Four years after making his debut, that was Dane Murray’s second league appearance for Celtic. He has also played in five cup and qualifier games. So let’s be clear, yesterday’s defeat at Tynecastle is not on him. Dane was about as ready to play in that game as you or I.
Yesterday’s problem in central defence was a consequence of decisions elsewhere. Look at this analysis by Atreides on Twitter.
Gustaf Lagerbielke sits alongside four others in the elite Ball Playing Defenders category in Liga Portugal. To give you an idea of what that means, those others’ Transfermarkt values are: Inacio (Sporting) €45m, Debast (Sporting) €30m, Silva (Benfica) €32m, Kiwior (Porto on loan from Arsenal) €25m.
Lagerbielke hardly broke sweat for Braga at Celtic Park this month. He has the metrics of a potential top talent and Braga are developing that potential. He has exactly the profile of central defender we would be delighted if Celtic spent €10m on. He is sitting among players with values ranging from €25m to €45m, and we had him and threw him away. Had he been at Tynecastle yesterday, Celtic would probably have won the match.
Then there’s Maik Nawrocki, who returned from injury for his first appearance of the season yesterday, when he strolled through a 0-3 win for Hannover 96 in 2 Bundesliga. I can only assume that Auston Trusty was on the bench for the third time since 2 October as he is not yet fit enough for even a Kieran Tierney-like return to action. Although, 24 days after appearing on the bench has the feel of a full preseason to it.
I wish I was confident of things improving in the January transfer window. Hearts will again spend a fraction of what Celtic spend, but are again likely to get far more for their money. I doubt that Celtic would even consider signing the profile of players who have put Hearts top of the league.
My biggest worry: if the most important man at the club right does not take responsibility, we will not improve. No more Honda Civic deflections, please. Until the boss says “This is my fault”, an excuse will always be found and failure is baked in.
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No laughing at the back.
It’s Monday.
That was quite a game yesterday, we saw a Hearts team coming of age.
The obvious, overflowing delight at the victory by Hearts in general a Tony Bloom in particular was a real warning to Scottish Football.
My opinion has always been we need one or two Scottish Clubs to show real ambition, my hope was Hibs or Aberdeen but Hearts will have to do.
A rising tide lifts all ships and those living high on the hog and having the life of Riley at Celtic Park got another wake up call.
Celtic Football Club will undoubtedly rise to the challenge – R2ngers closing in behind us, Hearts pulling away at the top will test our mettle but we are champions.
However our high heid yins are finished, Tony Bloom et al are way above their league.
As many of us already know this Board needs clearing out.
Aff oot
Hail Hail
Hola mi amigos en Celtic.
Can’t comment on Nawrocki’s performance as I didn’t see the game.
From what I can see Hearts have signed experienced players in their mid-20s and above. The type of players who, when Celtic sign them, are referred to in some quarters as “mid-career journeymen” and we should instead be signing 19-year-olds.
Anyway, what’s all the stress about? We’re still top of the old firm championship. Does the official one really matter?
Made an average Hearts side look good yesterday, in truth they were awful and predictable but deserved their win. Elsewhere Rohl managed to get a tune out of his players in the second half at the pit. Hearts won’t be in the chase beyond January ….the Huns will….and if we still have the elite manager in place, we’re not gonna win the league.
A bit odd that Lagerbielke was getting bigged up in the earlier posts and now he’s the main topic on today’s lead.
Would put a main political party to shame those tactics.
I have seen this movie before, under Barnes, Mowbray and Neil Lennon.
In our defence, for every 3 games Hertz play, we play 4/5.
Personally, I think BR is a good manager, and as he says, we still have plenty of time to reverse the slump, but I dont think he is the guy to do it.
Act now, thank him and get his negativity out the door.
BORGO67 on 27TH OCTOBER 2025 12:18 PM
“A bit odd that Lagerbielke was getting bigged up in the earlier posts and now he’s the main topic on today’s lead.”
It should have been screaming out at anyone watching Murray yesterday and us against Braga.
The most important man at the club is Dermot Desmond . Unfortunately .
Although I’m not sure the word ‘at’ is appropriate .
FWIW , quite liked big Lager, Rocky not so much
You have to question BR’s judgement when he thinks Dane Murray is better than Lagerbielke. He just doesn’t seem to like certain players. Oh is another one, clearly better than Kelly. And BR is allegedly a coach who can develop players.
