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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Worth noting that there is a possible and significant momentum switch round the corner.
The Darnel have endured a dire few months, riven by anger and ridicule, and resulting in their manager getting papped.
Their new manager arrived a few days ago. Despite the dreadful start to the season, he finds himself just 5 points behind the Champions and he’s got a semi final on Sunday.
He knows that winning that match gives them a hopeless Aberdeen or marginally better St Mirren in the final, and a perfect opportunity to get off to a flyer.
There’s a tangible possibility that they’ll win the League Cup and start reeling in the remaining 5 points in the league over the coming few months.
It’s a measure of how badly Celtic have unravelled that Rangers have a better ‘last 6 matches’ record. Despite their fans trying to lynch their manager and chasing him out of Dodge, our form is worse than theirs going into the week of the cup semi final.
I’ll be righteously pissed off if we gift their new manager the dream start.
TBB
You have articulated my long held fear.
Folk on here taking domestic dominance for granted whilst the manager has worked his magic to take us from treble winners dominating domestically with style to potential for 3rd place or worse despite having a squad valued at 30% more than second best.
Also the League Cup sets the tone for the season.
Is it not Motherwell in the semi ?
Stephen McGowan ex Celtic now the Herald
In hindsight, Brendan Rodgers should have opened the door and walked out with his reputation intact.
Harnessing his years of experience, he could have sensed the way the wind was blowing and taken a decision to bring his second spell as Celtic manager to an end.
Days after the window closed, the opportunity was there to leave of his own accord with no hard feelings. In contrast with that unfortunate Leicester City business in 2019, fans – this time – would have offered no complaint.
Shorn of attacking talent, his squad undermined by inept player trading, he could have tendered his resignation and opened his heart on why he felt let down by his own club. After weeks of – barely – biting his tongue, he could have said his piece and strolled down Celtic Way with his legacy as a modern day Che Guevara intact.
There were two-and-a-half million reasons to honour the final year of his contract; all of them with an image of the king on one side. He’d gone strong with public statements promising to see out his three years and managers rarely rip up a lucrative agreement unless a club pays them to go.
While Rodgers might feel that the current malaise is not of his making, a record of two wins in seven games is bringing supporters to a different conclusion.
His relationship with the Celtic board glacial, there’s more chance of Prince Andrew becoming the next presenter of Strictly than there is of the Parkhead boss signing a new contract at the end of the season.
It feels like an eternity since his team won a truly meaningful game and if they screw up against Rangers in the Premier Sports Cup semi-final, a grown up conversation might become unavoidable. A parting of the ways might be seen as the best way to save a Parkhead season lurching from bad to worse.
It didn’t have to go this way. A wealthy man, Rodgers could have saved himself the grief by leaving when the going was good.
He could have pulled out the violin and flagged up the sale of Nicolas Kuhn to Como for £17million with no replacement. He could have queried the decision to spend the guts of £10million on two left wingers and sign no one at all for the right.
That a club with £77million in the bank spent the final hours of deadline day scrolling through a list of free agent strikers on Transfermarkt is patently ridiculous.
Kelechi Iheanacho – the player they signed – has now joined Daizen Maeda on a list of injured players, leaving last season’s fourth-choice striker Johnny Kenny to lead the attack.
When that doesn’t work, there’s always the Hail Mary option of Shin Yamada, a striker the manager clearly didn’t want in the first place.
Inept player trading is only half the story. Crippling injuries to key players have weakened Celtic further, stripping away a little more of the manager’s veneer of invincibility. Like Samson shorn of his golden locks, Rodgers is in danger of ending a Scottish season second best for the first time in two spells. Eight points behind Hearts in the title race, his reputation as an elite manager is on the line.
Fans still feel that they should be able to win the league with what they have. When Rodgers branded his team a Honda Civic, he overlooked the fact that Dundee and Hearts are hardly cutting up rivals in a high-performance Ferrari themselves.
The careful, astute, data-led recruitment of Tony Bloom’s Jamestown Analytics is rewriting the rules of recruitment. As the excellent Alexandros Kyziridis gave rookie right-back Colby Donovan a torrid time, Celtic’s decision to spend the guts of £5million on Michel-Ange Balikwisha became ever more questionable.
