Neil Lennon will be delighted to have secured his captain, Scott Brown, on a new long-term contract which sees the player tied to the club until after his 30th birthday in 2015, with the club having an option to extend the deal by a further 12 months.
Scott joined Celtic in 2007 and played central midfield until last season, when he was occasionally used wide right, to great effect. Reflecting some of the conversations we had earlier this week with Georgios Samaras, who has recently been a revelation wide-left after years of frustration as part of a front pairing, Scott seemed to revel in the space the wider position allowed him to exploit.
Before joining Celtic Scott made his name playing almost as an auxiliary striker at Hibernian, where he would burst into the box with well-timed runs but at Celtic he is more commonly anchored in a defensive midfield role. As a consequence, despite having played more games for Celtic than Hibs, and playing for a team who attack far more often, he has still to match his Hibs goals scored total at Celtic.
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Anybody got a link to the penalty incident from yesterday? I meant to put a bet on them getting one. No doubt the odds would be rubbish…
HC
as you will now have quessed Kevjungle does indeed hail from HighTyre….
me on the other hand I am just a wee softy from lower down….
off to church..
MWD mind and not phone me during the sermon…o)))
Kevtic says:
4 December, 2011 at 09:40
You all maybe a bit harsh the ref may at first thought it was a penalty and once he’s given it he NEVER changes his mind regardless of any doubts.
—————————–
Dougie McDonald
Is Rogne available today ?
Very confident Today, Hooper 1st goal, 3-0 to the Hoops. 25/1.
blantyretim says:
4 December, 2011 at 09:46
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
God Bless Your Good-Self
and your
Wonderful Celtic Family.
Hail! Hail!
Off to the bus for Dundee
I see a narrow win but I hope United do NOT score first. Important to have a good start
catch yiz later
Sone???
He was always Aluko till he signed for thems.
Off oot.
May God Bless ‘Every’ Celtic Fan
“C’mon you bhoys in green!”
Bamboo
Good spot.
Subtle, eh.
HH
Serge… Your wrong!
It willbe a very tough day at a snow/freezing tannadice
Ki will struggle in today’s conditions therefore I would throw broony straight in
Dunfermline tickets away, Taggsybhoy taking them.
Taggsybhoy you have mail.
Off to the game, for those going enjoy and be safe.
Until we meet again…
Keep the Faith!
Hail Hail!
Good Morning to the Celtic Family from a snowy Central Scotland.I Dont know what the weather is like in Dundee but it is snowing here I hope the game is not in doubt? If you are driving to Dundee take care as the roads will be very slippy.H.H.
Morning Bhoys ,
Any Jock Stein lower ticket holders out there ?
Row OA , is it down the front or up the back ?
Cheers.
HH
Now its sunny – maybe go out and do a couple of hours work instead of hanging around waiting for ko.
ticgaz
That’s not row OA
It’s row Ooo Aaa
MWD disny ken the ansur tae yir questin. ;o)
PS. Jist awau tae phone BT
‘A penalty that was softer than a marshmallow’
Andrew Smith SOS
Morning Bhoys!
Booooooo to sunday working
Just drove to Livingston and the M8 is a bit dodgy after Harthill……very icy
Take care and Mon the Hoops!
Off to the plantation . Cut a load of fresh bamboos for the edinburgh zoo pandas.
Tom English: ‘Paul Murray’s bid was well-meaning but not based in reality’
Published on Sunday 4 December 2011 01:32
PAUL Murray, the former non-executive director of Rangers, raised his head above the parapet in The Scotsman yesterday when expressing his concerns about the way the club is being run by Craig Whyte, his old foe from the takeover process earlier in the year.
This column has given short shrift to Murray in the past – and especially to his cohort, Alastair “No Surrender” Johnston, the great show-boater of the old guard.
That is not to dismiss Murray’s concerns over Whyte. He’s entitled to be uncertain about Rangers’ future and worried about Whyte’s stewardship. There is so much secrecy and inconsistency surrounding Whyte that cynicism is not just an understandable instinct, but a necessary one.
The contradictions are many. In October, Whyte gave an interview to STV in which he stated that he nothing to hide in his professional life. An hour later a BBC investigation revealed that Whyte had been disqualified from being a company director for seven years. At the outset of his ownership he rubbished the possibility that Rangers might go into administration. Now he is saying that it has always been an option. He said from day one that he would appeal should the HMRC decision go against the club, but he appears to have changed his mind on that one. In the wake of the BBC documentary he stated that he was going to waste no time in suing the broadcaster, but it seems he has not taken that step yet. He might yet, of course.