Dane Murray’s a professional footballer ffs. He would have been estatic to get an opportunity to show what he could do. Whether or not he should have started ahead of Trusty is debatable alright.
We could do with Nygren scoring more of his tier one sitters.
There was a certain inevitability about the outcome when the Celtic team was published.
We had a rookie right back alongside a rookie centre half. Hearts were going to run at them from the off, and they did. Kyziridis had a ball.
My criticism is not that we played two youngsters, but that we had an experienced right back and an experienced centre half on the bench.
Surely… if you were going to put kids in, you’d be inclined to pair rookie with experience, Ralston with Murray or Donavan with Trusty.
To play the two youngsters exposed them to unnecessary stress. Donovan did well in the main, he seems fairly durable, but I think it may be the end of Murray’s embryonic Celtic career and that’s a real shame.
On the manager, that one.
Failing to act when action is needed is negligence.
BR is for the off, the only question is whether that’s at the end of May, or sooner.
If the latter, the sooner the better. The longer this goes on, the less likely his replacement will be able to recover the position.
The sooner we act, the longer time the new guy has not only to recover the position, but to ready us for the following season.
Get on with it. I’ve seen enough.
More bigging up of the shittiest transfer window in living memory until the last one.
Absolute codswallop from start to finish.
Nygren is a bit of an enigma , not unlike Idah .
He has scored some good , valuable goals but his conversion rate from good chances is poor . Yesterday’s effort which should have put us 2-1 up being a prime example of someone who is not an instinctive goalscorer . Given our lack of goals from our ever diminishing pool of strikers , we could certainly do with a few more from midfield and the wings
We also need to start righting the strategic blunders we’ve seen over the last two plus years.
It might take longer to recover off the pitch than on it but change we must.
Either the manager needs to change, or the manager needs to change.
Our only hope is Brendan’s ego is so severely bashed that we actually see some common sense in his sections.
Play the 11 best player we have,
Forget the “balance” of a right footer. Its a myth, we played it long mire than we player out yesterday.
Trusty isnt Beckebbaur, but he is the best we have . Ralston will have to do for next few week Reo should now be an impact sub. McCowan is a harder worker and doesnt gift possession so much . James Forrest starts every game as the only right sided winger we have,
We are in the trenches now. We need to go unbeaten till re-enforcements arrive from the medics list or in January
So its all on the manager as usual. The board are wonderful at signing quality players if only the manager would play them.
Its a far cry playing for a middling team expected to win nowt than at celtic where you are expected to win all. Also please remember gus was not a regular in holland last season, he lost his place and they did not opt to sign him which is the reason he moved to Portugal in the first place.
The season is not looking good for us and there is plenty of blame to go round. At every business that blame starts at the top, step forward the board and the beloved pistol peter and work down.
Pps well done hearts you deserved your win against us
Oh dear oh dear…..nothing about Nawrocki the more expensive one 🤔…
I genuinely don’t want to play the man here Paul .. as i am a little bit more receptive to your stance on this one than others on here will be.
Atreides might very well be an intelligent, insightful type deploying a faultless methodology.
But, respectfully, he’s got 500 followers after 11 years.
The prophet Jeremiah was better received.
Not sure I agree he’s “working his ticket”. Surely he’s smart enough to know that finishing second (or possibly third 😳) in a one-horse race seriously damages his chances of getting an EPL job.
Not to worry – surely it won’t be too long before Hearts realise they are too far in front of Hibs and decide to sell their best players and not replace them so that Hibs can catch up?
Back him or sack him.
Will no one rid me of this turbulent manager?
Hard not to feel sorry for our exec. They just can’t catch a break.
Hopefully, the new manager is more receptive to their ways.
What can go wrong?
Ps, have we given up on Kwon being ‘the one that got away’?
You can’t win anything with kids…..
An amateur league manager would have seen our lineup and immediately targeted out right side. Two rookies on the right side of the defence. Nygren who everyone knows does nothing defensively. Engels- who knows?
And so it transpired.
Second half- McInnes saw the obvious- stop Calmac and you stop Celtic.
The basic nature of how we play and how to play against us is going to dictate the future- unless we change it we will not recover.
I fought Lagerbielkes corner on here for months.When it was rumoured we were interested,I watched a couple of his games.He was immense and was being lauded by the Media,his first cap followed shortly.I did say that when BR was at Leicester,he had a nightmare with CHs.Chopped,changed,bought,nothing worked,maybe the same ailment that had him thinking,Dane,(Frank Spencer),Murray was the very fellow for him on Sunday.That boy is to defending,what Uncle Albert was to his many ships,”During the woarr”.