Criticism of the tactics Rodgers plays and his playing style ignores the bigger issue. Strip Carter-Vickers, Johnston, Jota and Maeda out of the team and the lack of quality in the squad below is glaring.
Starting only his fourth first-team game in four years, central defender Dane Murray was a nervous wreck. Slicing a hideous sclaffed clearance into his own net, the 22-year-old then gifted Hearts a needless penalty for 3-1.
That Liam Scales has become one of Celtic’s most reliable defenders doesn’t say much for the alternatives. Kieran Tierney is less assertive than he used to be and the same might be said of Reo Hatate, a midfielder developing a dangerous habit of passing the ball to the opposition.
Arne Engels takes a nice set piece but flits in and out. Two left wingers with no end product are balanced by Benjamin Nygren – a midfielder – playing on the right wing.
Nygren missed a glorious chance to put Celtic 2-1 ahead before half-time. Trailing 3-1 after a second-half implosion, there was no hint, no sign at all, of a fight back.
Captain Callum McGregor showed up in the first half – scoring a fine equalising goal – before Hearts clamped him for the second. The only thing missing in attack in the final stages was Willie Falconer galloping around the Tynecastle pitch in a green-and-white shirt.
Publicly, Rodgers sticks to the party line. With 29 games left to play there is time, yet, to stop Hearts in their tracks. Whether a second-rate squad have what it takes to resurrect the spirit of Love Street 1986 is another matter.
Out-played, out-thought and out-fought, Scotland’s champions are now a pale imitation of the teams of the past. There are no Brian McClairs or Paul McStays in a side which has now lost back-to-back league games for the first time in two years. A team with eight wins from 16 games in all competitions.
There’s an argument, now, for embracing the need for change. While Rodgers is not to blame for the hopeless asset stripping of the team, the relationship between manager and club has turned sour.
The football no longer gets fans off seats and evidence that he can change it with this group of players is scant. Defeat to Rangers would offer more evidence that Celtic are a club in need of new ideas and fresh thinking.
Changing a manager is easier said than done. It’s not clear that Ange Postecoglou needs or wants a return to Glasgow, and finding someone ready to come in midway through a season is the difficult part. Putting Shaun Maloney or John Kennedy in as interim appointments until the summer would play badly with supporters.
For the first time since George Burley’s reign, Hearts lead the Premiership by eight points. And, with wins over Rangers and Celtic under their belt, it must be obvious to everyone by now that McInnes and his players don’t need to be flawless to win a rare and precious title. Competent should be plenty.
There is no way at all ,Brendan will be allowed ” to tell us” what the hell is going on. Confidentiallit bollocks and all that
More secrets than the ludge
Ronny Diela might have been a different manager had he not to contend with the back-stabbing dressing room clique of Broony, Commons, Mulgrew [who walked off the pitch and up the tunnel during a game lol].
It would have been better had John Collins been the manager and took the clique oot the back one at a time and shown them who was boss.
Broony, Commons, Mulgrew = scumbaggery!
Thats why they are on all of the scumbag media outlets. EYE!
Or the punch-pulling Celtic fan plodcast sites full of empty heads.
If you can’t see through these 3 creeps then you must be in the same ludge as them!
BUT.
The new manager [Damien Duff????] needs to be allowed to drop the the managerial mindset trap, of having to play like the Lisbon Lions.
Neil Lennon’s victory over the greatest team we have ever seen [Lisbon Lions apart] Barcelona 2012 does not count because his team did not play the Celtic Way lol.
Rodgers played the Celtic Way and got our asses tanned up and down the CL Groups we were in.
What was it 0-7 vs Barcelona? It was the boards fault. lol
Then Rodgers just continued playing the same way?
How about Rodgers is an erchie who got away with murder because Timdom, Celtic cyberspace is full of DUNDERHEIDS?
All seating era has nyootered and labotomised 60,000 Celtic fans since 1994.
Ireland is like Transylvania and Celtic fans sing about setting Ireland free????????
