After collecting one point from their previous five games, Livingston fans can scarcely believe the result and performance their side recorded against Celtic yesterday. A goal from a breakaway on 25 minutes was enough to shatter Celtic’s early fluency. For all the flattery achieved by pounding opponents at Celtic Park, there is a fragility about Ange Postecoglou’s side.
Andrew Shinnie nipped in front of Stephen Welsh before thrashing a shot high into the net. The central defender should have done better but it was an excellent finish from Shinnie. The move started when Celtic were exposed on the right as Livingston won possession in the middle of the field.
The way we setup, we are going to concede chances and goals on the counter; going behind should not have had the consequences that followed. Instead of provoking a clinical reaction, Celtic’s early assured touch deserted them.
James McCarthy started his first game since May and is clearly well off pace. Mikey Johnston came on for his first appearance of any sort since May, he also needs time before we can expect anything like his best.
While central mid took much of the focus, our wing play was no better. Jota was significantly less effective against Livingston than against Betis on Thursday, and Liel Abada’s devastating runs into the box just didn’t happen. The only real pass mark was for Joe Hart, who made an instinctive save that prevented the home side doubling their lead.
We won on nine consecutive visits to Livingston between 2001 and 2007 before an 11-year gap until the next visit. Since returning to the West Lothian venue in 2018, we have played five, drawn three and lost twice. I am not fond of blaming the pitch; we have ample access to artificial pitches to practice on. Be ready next time.
So what now for our league challenge? News from Ibrox that Motherwell took a point to limit the damage of the afternoon was a merciful relief. A four-point gap is bad enough but six points would feel daunting. We are still in the race largely due to the fact that our only genuine opponents are well below the form they enjoyed in the two previous seasons. Whoever sorts out their form first will win the title.
Lots to consider, Ange.
362 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- »
Time for a birl arounf Angus. If anyone is able to explain the many criticisms of the defence, I`ll read them later.
PS Joe Hart is part of that defence so no using his fine saves as evidence !!
Cherio for now.
POR CIERTO @ 9:03 AM,
Well interesting comment.
A few factors at play, Rangers were “back” so we’ve
We’re in good hands, apparently.
A patsy as CEO, no head of recruitment, no head of sports science and the same coaching staff as last season.
Everything is great
does Bankier think of himself as “good hands”
still havent figured out what he does for our club except
criticise the fans at the annual AGM
POR CIERTO @ 9:03 AM,
Apologies for the last comment.
A couple of points.
The figures are not good. The season ticket uptake was 100%, we were allowed to continue the season, the government paid us for furlonged staff. No reason we should have been so harshly hit, the opposite in fact.
We had been underachieving, risk averse and had put huge cash into the Bank for years – for a rainy day, the rainy day came and we were washed away.
Basket case Rangers dealt with the crisis better than us.
We were better than Ajax before Lawwell so your sights need to be set a little higher.
Also if you track the turnover from the Brendan Rodgers high point until now, you will see plot a consistent graph, circa 60 million was the direction of travel.
No fluke, no outlier just the same old incompetence.
Hail Hail
I see being runners-up in the league is listed as a “highlight” of the year! Oh dear…..
Anyone know what the £630k Settlement Agreements on Contract Termination might be?
In Nicholson’s statement in the long form document he states that the board have drawn a line under last season and look to move the club forward.
Good that they’ve drawn a line under it and none of the board are accountable and no systemic change is required. Good chaps.
SAINT STIVS on 21ST SEPTEMBER 2021 12:22 AM
I’d still like you to try to explain why generations of the descendants of Irish immigrants were fearful and distrustful of Scottish nationalism.
Were they stupid?
Ignorant?
Cowards?
I wonder what they would make of you and your fellow travellers. My guess is they would be bewildered, and ashamed of you.
ILJASB – good post.
Squire :-)
JHB @ 9:17 AM,
It is tempting to make easy political points, I’d suggest if want comparisons for Scottish independence stay away from England.
I live in one of the most affluent areas of the Country.
In the town I live in a modest family house with cost you at 400,000 pounds.
This is England…
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2021/aug/01/high-wycombe-the-home-counties-food-insecurity-hotspot
Hail Hail
The disconnect between this Board and the fans has never been wider.
They really do treat us with utter contempt.
Rolling Stone
“Drawing a line under” is the Celtic version of “not raking over old coals”.
Move on – nothing happened…..
CHAIRBHOY on 21ST SEPTEMBER 2021 9:37 AM
Yep, only one direction of travel since BR left.
Also, if you look at the accounts in the years pre-BR, you will not come to the conclusion that we are a well run club.