There is a suspicious air around Whyte and much of it is of his own making, born out of his determination to keep his business affairs as private as possible. When he is asked to name a couple of his companies that he is particularly proud of and then refuses to name them, people are entitled to wonder what he’s all about. The mystery creates an information vacuum that then gets filled with speculation. Informed speculation, some of it. But the fact is that, when it comes to Whyte (his money and his motives), a lot of what is out there is little more than guesswork.
His merits as Rangers’ owner can only be judged in time. This is where this column and Murray go our separate ways because there are things that Murray says that just don’t stand up to any kind of scrutiny.
First of all, Murray expresses surprise at the talk of Rangers, potentially, going into administration. “I am puzzled that administration is even being discussed,” he said. “The HMRC tax tribunal will not deliver a decision until well into next year so at the moment there is no tax liability to pay.”
Puzzled at administration being discussed? Hold on a second, there. Johnston, his big mate on the old board, was talking about administration away back in April. In fact, he got himself embroiled in a controversy about whether or not he stated the club could, in a worst-case scenario, actually go bust. “Yes, if there is an excessive (HMRC) judgment against us then we might not be in a position to pay it,” said Johnston on 1 April. “But I never said the club would go bust as a result of it. The very worst thing that could happen is that we lose the case and, as a result, could be looking at going into administration.”
So it was OK for Johnston (and by extension, Murray) to talk about administration but, when Whyte does it, Murray is “puzzled”.
He’ll have to explain that one.
And, while he is at it, he might enlighten us further on his supposed counter-bid for the club and why he waited and waited and waited before he did something, which, effectively, was nothing. According to Whyte, it amounted to a “five line e-mail sent from his Blackberry” when the Whyte deal was as good as done. Sir David Murray, it is understood, gave it no credence whatsoever, nor did Lloyds Bank.
And nor would Johnston have given it the time of day had he applied his own rules to his mate’s offer. Johnston wanted transparency, but the Murray bid supposedly involved a £25 million share issue underwritten by a businessman whose name he would not reveal, with other backers coming on board as well. He wouldn’t name them either. The “bid” also stated that Lloyds would only be paid off in stages, this despite Johnston having earlier stated that a prerequisite of any takeover was that Lloyds were paid off in full and removed from the Rangers landscape permanently.
Murray’s solution to the HMRC issue was to get Sir David to pay whatever bill came the club’s way. Lovely idea, but unless he is an expert in hypnosis there was no way Paul Murray was going to get the then owner to agree to that. So his “bid” was probably well-meaning but not based in reality. Meanwhile, Whyte was ploughing on and doing a deal. It’s not a deal that Paul Murray or Johnston like and Whyte is not a man they have faith in, but the alternative was that Sir David kept the club – and they didn’t want that either.
The fact is that, when Johnston came in as chairman, the mission statement he set out for himself was to find a new owner who would liberate the club from the grip of Lloyds Bank. Johnston found nobody. He failed. Paul Murray failed, too. He had his chance to buy the club and he didn’t take it. He sat and waited and came up with far too little, far too late.
“Everything we said has come home to roost,” said Murray. “I don’t take any pleasure from that. . . Talking about administration, being pursued by suppliers and the possibility of a fit and proper investigation at the SFA. . . it’s humiliating and embarrassing.”
Yes, it’s troubling, no doubt about it. But there was no nirvana option available to Rangers. The club had to accept Whyte’s offer or stick with Sir David and live with the consequences. There was no third way worthy of consideration. Sniping from the sidelines is understandable. For sure, Whyte needs to be scrutinised given the potential horrors that await the club. But to Paul Murray we ask: “What would you have done?” Once the attempted brainwashing of Sir David into accepting liability for a £49m tax debt ended in failure, what was the alternative?
And the answer is, there wasn’t one.
Gordon 64 I think that is going to be the hardest part of winning the SPL this season getting past the decisions made by the cheating men in black.Without the referee yesterday the best Rangers would have got is a draw and they would have lost another two points a win for the hoops at Tannadice the gap would have been down to 2points but of course its not and we are trying to get it back to four points.We are being cheated over and over the odds are stacked against Lennie and the Bhoys.H.H.
One of the top stories on the Scotsman/Scotland on Sunday site is:
“Kirk joins Fight Against Homosexual Marriages”
To be honest, I thought the chap had enough trouble with microwaved eggs.
Sad news about the death of Socrates. That Brazil ’82 team was pure footballing magic, and their defeat to Italy gave me my first realization that the best teams don’t always win!
Hi. TBB has posted an article froom The Scotsman.
