We dropped points at Pittodrie on Saturday but should have buried the home side in the first half and then our two January signings combined to produce a goal. There were enough positive signs to have me relaxed ahead of last night’s game against Hibs.
What’s more, we scored with a penalty kick awarded after four minutes. Hibs fans, who have watched two consecutive 0-3 home defeats, must have feared for the worst. Almost two hours later they left the ground feeling robbed.
Before the equaliser our play was poor. Forward passes were very low percentage efforts, often trying to find Daizen Maeda who was marked and could neither catch a long ball in front of him or find space to drop deep and control. “We need a second goal” was doubtlessly mumbled by each of us, despite the fact that Hibs had not made a single attempt at goal.
After they equalised from the second ball at a free kick, Celtic collapsed. Hibs piled forward through shredded lines and would have made the points safe if they were more competent in front of goal. Celtic also made chances but just like Hibs, each move was poorly executed and often ended without an actual attempt being made.
A defending block on Kyogo in the 90th minute failed to stop the shot, but caught the shin of our Japanese striker. VAR reviewed the incident and referred referee Nick Walsh to the monitor. I know what you would all have been saying had this happened elsewhere!
At the risk of jinxing him, Adam Idah has a 100% career conversion rate from 15 penalties, good enough to win Celtic three points last night. He’s worth a fortune to us for that quality alone. After the game Brendan Rodgers was able to point to various excuses for the performance: disruption in the team being the most valid.
Alexandro Bernabei had his best game for Celtic – the boy can tackle – but he and Maeda on the left looked like they had never met. Bar those opening four minutes, the defensive line had only one of our first choice starters, and was further disordered when Stephen Welsh went off.
Nicolas Kuhn and Tony Ralston may actually have said little more to each other than “Hello”, so our unstructured right wing was no surprise. When Luis Palma arrived on the left we were at least able to hold onto possession in an advanced position, a quality Maeda was unable to deliver before him. Again, Joe Hart did enough to add to our points tally. These reasons sounded plausible until I remembered that disruptive new arrivals at Ross County were an excuse for helping them at Celtic Park.
Brendan, any one of us reading this could have done as well in the dugout last night. You need to put a team on the field that can dominate and win against Premiership sides with 10% of your financial resources and who would be embarrassed by the money you spent.
Against Ross County, Aberdeen and now Hibs, teams on terrible runs of form, we are a soft touch. Enough with the self-fulfilling excuses for failure, you have the resources to comfortably win these games. It is your responsibility to get it right, or just own up if you can’t do the job without Chris Davies.
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The unfortunate situation we find ourselves in is that a huge number of our support do not have any faith in either the board or the manager. As previously stated this will come to a head sooner rather than later.
james from port glasgow – the celtic board are now gambling with a £100m jackpot next season.
ffs, where do we get them from.
*we have 3 out of the 4 in our wee family haha
TT, i never knew you are Portugese.
geebee1978 on 8th February 2024 6:38 pm
You’d buy a damn fine player for 8million.
what is the huge number – against the board – many thousands maybe but they never protest beyond shouting.
against the manager ? seriously ? some bloggers and a few thousands others maybe
a house divided and all that.
dont renew your seats pleasde, i want to get back in next season.
Bloo card eh :-))
https://twitter.com/TheShamrock1888/status/1755646606953586950?s=19
Burnley78
Left a wee update on OT67 end of last blog.
Didnt get thro to game last night a few changes of plan beforehand meant i was late
back in glasgow,a victory is a victory :-)
HH
Since the beginning of December we have lost one game, one out of thirteen matches. The one we lost against Hearts, was the first domestic defeat at home in over fifty games. Are we playing at the top of our game, no, but we still deserve to be top of the league, and hopefully, on Sunday we will be in the QF of the Cup. SPL teams are causing us problems, and there does seem to be a disconnect from back to front, but Adam has brought a presence, different option, and albeit based on next to nothing, I can seen benefits with having him and Kyogo on the pitch at the same time. With Oh on hand. Be great if we could get CCV, Hatate and Taylor back, Frame too with Vata and Kelly could also help, and dare I say it James Forrest? At our best we are more than capable of a League and Cup double, but we are not anywhere near there often enough.
and dare I say it James Forrest?
celticmac, i would be playing james all the time for as long as he can last before most of the newbies.
he still has the legs, the game intelligence, and many times i have watched the various wingers and thought “what would james have done there”
With a balanced viewpoint, eehhm, When I was a lad, my father told me to always admit when I got things wrong. That advice has been with me all my life. No point in finger pointing as when you point, thereis always 3 fingers pointing back at you, great advice. Now , Br is always pointing the finger, wisnae me kinda thing !!