The football and financial success that BR brought was intertwined. The £10s millions at Bank was a result of his success as a manager, not the financial know how of our Board.
JHB on 21ST SEPTEMBER 2021 8:48 AM,
You do talk some pure guff.
My 1 year old Grandson last week had breathing difficulties.Told not to come to the Surgery,as appointment only.Next app available was 6 October.Had to sit 8 hours in the A and E,until he was attended to.Breathing poor,and very high temp.This in the NHS paradise that in your head,England is.
Not NHS fault,just overwhelmed,like everywhere else in the UK.
If anyone can tell me the problem with the Army driving Ambulances,I would be delighted to hear it.Anyone lying in the back of an Ambulance in critical need of help,thinking,oh oh,I am not happy with this driver.Aye right.So many not a clue what is going on,until it affects them.
VALE BHOY on 21ST SEPTEMBER 2021 9:49 AM
The disconnect between this Board and the fans has never been wider.
They really do treat us with utter contempt.
How old are you,30-35.
Obviously you were not around with Kelly’s and Whites.
As the Brummie used to say on Harry Endfield,
“Considerably wider”.
Always the last to know …
There must be a song in there somewhere?
Saved by Adidas and the sale of young JF.
The shambles left by the business brain that is PL is something to behold.
And yet still they clap — if we don’t challenge the board then we deserve all we get.
DD is the reason behind all this failure — PL just brings his own special sauce.
We are nothing to him apart from being a punt he cannot cash in.
DD / the board then go and rub salt into the wound with a transfer window where we sell twice as much as we buy — go figure.
Fatted calves are treated with more respect and humanity.
Read the figures,quite relieved it was not worse.
Did not read the Bankier accompanying guff.Lifes too short.
Onwards with Ange.
VALE BHOY on 21ST SEPTEMBER 2021 9:49 AM
100% correct and I well remember the old dynasty of Kelly’s & Whytes…..
This lot are just as bad.
There seems to be a competition among the board loyalists on here over who can be the loyalist of the loyalist.
It’s cringeworthy.
TB @ 9.57
The gap is now wider than was the case with the old board.
The old board were out of their depth / living of the after glow of 67.
They were self centred / had very limited current business expertise and no energy.
However losing the league hurt them and it hurt us.
The new board is just a rubber stamping exercise for a minority shareholder with ideas above his station. Said shareholder cares nothing for football just financial arbitrage and his dreamed about financial windfall that is entry into the EPL. Winning the SPL is second to keeping TFOD2.1 afloat — See 2009 / 10 / 11 for evidence of that little game.
Old board — useless.
New board — devious.
To me the gap is bigger.
TURKEYBHOY
I actually thought about drawing the comparison but that Board were chancers who tried to dodge and weave their way out of trouble. Also, charlatans but different. I think they were Celtic supporters, only in place because of their names, who didn’t know how to run a modern club.
This Board just don’t care.
TB @ 9.54
Beyond irony that you sit far away in a warm climate spending your pension / paying your taxes to foreign government while offering up stories about the lack of capacity / resilience in England’s NHS.
You are a poundland aristocrat — next stop Dubai?
Have your cake and eat it CSC.
ILJASB on 21ST SEPTEMBER 2021 6:00 AM
The news that only Juranovic and Kyogo were Ange signings will not come as a surprise.
———-
Cheers ILJASB.
What news is this?
Can you share?
ROLLING_STONE @ 9:54 AM,
Yes, quite, Brendan Rodgers came in to run the “football” and made record turnover, record profits, record squad value, record breaking results.
We were told the Board had to get rid of him before he “bankrupted” the Club. The interims around the time we left showed we had record cash in the bank.
Mostly squandered now of course, as is his football legacy, thanks to an incompetent Board living High on the hog.
What happened at Celtic before BR was poor – season ticket sales falling away…
What has happened since has been nothing short of a disgrace.
BR who the Board and their lackeys like to ostracise to the point of character assassination. Point to this as the golden era that justifies their stewardship.
The opposite is true… Flatten out the BR outlier and you have one common theme, a story of decline and incompetence.
Mowbray – Lenny – Ronny – Lenny – Ange
Thinking about it…. These clown aspire to incompetency.
Hail Hail
CHAIRBHOY on 21ST SEPTEMBER 2021 9:37 AM
“The figures are not good. The season ticket uptake was 100%, we were allowed to continue the season, the government paid us for furlonged staff. No reason we should have been so harshly hit, the opposite in fact.”
