedom to go forward knowing that someone is behind them.
No wonder Duffy is struggling, he is in an often 2 man defence.
Our current formation seems to be 2-7-1.
It would answer why we can’t defend and struggle to score
against the parked bus.
Markiebhoy
We should revert to a proper 4-4-2 for the time being. Not forgetting attack and defend as a team.
ONENIGHTINLISBON on 23RD NOVEMBER 2020 11:44 AM
BIG JIMMY on 23RD NOVEMBER 2020 11:40 AM
Incoherent pish chump boy…
………………………
Thats the BEST you can do ?
NO Denial from you about your Post ” Supporting/Backing the Manager, come what may” ?
You called me a ” Bully” on here a few days ago… YOU couldnt wait to jump on here after Saturdays poor result v Hibs…..and INVITE Celtic supporters to Post support of Neil Lennon…That is TROLLING and BULLYING….in my book.
” Incoherent” ?….So ” Incoherent” that you understood my post ?
“Boy”?…wrong again…its a very long time since I was a Boy.
“Pish” ?….totally contradicting yourself on these Pages within a couple of weeks…Now thats REAL PISH.
I will say it again….So YOU do whatever YOUR Bosses tell you to do….Surely that also makes you a Puppet ?
Your just a Hun Chump ……..who likes to Bitch Online…but you would NEVER call Neil Lennon a ” Puppet” to his face…would you ?
NAW…Didnt think so.
Puppet Chump Bitch.
Marcelino Garcia Toral…
Like everyone I’m absolutely in despair at the state of play.
We can argue about long-term strategy and ambition til the cows come home. We have a squad of players that are capable of so much more than we are getting right now.
Mainly, the team appears poorly coached when it comes to defending. Everybody can see it including Neil Lennon.
The next part is fixing it via coaching. This isn’t tactics or team selections. Across the board there has been examples of horrific defending from my recollection: Brown, McGregor, Bitton, Jullien, Duffy, Ajer, Frimpong, Elhamed and Laxalt.
5 points (in real terms) isn’t insurmountable with more than half the season to go. But there are no signs of recovery.
If Neil Lennon is able to survive he needs to win every domestic game between now and Ibrox. He then has to get something from that game. Nothing less will do.
European performances that will at least spark confidence are also required.
Apologies if I have offended anyone.
Jeremy Frimpong is best when attacking on the right wing as he showed in hist first few games…..someone within our management team sees him as a wing back( whatever the heck that is)….El Hamed is the right back and should have been playing behind Jeremy in a settled team by now …However Our management think not and have Never had what anyone could call a Settled First Team….
We are totally mismanaged from top to bottom….Sadly…
Gene
I totally agree,
If possible I would have El-Hammed Jullien Ajer and yes I know but Taylor
at left back doing the job he was signed for.
Use the superb Laxalt in left mid, Calmac and Christie then perm whoever seems best
in the forth midfield place,
Then perm any one from 3 up front with Eddie.
And as you say attack and defend as a team and play for each other.
JERSEYBHOYS on 23RD NOVEMBER 2020 12:56 PM
Lenny must stay
…………….
Your just another Chump Bitch like a few others on here
Barkas
Ajer Julien Duffy El Hamed
Frimpong Christie McGregor Laxalt
Griff Ajeti Edouard
Markiebhoy
And that is the set up we should have against Sparta, a good chance of getting at least a draw and some credibilty, but Mr Lennon’s boat has sailed he must be replaced now, not at the end of December or the next window but now.
take out Ajeti our can we play 12
RC
Don’t think we’ll get away with a 12.
Dessybhoy
Yep – if we try to get a settled spine then it allows for changes as required in games.
You can use Brown, Ntcham, Rogic or whoever for whether we need to close down or go
forward. And get Barkas back in the goal. Tell him we paid good money for him
because he is a good keeper. Bain has not been any better and does not justify
replacing Barkas. I still think Taylor has a lot to offer in his proper position.
Phil reckons it’s time up for Neil – you know where to find it if interested
I think Barkas came from AEK a team that could defend, he must be shocked at the panic in our defenders.
They could be helped by midfielders that can defend.
RC
– I posted last night a team for Thursday but since then I think Soro isn’t available
Barkas
ElH Julien Duffy Taylor
Frimpong Ntcham Rogic Laxalt
Griff Edouard
‘I want to hold the World Cup’: Former Manchester City youth player Jeremie Frimpong aims for the stars after impressing at Celtic
In measured tones, the teenager is setting out his manifesto for greatness
Jeremie Frimpong has a long-term plan to become the finest footballer ever
Housing conditions in Bank Street were so poor the family moved to Openshaw
By STEPHEN MCGOWAN FOR THE SCOTTISH DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 22:30, 6 December 2019 | UPDATED: 22:30, 6 December 2019
The week before a General Election, Jeremie Frimpong is perched on a wooden bench lining the walls of dressing room two in Celtic’s Lennoxtown training centre.