Well, maybe it has
KINGLubO
saint stivs
Didn’t see any sign of him last night Saint.
We need all the fit players we can find younger or older, Jamesie included
https://philmacgiollabhain.ie/2024/02/07/toxicology-retort/#more-33516
This is now the business end of the season and every result has significance. Last night we got lucky and maybe we deserved some luck. For ten to fifteen minutes after Hibs had equalised they were a bit unfortunate not to take the lead. It was Kyogo first of all then Ida who saw us leave Easter Road with all three points.
We were so-so in the first half but seldom in total control. That’s the way it has been since the winter break ended. Celtic just cannot capitalise on first half superiority.
The loss of CCV has been a catastrophe despite Liam’s heroics. When the opposition gets the bit between its teeth the team becomes less than the sum of its parts. Even stalwarts like Callum and Matt seem infected.
Last night, the normally reliable Abada had to be instructed to defend. Palma, even in extra time, seemed intent on giving away fouls in dangerous areas. In fact, if you want to pinpoint the moment Celtic lost composure, look no further than Palma’s two missed penalties.
Poor Paul
…
Deary me
Last night after a win the Chant was SACK THE BOARD#
Get with it.
Bringing James Forest in from the cold could be a sensible thing to do, we signed 4 wingers this season totalling over 10 million pounds and Jamesie operating at 75% of his best would be better than any of them.
What a bad look for our recruitment dept that is.
Without the constant restraints and deceptions of Lawwell, DD, etc.…the project buses etc.
Neil Lennon would be reborn and at long last….allowed to be the ‘real’ Neil Lennon…as a manager again.
Any manager who can pair Kelvin Wilson and Efe Ambrose as centre half duo then build a midfield sheild in front of them to defeat probably rhe best team that the club has ever faced in Barcelona side at Parkhead on Celtic`S 125th birthday as well then NL without PLC scripts is the guy in my opinion.
Any fan who sleekitly and lazily keeps the Plc in place who have nurtured the big lie since 2012 with Lawwell`s sleekit TV deals to include the huns on the journey with the PLC making their same club lie deal official by putting old 2012 Rangers £49 price onto new club Sevco tickets £49 increasing to £52 and then £54 and still 60,000 thank the PLC for keeping the corruption and then sniping at real Celtic fans who refused to participate in this crime scandal corruption vile befouling of Celtic`s sacred history…may God have mercy on their souls.
Neil Lennon blew the 10 season…but he wasn’t alone in that….Broony elbowing wee 18 year olds to get sent off…then come back from suspension and try to elbow yet another wee 18 year old less than 1 minute on the pitch as a sub as well…talk about match fixing?
And the witch hunters must have closed their eyes at those bits.
Just get an interview with Shane Duffy if only to get him to explain what he meant with his throw away line….
“The crazy goings on behind the scenes….”
Behind what scenes? In the dressing room? In the board room? What? Where?
Nobody wanted to know as they had already put Neil Lennon`s head on the block…waiting to be chopped!
Chopped by whom?
Chopped by the 60,000 Empty Heads who continue to finance a PLC that jumped into bed with and got hitched to the same club lie?
There is not a speck of integrity anywhere in the entire club.
The Green Brigade are the only ones who are missed when they get banned by the pro genocide PLC board.
If you don’t stand against genocide then you stand with it.
A golden opportunity for the club to put TRUTH`s on the table about that evil country which no Catholic school or Church will inform its pupils and congregations about.