How about putting your season cards inside your paper aeroplanes and stand on the River Clyde bridge and see who can throw their plane the furthest?????
Fk me mann!
HH
oot.
Big Dale is not a “young boy”, he is 22,all over Europe we have kids at 17,18 virtually exploding onto the scene.PSG and Barca have both got 18 year old CHs.Dales future is not with us.
People saying Nygren is being” Played out of position”.I asked earlier what that was,nobody answered.I have no idea.
KT.People expecting the boy from before.He is gone.We now have a very experienced,good footballing LB,who will be a massive help winning this league.
Why so down.We wanted a challenge,we have one.Much better for all concerned.Our next two league games,before, would not have garnered a great deal of excitement,now they are crucial.The season will be so much better than 12 points clear at X Max.Exciting.Maeda AJ back.Make a massive difference.Enjoy it.
Deniabhoy
C – though not the one you mentioned.
Ange would have to be an absolute idiot to take it – and I’m pretty sure he isn’t one.
P67 has a rather unhealthy obsession with players that are no longer at Celtic, especially those from the horror window of 2023.
Frankly who gives a crap about Lager, Kwon, Holm etc. I certainly don’t.
Paul told us the so called transfer value of the other guys but not that of big Gus – whys that – does he not have a value in Transfermarket? Well yes he does and it’s €3m – so nowhere near the estimates for the other guys but thanks for the mischief making.
Another thing – until this point does if Gus displace CCV? Doubt it very much so from his perspective is he happy to site on the bench or does he want to get away and play? Its not just what we want – some players have other ambitions and if they can’t reach them here cause they can’t get into the team they will want to move.
bournesouprecipe – Thanks for the McGowan article. In the past he was considered someone with the inside track at CP.
I think the article is fair and sums up well what a lot of us are thinking.
GlassTwoThirdsFull – are you thinking about another Bobby Ewing shower moment?
Burnley,
You keep on about us being so much better off than our rivals.Of course ,I know you mean our Board are way better off
than any of our rival Boards.Must be surely,because if we did use our financial muscle correctly,no one would get near us.
Funny thing is though,all over the footballing world,teams with a fraction of their opponents wealth are giving these teams,a” damn good thrashing.Recently,Chelsea,billion pound team,beaten by Sunderland.Man City,,Man U,richest teams in the world finding things tough.
Everywhere it happens.Thing is,a couple of shock results don’t usually mean everything is lost.
I certainly don’t.
…..
WBC,
FFS,get a news script writer.
🤐🤐
Deniabhoy
Funny you should mention that:-)
Moisey 17
The 23 window was a horror window because the manager decided not to do accept the player development aspect of his role and seek to take the easy option of trying to buy ready made top tier players who would never come to Scotland to ply their trade. Never mind that they would be out of our budget. A fundamental shift from what was expected of him.
It is incredible that somehow folk still are too stubborn and stuck in their ‘kick the guys in suits’ ways to see this.
I don’t for a second think Nicholson is the perfect guy to be a ceo but as piggy in the middle between DD and BR he has no chance of even performing a basic role. Nor McKay.
DD made a mistake and possibly so did BR but neither are going to admit it.
Neither are going to blink on the matter of financials either.
BR will want fully paid up and DD will not want to fully pay up.
Sadly MN is not really in a position to move it forward. Even if he did want to.
Turkeybhoy
I really hope you are right.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cvgm6843m60o
Check the headline.
An administrator who, apparently, loses clarity when counting up to five.
Methinks Sheffield Wednesday fans should be concerned.
Even being linked wae Celtic this season seems to jinx you injury wise, the Danish International boy Dolberg, whom Ajax beat us for with a 10 million bid in the final hours of the window has been out for around 6 weeks with no sign of a return soon.
Log in again
The football no longer gets fans off seats
————–
no but it does –
arrive 12 minutes late,
leave at halftime,
mass exodus with 15 plus injury time to go.
why bother.
and booing when they dont like the result.
hating the former manager, and now piling on the current.
Lada CSC/
Moisey 17
I wasn’t suggesting you are stuck in your ways btw. More that many don’t seem to see that there are many sides to this but that fundamentally 2 major players and the others only have bit parts in it realistically.