He has no soap box, no loud hailer and the only people listening are Sportsmail, a club employee, his agent and his older brother Geoffrey.
In measured tones, the teenager is quietly setting out his manifesto for greatness. A long-term plan to become the finest footballer on the planet.
Amateur coaches handed Jeremie Frimpong £10 and £20 notes to keep him fed and watered
‘I want to be the best player there is,’ he says as if discussing the weather. ‘I want to play for the biggest team ever.
I want to win the Champions League. I want to hold the World Cup.
‘I want to win as many trophies as I can.’
On the internet and the pages of the newspapers, images of Lionel Messi, Ballon D’Or winner for a record sixth time, are everywhere. Yet Celtic’s new sensation is more interested in the runner-up pictured sitting by the great man’s side.
‘Look at Virgil Van Dijk,’ he adds, ‘there’s the example. Played for Celtic; four years later he nearly wins the Ballon D’Or at Liverpool. He was so close.
‘So can I be the best player there is? Yeah, I think I can be. Celtic can help me with that. The history here is crazy. They are so good – one of the biggest teams there is.
‘So I hope I can be the best here. But that only comes with hard work and commitment and that’s what I’m going to produce to make it happen.’
Hard work and commitment are only a small part of his story. In itself, the sacrifice of his mother merits a small trophy.
Worried that her brood of seven children might be dragged into the gangland violence of their father’s native Amsterdam, Benice Frimpong began a new life in Manchester in 2008.
The Clayton area was the first home of Manchester United, but felt less suitable for a young family.
Working as a cleaner, money was tight. Yet the promise her seven-year-old son was showing with AFC Clayton and Clayton Villa boys’ clubs made the purchase of every new pair of football boots an investment in the future.
Frimpong’s older brother tells Sportsmail of amateur coaches handing the young protégé £10 and £20 notes to keep him fed and watered and scoring goals. The real turning point came when AFC Clayton reached an amateur cup final.
‘I scored a hat-trick and I remember playing really well,’ recalls the new Bhoy. ‘I won best player of the tournament and they gave me a trophy.
‘I played so well I suddenly had Liverpool, Man City, Bolton and Blackburn after me. They were all speaking to my parents and it was a big thing for a young kid.
‘I went for a Bolton trial first. Then I went to Liverpool and I was going to sign for them. But the travelling was hard and expensive from our home in Manchester. We didn’t really have the funds and Man City were more local. I went there on a six-week trial and that was it.’
Joining Manchester City’s academy at the age of nine meant going from school to training and returning home at 9pm.
Housing conditions in Bank Street were so poor the family moved to Openshaw, Frimpong’s siblings missing out on some of the basics to further their brother’s potential career.
In return, he had to make one or two of his own. At St Matthew’s High School in Moston, he showed early promise as a sprinter at 100 metres and 110m hurdles.
He said: ‘I have always been naturally quick. Was athletics a serious possibility for me? Yeah, 100 per cent.’
Things then changed when Manchester City moved him to St Bede’s College, a partner school for the club’s academy programme. From then on, the instruction was to focus on football and nothing else.
‘I was committed to athletics, but I never thought about it the way I thought about football,’ he says. ‘It was never in my head to become an Olympic athlete or anything. Football was in my head night and day.’
At 5ft 4in, his lack of height has always caused his coaches a few frown lines.
Frimpong has a long-term plan to become the finest footballer on the planet +2
Frimpong has a long-term plan to become the finest footballer on the planet
Starting life as a winger, Manchester City kept him in the shadows, humming and hawing over his build. Change came when he scored twice against Middlesbrough’s academy team and earned a promotion to the top team for his age group.
Shortly after that, the regular right-back was injured and Frimpong filled in as a substitute. After the game, academy coach Alan Wright spoke the four words which changed the course of his life.
‘Alan said to me: “This is your position.” He said: “You could be one of the best right-backs in the world if you master it.”
‘At first I wasn’t sure. I didn’t say yes straight away. I thought about it and thought: ‘Let’s give it a try.’
Where others fretted over his stature, Frimpong never did. He used his athletic prowess to hurdle every obstacle. He said: ‘I never worried about height. I just went and played. I know I’m not the tallest. But on the pitch I’ll never be the weakest either.
‘I will go into any battle. If I get beat I get beat, but I will never shirk from trying.’
To prove it to Manchester City, he knuckled down. The ferocious survival instincts of his mother were in the genes.
‘My mates were going out and I was like: “Sorry, I have to sleep because I have football in the morning.’ My sister got engaged to be married and I had to miss the engagement party with the family because I had a game the next day.
‘I felt sad about that one but, if you want to be a footballer, it’s a sacrifice you have to be prepared to make. The higher the level you go to, the less you see of your family.’
That only really became a problem when Glasgow came calling. Neil Lennon spotted him playing for Manchester City’s Under-23 team in a friendly win over Celtic’s development side at Lennoxtown last season. A £350,000 deal – rising to £1million with add-ons – began to take shape.