About how these monsters owns all of the banks, media, big pharma, doctors who disagree will be killed, they own all governments, all of the secret service agencies, the black lives matters scam, MAGA make America great again scam, they have have even got Sinn Fein pushing the tranny agenda which the genocide monsters created, they own both sides of each parliament in the western world, apart from Corbyn and Galloway, whom EVERY election is rigged against them by the friends if genocide, the monsters own hollywood and everyone in it…apart from John Cusack, Susan Sarandon, Gina Carano, and a few more…be careful of what you believe coming from hollywood movies…especially about historic events were only one side of any story is told by these monsters…who`ll never tell you why things happen….or what disgusting contents were in the books that were burned…etc, etc.
Neil Lennon as manager without a Tory board would be a different creature.
Neil Lennon didn`t go along with the same club lie like the PLC did with their £49 pieces of silver tickets and 60,000 who sucked it all up throwing – unquestioning – piles of money at the most corrupt executive ever in the history of the Celtic.
Neither the PLC or the succulent sucking sucking 60,000 should get to judge anybody ever again…in a world of merits and morals.
But as the old firm swamp is all that`s available because of this terrible attempt at being Celtic fans era….well suck you.
Surely we can’t be too far off the articles reminding us how brilliant Lennon and Strachan were…..?
Did Duffy include himself going AWOL to another hotel in Dubai, where former team mates were getting pished?
BURNLEY78 on 8TH FEBRUARY 2024 4:56 PM
Brendan is isolated, this is a problem, but I am sure he will be up for the fight. He has a lot to prove. He has blown strong positions in the premiership with Liverpool and Leicester (twice) and some may say he ran away when we were at the run in stage at Celtic.
*while he didnae actually run away, he did a moonlight though, it was said after he left that there was a lot of jubilation at Parkheid as he was so detrimental to the club at the time and lets be clear here, he was NEVER a Celtic mhan, his family were, but he was a Sheffield Wednesday supporter as his cousin Nigel Worthington played for them, it seems his family were a tad urinated at him for walking out on us
The summer of 2018 should have been one of joy after a double treble but there were rumblings that he wanted out and not just that but taking the Moose with him, tae Chine as well, but it seems he was summoned tae a confrontation with the Kaiser where he was told without any doubt, he was going nowhere fast.
But he is a craft bugger and before the year was out we had dropped 15 points including 3 at the bigot dome, oh we won the LC but we played naebody really, Partick, St Johnstone, Hearts before beating the Sheep in the final.
Meanwhile down south the Foxes were struggling dropping 25 points by md December and Claude Puel’s jaiket was on a shoogly peg, that is until victories away at Goodison and Stamford Bridge coupled with a home win over Man City gave him a bit of a reprieve, so it looked as if the sounded out BR’s move was curtailed at the time.
Meanwhile our form picked up with resounding victories including shut outs in both the League and Cup, until his last game when although we won 4-1 against Motherwell, he went on a tirade after we leading 2-0 in the second half and in possession of the ball in our own half put the ball out of play because of an injury to one of our players, we expected the throw in to come back to us but naw it went tae one of the away players creating the chance for the controversial goal.
And yet the following day he was off down south for further talks with the Foxes as they had now contrived to drop another 16 points, so Claude was given the bum’s rush and the newly labelled fraudgers was unveiled on national telly with his big cheesy grin from the former Filbert Street stand.
The following day we were t swinecastle where a last minute goal by big Eddy gave us the 3 points and 5 days later, we were back at a venue he had never won at knocking the kid on Irishmen out of the Scottish Cup as we headed for an unprecedented treble treble.
So is he once again working his ticket, well he did say recently that he widnae walk away and would only leave if fired hmmmm
https://cdn.celtsarehere.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/SPFL_HIBS_CELTIC_2516-1920×1280.jpg
Love it.
The Rangers scrape a win, and it’s all positive spin about team unity and a winning mentality.
Celtic scrape a win, and it’s all negative spin about team disunity and a non-winning mentality.
Weird how some Celtic supporters are intent on helping the MSM do its job.
Brendan could walk or be fired…….new coach in no problem…..same staff recruitment etc….big problem.
So it would be same as before.
SAINT STIVS @7:38
Interesting article.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3Hfk9x0w2E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcRkHhD64Rs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zE54bSThtQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi5J5HUxwjE
Scullybhoy
Sadly either plants or too spoilt / stupid to realise.