Turkey FA discovered 371/571 referees have betting accounts
DENIABHOY on 27TH OCTOBER 2025 7:02 PM
bournesouprecipe – Thanks for the McGowan article. In the past he was considered someone with the inside track at CP.
I think the article is fair and sums up well what a lot of us are thinking.
———————-
He was a young journalist in the Celtic View, follows the story quite well, and gets The Celtic Herald angle, doesn’t have pre conceived Manager misgivings.
I think his ‘inside track’ might be wearing a bit thin compared with elsewhere because he tends to tell it, from a supporters perspective alone.
I think most adult Celtic supporters can see what’s gone down and a line was crossed in the Jan and August windows, which left Celtic in the ridiculous position we’re in, the ‘great guys’ acknowledged this with some element of blame acceptance and semi contrition, in the Collective meeting.
I don’t think they’ll have convened a meeting yet, never mind have considered a successor, that would cost money as BR has a year on his contract.
Can we please stop the “kid” Murray stuff.He simply does not have the ability or nerve to succeed at Celtic ..pure and simple…He has made catastrophic errors v Aston Villa , Braga and now 3 against the mighty minis …experiment over ….
Has P67 broken the blog?
How many players would ever be enough for Rodgers?
How much would it all cost?
How many toys would it take to satisfy a spoiled child?
What do players learn from him?
Jota’s face as he sat in the stand on Thursday night was one of:
“WHAT HAVE I LET MYSELF IN FOR COMING BACK HERE TO CELTIC?
SUSSED OUT BY WEE NAISY/BARRY LONG BALL MUGGERS???
THIS RODGERS GUY IS ANGE WITHOUT THE BEARD or the European Trophy!!!!”
As he watched his mismanaged team mates having to be substituted early into the game and CCV at the end????
As Jota watched the Celtic hell amplified that he escaped from first time around.
This time in the Celtic looney bin:
This time Dr Ange has been replaced by Nurse Rodgers/Ratchet.
I wonder what Portugese Bernardo said to Portugese Jota, in Portugese, with they’re palms over they’re mouths incase somebody worked out what was going down????
Right now the Celtic present squad of players would learn more from wee Naisy/Barry/McCannzyetc or big Elvis.
Than they would from Rodgers the happy clappy seal from the touchline. lol
8 years ago I told Tims this as they bought thur 49 Quid Sevco-are-Rangers tickets only to be smeared as a troll and other stuff.
The Celtic way is idealism in a far from ideal world.
Managerial ego trips need to be banned.
Can you imagine what 49 faced Timdom would be like if it was Neil Lennon, instead of squeeky clean Brendan Rodgers who ran about with, Connor McGregor????
What a time to be alive!
HH
oot.
Slow, facing our own goal most of the game, predictable, unbalanced, no cutting edge, no aggression or passion in this team and the bench looks weak. Sad to say I don’t see us winning anything this season and a new manager will have a rebuild. Can’t see us winning anything this season.
BURNLEY78 on 27TH OCTOBER 2025 7:44 PM
Moisey 17
The 23 window was a horror window because the manager decided not to do accept the player development aspect of his role
B78 – I get what you are saying but (and I’ve been banging this drum for a while now) none of our managers over the past 10-20 years have done the “development aspect” of the role. We haven’t, in all that time, taken anyone who isn’t quite good enough for us and made them so much better that they shine. Ajer is the sole exception and he arrived as a kid. Every other player we’ve turned into a “star” has been first team ready more or less since they arrived. The “development players” or projects never amount to anything, regardless of who the manager is.
The Scotsman reporting Brendan Rodgers leaving Celtic
MON mentioned as caretaker
https://bornceltic.com/2025/10/27/what-brendan-rodgers-is-telling-celtic-fans-as-hidden-coded-messages-are-called-out/
Hmmmm??????
HH
oot.
Back him or Sack him
Rumours only.According to The Celtic Star.
On club website, he’s gone
Brendan gone ?
https://www.celticfc.com/news/2025/october/27/brendan-rodgers-leaves-celtic-football-club/