Still no blame being put towards the Board by Paul.
Truly astonishing.
Notthebus
Spot on. If the manager is not going then it has to be that. Sadly he is not the manager for that I fear.
Turkeybhoy
2 people to blame
Rodgers
Desmond for re hiring him and not getting rid now.
It is simple.
‘ they sold my best players and replaced them with shite’
Neil Lennon
Short memory this guy, who was embarrassing on Sky yesterday with the Village Idiot, he will be lucky to last the season with Dunfermline
Having “moved on” 2 Centre backs, I can’t believe BR would have liked another in the last window. So he probably decided, CCV, Scales, Trusty, Murray and Pusey would be enough, and rightly so. But to then fling in two guys into the back line at Tynecastle! who haven’t 10 league games between them beggars belief, especially, aye especially, when we have two very experienced guys in Ralston and Trusty in the match day squad. The reasoning is also poor a natural right footer, does that take preference over experience. The boys inexperience caused him to have a rush of blood to the head in both the clearance and the penalty. Why oh why take Tounekti off, Forrest went to the right no need to bring Boyfromwisha on at that time, perhaps McCowan could have been on a lot earlier. We don’t have a quality Centre Forward, though Shin looks as though he is capable enough to be the back up. The blame for those bits lie on the recruitment during the summer. All in all, with the fans now revolting, this is the perfect storm none of us wanted. Is there a way of preventing the thunder and lightning? por cierto
Burnley78 on 27th October 2025 1:07 pm
Do you have a scaffolding business??????
Stephen Welsh? Shoorly not!!!
Always felt Gustav was on the naughty step after getting sent off against Feyenoord and Brendan simply didn’t trust him. Gustav was a bit slow for our high line so there was some logic in his non selection , different style of football in Portugal will suit him better. Given what we saw yesterday from Dane , professional football must have consequences for such a really poor display and the young fella can warm the bench for a while.
Our squad mgt of the centre halves has been deplorable, given that we know CCV is a big lhad and has been subject to injuries during his time with us ; it only needed another injury to either Scales / Trusty or a few red cards and we are struggling….. it wasn’t that difficult to predict.
Hearts were worse than I was expecting and going in at half time was expecting us to push on once we repelled a predictable fast start to the 2nd half by the home team. Didn’t happen.
The next few games will seal our fate this season anything dropped to Falkirk and a loss to the Huns will be horrendous, hopefully the alternative is a boost to morale and get the league points ticking over again.
There’s a debate to be had if the managers gobbing off is really having any effect , seems to me that we are getting found out tactically and put simply we don’t know how to handle teams that are setting up to stifle us. Strum Graz were pretty open and we found plenty of space, they didn’t really press us ; Hearts different story in the 2nd half.
Perhaps the reality is we’ve gone backwards re the squad , other Scottish teams have got wise to our game ( no chasing after the ball mad , getting knackered and losing goals) , and from a mgt perspective we’ve got lazy in our thinking , all of the above could be true.
Rollercoasterridecfc
The blame for this current debacle lies in so many areas, which makes getting us out of the malaise so much harder.
Board and Brendan have been at odds for so long and an end to their antipathy for each other looks like it won’t sort itself anytime soon
The Board have already stated they did not do what they should have in the summer so that is a fact that no one can argue with.
Brendan, who am still supporting but that is not as strong as it was, has been too quick to deflect at times and allowed a narrative to build that the transfer window activity somehow leaves him free of criticism. He has the best squad in the country, albeit hampered with injuries, and his failure to get a tune out of them sits at his door.
The players are also not immune from criticism. Despite the above they are playing nowhere near the levels they can.
Some big boy conversations got to take place as we fans are being sold short by all areas of our Club just now.
Far superior players and managers than Hearts journeymen have struggled to win titles. The scale of what they hope to achieve is greatly underestimated. They will drop points soon and with regularity as the season progresses. They are a minor concern.
Between now and the turn of the year we will continue to drop points. There is an obvious lack of quality in our team. The injury to CCV is a huge issue.
We can only hope that reinforcements in January and the return of key players sees a strong second half to the season. Nobody should be under any illusions. We are in a dog fight with Rangers to win this league.