In another article we find this,
“Privately, the police have admitted that it is their intention to “smash” the Irish Republican, Marxist Green Brigade. They are willing to go to extreme lengths, in terms of their use of survelliance and a wide range of extraneous powers, to do so. Meanwhile, Cetic would privately welcome a slap on the wrists from UEFA this week since they, and the vast majority of their supporters, want Celtic Park free of the embarrassment they feel over paens to the IRA –….”
Good that our Young Bhoys are involved in this format – it would appear that more and more football people are talking about the tournament.
NextGen article from the People.
You couldn’t make this stuff up.
‘There was no evidence of contact’ A Smith.
Aluko says ‘i felt there was contact
then i fell over’.
They have no shame.
Good morning fellow Celts from dry blue/grey skies over Newlands
The ‘fix’ is firmly in place and the poundland penalty might be a new low in the desperation stakes…walked by a few bookies in Shawlands yesterday tempted to stick a few quid on that penalty anytime bet. Didn’t want to tempt fate. Should have known better!
Celts must stay completely 100% focused on the prize today – 3 points -and hopefully another clean sheet.
Stay safe on those roads lads they were a bit tricky along the M6/74 yesterday and the forecast is not good for today/tonight.
H H
M
4 December, 2011 at 09:09
The Scotsman
By Andrew Smith, at Ibrox
IT COULDN’T be said that things aren’t going Rangers’ way. They might once more have failed to in any way convince, but the fact is they won for the first time in three outings courtesy of an own goal from Alex Keddie and a penalty that was softer than a marshmallow.
Has anybody ever met a decent honest hun who admits to being embarrassed over the cheating of their players and the ‘honest mistakes’?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There’s a fella called Adam on RTC pretends to be a decent hun.
His furious denials and cries of paranoia when I reminded him of the scale of cheating during Tony Mowbray’s era-just the other day-were typical of his kind.
Or to put it another way,NAW!
No Ledley today so El K at left back? Or a start for young Blackman?
Haven’t heard if Wanyama is over his knock. Hope he makes it.
Gordon_J backing Neil Lennon says:
4 December, 2011 at 10:25
Mulgrew will be left back and Brown will come in for Wanyama
Aluko is quite simply a CHEAT
A dirty diving CHEAT.
He will fit in well with the Orc, it is up to our club to put more pressure on the refs by highlighting their inadequate standards if that is the case.
If the ref DID have full view of that incident then he too is a CHEAT
The Battered Bunnet says:
4 December, 2011 at 10:09
The Tom English view on a bag of scorpions, forgetting they all sting.
Partizan
I’ve just read that.
Geez, one might think fro that article that the Green Brigade are some 21st Century reincarnation of Baader-Meinhof.
Has The Red Army Faction changed its colours?
There is a grand debate to be had in the United Kingdom around the permissibility of holding views that are not considered ‘mainstream’. Is it permissible to consider coal fired power stations as contrary to sustainable life on Planet Earth? Apparently the Police do not think so, and have gone to extreme and wholly illegal means to penetrate groups that hold such views.
Now football fans are subject to the same borderline methods.
It’s not as though there aren’t a sufficiency of societal ills to address.
The Terrorism Act urgently requires to be repealed before the Police, whose accountability is ill-determined at best, become a parody from Orwell.
Kayal33,
Could well be. Both came on as subs midweek so will probably be fit to start.
Interesting analogy Auldheid. I went with ‘sack of snakes’ yesterday in describing the SFA’s challenge on Governance.
Fact is, one club – Hearts – have been run like a banana republic and will shortly meet its inevitable fate, while another – Rangers – has taken corporate malfeasance to depths last plumbed by Enron.
How can you operate a bona fides system in the face of outright mala fides?
The approach taken in dealing with these two clubs will define Scottish Football for the next decade.
Must say, I’m not looking forward positively right now.
TBB
Socrates – RIP
Is the dapper “dark-haired” big-wig back from Rio?
He is on ‘record’ as being quite voluble on the subject of simulation.
Time for some Unwinesque clarification from Asbestox.
Hell mend them.
kitalba says:
4 December, 2011 at 09:09
The Scotsman
By Andrew Smith, at Ibrox
Has anybody ever met a decent honest hun who admits to being embarrassed over the cheating of their players and the ‘honest mistakes’?
Nope I haven’t and it’s always amazed me. Imagine celebrating a hollow victory in sport. Ultimately when they look in a mirror they know. Personally speaking, it would make a certain part of my anatomy shrivel to win in such style.
But then it’s not just in sport that their tactics gain advantage, position and favour.