I am sure Brendan will tell his bhoys to ignore the noise coming from Sevco, the MSM and some Celtic supporters. It is not going to be easy, but Brendan has been over this course before. Positivity is key.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sWAWuC6xg0
Sorry, but on behalf of all the other bedwetters and happy clappers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCk5TsAJsXU
You can wash the sheets tomorrow, but to night, celebrate being top of the league.
HH
A few people mentioning the fact that the same score at Ibrox got a better reception than ours at Easter Rd –
I think the difference is that there is currently one team who seem more likely to sneak a winner and one who would struggle to hold onto a lead.
At present which team dropping points is a bigger surprise?
P67 is entitled , of course, to write what he wants , as we all are as long as it isn’t defamatory or illegal in some other way.
What concerns me about it more than anything else is that P67 has demonstrated in numerous previous articles that he has some decent lines of communication with Peter Lawwell , directly or indirectly, and such a clear and unequivocal attack on BR suggests to me that there are divisions behind the scenes.
I suspect from the look on Callum Mcgregors face last night (some on here suggested that he looked shell – shocked) that he’s having to keep the players on an even keel on the pitch in a way no manager can from the sidelines.
Add in the inexplicable loss of from of some of our key players Callum , Matt . Abada and Kyogo in particular and I worry hugely there are major issues and disconnects behind the scenes.
I understand that BR’s wife loves it here and has decided she wants to make here her forever home so I can’t imagine BR wants to go.
I worried that the fire in him had gone out but not after seeing his reaction at FT last night I don’t actually think that’s the case.
I honestly expect – and I don’t see myself as happy clapper – that last night was a turning point.
Sometimes we all need a wake up call that tells us that we might have been a wee bit complacent.
I hope that’s what happened in the last few weeks and that ,now the transfer window is shut and all the background noise around it (good or bad),has stopped we can knuckle down and go on a decent run.
Most winning league runs in any league , it seems to me, don’t happen in the first half but in the latter stages when experience and hard nosed professionalism step up.
For me we have that in the players and , I believe still , in BR.
We’ve performed poorly of late but the results have not been disastrous.
Sure – Rangers have been on a decent run , better than ours of late, but we are still, albeit just , top of the league. It’s more likely than not that they will have a dip.
We’ve also beaten them twice and can’t be bettered in games against them on points now , no matter what happens in the other games against them. We’ll win at least one of the remaining two IMHO.
This isn’t a season , nor a run of games coming up , for the faint hearted.
I still believe that neither our big players nor the manager are faint hearted and last night , despite the poverty of the performance , showed that.
An T
Many thanks for update re Old Tim. Good to hear he is looked after and visited by good people like you and his sister n law. I always loved his chat at the CQN open in Aberdour. Just having a drink, or a few and a good chat about the football. None of that Golf nonsense. His generosity is legend too.
There are some things Scotland does better than England Re the health service and I know this from recent experience with my mother n law down south. Hopefully he benefits from that too.
I’ve not really been keeping up with the blog over the last year or so due to getting myself a dumb phone.
I’ve not seen Ernie Lynch posting. I hope he’s well.
Oh, and now I’ve got a smartphone back can anyone recommend any interesting websites to read?
Moisey. 8.09 this morning
Great post.
I think the loss of Davies / Kewell and from before Broony is a big factor.
Not just for coaching either.
Broony was all about Morale back then. A kind of link man.
I was surprised Brendan didn’t bring him back into the fold. ESP given the mutual respect there.
Personally we need leaders on the park though and last night seeing Ralston and Scales step up was encouraging.
majestic hartson
A dumb phone?
You wanna get yourself a dictaphone
There are more than a few on here
Masquerading as Celtic supporters
Rod Stewart on the Kelly Clarkson show wearing a Celtic necklace.
Tontine Tim
I do remember asking Brendan as to why when 5-0 up after 56 minutes vs rangers we didn’t strive to get 8 or 9 that day at Celtic park.
He kind of rolled his eyes and said so many folks had asked that and he just couldn’t get that we were not happy with 5-0 against them and winning the league.
I said 54000 there that day thought they were going to see a Celtic record never to be beaten when the 5th went in.
He repeated some folk can never be pleased.