Could you put a bit more meat on the bones of this please
1. Could you explain why they aren’t good, what’s caused it rather than a very basic explanation of why they aren’t better? Where has the loss occurred and how could it have been avoided
2. Could you explain what the opposite of being harshly hit is and what we could or should have done to achieve an opposite outcome from a pandemic
3. When did the Ajax annual accounts for 2021 come out so we can compare the impact on them to us
4 if it is a consistent down turn in turnover since your much mentioned BR could you sow us the numbers, and the consistent curve in a graph form
Actual numbers please on all 4 points, not vague generalizations
Brendan Rodgers, who’d have thought
ERNIE LYNCH on 21ST SEPTEMBER 2021 9:45 AM
SAINT STIVS on 21ST SEPTEMBER 2021 12:22 AM
I’d still like you to try to explain why generations of the descendants of Irish immigrants were fearful and distrustful of Scottish nationalism.
Were they stupid?
Ignorant?
Cowards?
I wonder what they would make of you and your fellow travellers. My guess is they would be bewildered, and ashamed of you.
————————————————————-
Wrong again.
Non of my predecessors, from my orange granny, to my card carrying socialist great uncle who left the port for America with a letter from the labour party addressing him as comrade, non of them, ever told me how to vote and how not to vote, what is obvious though, in my big extended family that they left behind, they all became SNP voters over the years.
Maybe O’Hara WOULD be very very proud of his great grandson, you should trying reading up on the founders themselves, it really is not a stretch to imagine that these fine socialist , religious and Irish Nationalists would not be the same today if living in these times, why would they not be Nationalist ?
Maybe they would be ashamed if their ancestors were openly Unionists.
Fine man O’hara, he could do a job on our board, replace him for Wilson, or any other of the old duffers. More reflective of the supporters for sure.
But you knew that anyways.
A catholic, Irish descendent SNP MP,
https://thecelticstar.com/exclusive-interview-with-brendan-ohara-mp-the-great-great-grandson-of-celtics-first-secretary-and-founding-father-john-ohara/
CHAIRBHOY on 21ST SEPTEMBER 2021 9:47 AM
JHB @ 9:17 AM,
—–
If things are good with you, I am glad – long may they be – I wish you well.
I make no cheap points. I believe passionately in all I say. I will fight as hard as a I can to stop Scotland making the biggest mistake in its history
with the country reduced to whisky production, council/civil service jobs, B&Bs, nail-bars & hairdressers. Marching & waving Saltires does not create wealth.
Celtic40me – an answer to your 4th question:
Celtic revenue 2013 – £75m – £10m profit
Celtic revenue 2016 – £52m – 0 profit
Celtic revenue 2018 – £102m – £17m profit
Celtic revenues 2019 – £101m – £11m profit
Celtic revenue 2020 – £70m – 0 profit
Celtic revenue 2021 – £61m – £11m loss
JHB
You forgot about Charity shops, bookies and Pawn shops
2017 – Rodgers first season – revenue £90m and profit of £7m. Not sure how I missed that our. Basically over Rodger’s time we banked £34m.
We should remember that BR filled that upper deck (removing that embarrassing banner) and stopped the decline in Season Book sales.
Not to mention the footballing success.
C40 @ 10.17
Questions / questions / questions — never any answers …
The mark of a true monkey manager.
Guys,
Celtic are not immune from the economic crisis caused by Covid 19. Our figures could have been much worse. In fact given the circumstances they are better than I anticipated.
Compare and contrast. The UK government borrowed more since records began in 1946. That is the scale of the problem we have navigated.
It would be extremely churlish not to acknowledge financial stability without taking the government loans.
HH.
what woud the account figures if we didnt have a 100%
uptake in season tickets last year and this year
Bankier should be praising the support to high heaven
SPIDEY101 on 21ST SEPTEMBER 2021 10:24 AM
Thats not correct – that’s way too high for 2019
What would your estimate on all years be adjusting for the effects of the global pandemic?
MADMITCH on 21ST SEPTEMBER 2021 10:30 AM
I have the answers I’m just interested to know the methodology that takes people to these sweeping generalizations and strange conclusions
TURKEYBHOY on 21ST SEPTEMBER 2021 9:54 AM
—–
I welcome the availability of the British Army to drive ambulances for NHS Scotland, just like I welcome the annual fiscal transfer under the Barnett Formula(c £15bn/year) that balances the Scottish budget and allows £2500 per head extra spending in Scotland, just like I welcomed the Furlough Scheme £BILLIONS that kept money coming into peoples’ bank accounts and saved a million jobs and thousands of Scottish companies, just like I welcomed the world-beating UK vaccine programme that is keeping us safe, saving lives and getting things back to normal…..all benefits to Scotland by being part of the UK.