‘I had a good season with the Under-23s, but I didn’t want to do that again because I’d already done it,’ he says.
‘I wanted first-team football and if that wasn’t coming at City then it had to be somewhere else. It wasn’t easy for me leaving, I’d been there all my life. But I had to try it. If you are passionate and serious about football, you can’t be staying the same.
‘You can’t be standing still. You have to go higher and higher and higher and strive for the top. And when you get there? You still can’t stop.’
Some of the sacrifices were a little harder than others. Where Manchester was wet, Glasgow felt wet and cold. Where the family home was loud and noisy, his new apartment was quiet in the mornings.
To help shatter the silence, his agent moved up for two weeks while his brothers and sisters are regular visitors.
When he turns 19 on Tuesday, his Ghanaian mother will spend the big day – and most of December – catering to his dietary needs.
‘Oh, I miss my mum’s African food,’ he grins. ‘Her speciality is this African dish called Jollof rice. Or else there is Fried Yam, that’s really nice.
‘I don’t have to say anything, she just knows. I can make pasta and stuff. But mum makes the sauce and leaves me weeks’ worth to get me through. A bit of chicken and I’m a happy man….’
The acclimatisation process has been helped by a quick elevation to Celtic’s first team. In the minds of supporters, his explosive pace and invention at right-back has already rendered Kieran Tierney yesterday’s man.
Yet tomorrow £7million Rangers winger Ryan Kent is expected to provide the biggest first-team test yet of his defensive abilities. ‘I never played against Ryan Kent in England,’ he admits. ‘But I was with Brandon Barker at Manchester City. It doesn’t worry me. I’ve always been confident about big games. I think I still have work to do on everything, but mainly defending.
‘I’m quite confident in one-v-ones, but you can always improve.’ His brother speaks of an Under-23 game when he shackled Chelsea’s England international star Callum Hudson-Odoi. Like most things, Frimpong took it in his stride. ‘Don’t get scared,’ he explains, ‘it’s just another game. Go and play. I guess that’s my approach to life really.’
BOURNESOUPRECIPE
drat didn’t think anyone would notice.
And leave Christie, Calum and Broonie at home
GENE
I like your thinking , good choice
Deliberately stayed away from the blog recently because of poor results . Came on today in the hope that the penny has finally dropped with Paul67 and his clique …….surprise surrise it has’nt !!! If we are sticking by club Legend Lenny ( and its looking increasingly likely ) just when are you guys gonna admit that Paul67 and the Board have got this spectacularly wrong ? This is not rocket science , we continually have a team of “square pegs ,round holes ” coaching and systems appear non existant etc etc , One camera shot in the dug on Saturday said it all really “coaches” sitting stiff as a board saying , doing nothing . Its gone , Lenny’s ( true club legend) time is up. I think ( hope Im wrong ) the 10 is gone . There is not one single thing in that team or the management of that team right now that suggests otherwise . To dither now and not make any changes is crazy, stupid, mental , cowardly etc etc .Change now and be ready for next seasons challenge or we will be playing catch up with DDs pals across the city. I know PL gets the brunt of this and mostly rightly so in my humble opinion but until we see the back of DD nothing much will change . That man needs chased out of Celtic Park , he brings nothing to the table . I read with a heavy heart that he has lost interest in ongoing talks about a North Atlantic League type set up . This begs the question why ? Is it now the case that he feels the Rangurs are back so all is well again or does he feel his fairytale hope of moving to England is some how nearer because ofcovid. This man is only interested in his yearly dividend . If Fergus had been in charge of us now I think we would be light years ahead of Rangers . Heads would have rolled at the SFA over the Rangers years of cheating and we might be playing in a fair , FFP league. Apologies , Im off on a tangent but it is all linked and the mess starts at the top.
A disinterested Major shareholder who appears only interested in share prices and dividends . A CEO who operates to please him and be rewarded well financially equals a terrible managerial and coaching staff appointment born out of laziness and now we have a club Legend who is in over his head and looking a shadow of his former self . I hope Neil does the decent thing and doesnt spoil his Legend status . I also hope win or lose the 10 , at the end of the season PL walks away and would love DD to never set foot in paradise again ( highly unlikely but I,ll keep saying my prayers ) We need forward thinking people in place to reach our full potential….. oh and the blog to go back to its glory days when it was second to none in the Celtic world not a sanatised Peter Lawell PC correct blog that it has sadly become
As you are all having a go at picking our team, I’ll go
Bain,
Elhamed, Julien, Ajer, Taylor
Laxalt, McGregor, Henderson , Christie
Griff, Edouard
If Fergus was in charge sevco would have started in the Premier League
SETTING FREE THE BEARS FOR RES. 12 & OSCAR KNOX on 23RD NOVEMBER 2020 10:56 AM
I’d been away from this blog for a couple of years and not much had changed but that did remind me of something – where is Kojo? Is he still lurking or posting under a different name?