*SENTINEL CELTS PLAYER OF THE YEAR 2023-24*
*RESULTS FROM GAME #33 HIBS 1 CELTIC 2 (IDAH(2))*
Good evening, friends.
The pre-match changes, particularly our brand new front three, had everyone talking but ultimately it proved to be a false dawn with only Idah really shining out of the new forward line.
The same old same old started in midfield and whilst we know that each of them should be playing far better, it’s a common opinion that all 3 are simultaneously experiencing a wee run of poor form. I think that each of them should maybe take turns on the bench over the next.
And at the back it turned out that the defender we were perhaps most concerned about emerged as the best of the 4, despite that haircut! The best, that is, apart from our goalkeeper who, for the 2nd game in a row, received a lot of recognition for some timely 2nd half saves.
5 minutes into his first start, Adam Idah becomes our latest penalty taker and scored to instantly give himself a few Broonie points with the fans in the stand. After Hibs had equalised and then created 3 or 4 more decent 2nd half chances, shockerooni – we were awarded a 2nd penalty with only minutes remaining. My elation subsided for a moment as I remembered that Palma was now on the park. Fortunately, Idah remained on penalty duty. Risking the plaudits that he had earned 90 minutes earlier, Big Adam showed nerves of steel to secure the 3 points and leave most of us on an instant high, even if the bigger picture is leaving lots of fans downbeat.
We have now played 33 competitive games, enjoying 21 wins, 5 draws and 7 defeats, scoring 67 goals and conceding 32. We top the league by 3 points and 2 goals having played 1 game more than the team in 2nd place. They play Ross County at home next Ash Wednesday. Which this year doubles as Valentine’s Day and the 12th anniversary of my favourite Feb 14th EVER. We will then have 13 league games remaining.
My thanks to the 64 who voted this time around so thank you for the extra support compared to the previous 3 games. One voter only nominated 2 players whilst one other left me confused over who a particular pick was for (Day?)
The total votes cast for each player are as follows, with my own nominations asterisked.
Hart: 46
Johnston, A: 0
Welsh*: 6
Scales: 12
Bernabei: 38
McGregor: 0
O’Riley: 2
Bernardo: 4
Kuhn: 0
Idah*: 59
Maeda: 1
Ralston*: 20
Abada: 0
Nawrocki: 0
Kyogo: 2
Palma: 0
Naeb’dy: 2
And so, the players receiving POINTS for the game against Hibs are –
Idah – 5 points
Hart – 4 points
Bernabei – 3 points
Ralston – 2 points
Scales – 1 point
The overall positions after 33 games played are as follows –
80 points – Scales
74 points – O’Riley
53 points – McGregor
38 points – Carter-Vickers
28 points – Palma
22 points – Bernardo, Hart and Kyogo
21 points – Johnston, A.
20 points – Oh
18 points – Maeda
16 points – Yang
13 points – Taylor
9 points – Johnston M, Nawrocki and Turnbull
8 points – Ralston
6 points – Idah, Iwata and Lagerbielke
5 points – Hatate
4 points – Bain, Holm and Kuhn
3 points – Bernabei and Forrest
2 points – Abada
0 points – Frame, Haksabanovic, Kelly, Phillips, Starfelt, Tilio, Vata and Welsh
Our thoughts now turn to the Scottish Cup. On Sunday we travel to Paisley to face an in- form St Mirren side in our last-16 tie. Kick off is at 2.00pm and I think I’m right in saying that the tie gets played to a finish.
Hail Hail!
BURNLEY78 on 8TH FEBRUARY 2024 9:25 PM
Tontine Tim
I do remember asking Brendan as to why when 5-0 up after 56 minutes vs rangers we didn’t strive to get 8 or 9 that day at Celtic park.
He kind of rolled his eyes and said so many folks had asked that and he just couldn’t get that we were not happy with 5-0 against them and winning the league.
I said 54000 there that day thought they were going to see a Celtic record never to be beaten when the 5th went in.
He repeated some folk can never be pleased.
*which means he was NEVER a Celtic supporter and went through what we did at their hands, I recall them tormenting us in the 63 SC replay while their support were chanting “Celtic ha ha ha” and “Easy Easy Easy” , Bob Kelly saying he wished thy had just filled the net instead of humiliating us, no me shades of losing our 7-1 record.