Tonight we will find out if that feel good factor that has been kicking around for the last fortnight is built on bedrock or a more malleable material. AZ Alkmaar finished a point shy of PSV Eindhoven last season, a side that tore Midtjylland apart in the last round of Champions League qualifiers.
AZ are the highest seed we could have met at this stage and at the start of the season would have expected to reach the Europa League group stage. They came to Celtic Park in a friendly 11 years ago with former Rangers former manager, Dick Advocaat, and left with a win, although Celtic were in a dark, post-Tony Mowbray lull at the time.
There are plenty of reasons to be hopeful. Celtic are creating chances and scoring goals with ease. A sell-out crowd will do its best to intimidate the visitors and put steel inside the hoops. Ange Postecoglou should have Liel Abada available for selection, the latter point could be crucial.
If I picked on anything Ange has done since he arrived, it would be not introducing fresh blood early enough in Midtjylland. Both sides were short of numbers but Midtjylland made earlier changes while Celtic stalled. It was not great game management.
AZ have played one solitary competitive game this season compared to Celtic’s seven. They will inevitably tire, Celtic have to be ready to hammer home any advantage possible late in the game. A flurry of fresh legs at the critical moment could be telling.
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Or any other suggestions for Celtic friendly venues (we usually flat between Grace’s, Connelly’s or Machuill’s -last one being the favourite)?
HH
WeeBGFC
TURKEYBHOY on 18TH AUGUST 2021 2:43 PM
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Agree with the thrust of that post.
Good judgement should always boil down to content, context & balance. Your piece gets it just about right…in my opinion.
iniquitousuiv
That’s all very well but the real question is…..
Did ye park the bus?
josecsc
Juranovic medical this weekend, Sky Sports News
CELTIC40ME on 18TH AUGUST 2021 2:52 PM
JHB on 18TH AUGUST 2021 2:49 PM
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I have no desire to make anyone anxious. I don’t like anxiety – used to get it on the ‘sucking stairs’ coming up from Buchanan St subway – now I call it the ‘Vanlose Stairway’ and tune in to Van the Man on the way up…..problem solved!
Meeting at the ‘Vanlose Stairway’is now a fixture in our family when when East meets West in Glasgow.
Back to- Arsenal sold a squad player Willock,to Newcastle last week for £25 million…..nearly a straight swap…..
CELTIC MAC @ 2:58
Naw, it wis Ange ball for us. We had a few towsy barnies playing Larkhall, Parkhead and Ibrox garages. Can’t imagine what Parkhead vs Ibrox would have been like.
Lady Lade 5.20 York
Each way
Bet responsibly
Iniquitousiv
Good Mhan!
My Dad was a bus driver for awhile, one of his many professions, came in useful when the CSC he helped set up bought a bus! That was back in the 60s, the bus, from the 40s! Not a Glasgow mhan masel but one thing that really does annoy me is how the privatised Glasgow Corps. bus companies have got away with selling off the garages/terminus’ to developers. Most recent, First Bus, at Tolcross! (“Just park on the street and have yer break mentality”) Thatcher lives on!
Depending on AZ tiring would be a tremendous folly …I don’t believe they will….in fact I think we will tire before them ….
TB @ 2.43
Still bumping your gums for the second rate property bean counter that is PL?
17 years in the job — you would hope that in this timeframe we would be able to buy some reasonable talent wouldn’t you?
But then you have the ones that got away — his ego stopping us from buying some real talent.
Then you have the duds / the agent favours / the lost the lonely and the deluded.
No mention of them in your little hagiography?
We were once a buying club.
Then we have become a selling club under his astute business leadership …
Currently the best we can hope for is player trading not investment.
That is until DMcK and AP can turn a corner with a well crafted growth agenda.
Yet still they clap.
Yawn…
INIQUITOUSIV on 18TH AUGUST 2021 2:44 PM
POR CIERTO @ 12:15
May to December 1972. I played for the garage fitba team in the Glasgow Transport League against other bus garages teams. We drove a bus to the games, even got changed on the bus, and played home games at South Pollok or Haggs Castle.
Why do you ask, if I may ask?
I worked there myself as a Bus Driver from 1980 till “85. Also played for the Football team, badly, and we also sometimes got stripped on the Bus. Played our home games then at Qeens Park rec. por cierto
I doubt AZ will tire. As a club they’re very focused on developing young players and they put great emphasis on sports science and data. We’ll be up against fit young guys. I posted a link à while ago to their Technical Director’s interview on the Training Guru Podcast. It’s fascinating. They’re a very progressive club and have links to Billy Beane, of Moneyball fame.
log in again
Hi. Does anyone one know if all season ticket holders are back in for the St. Mirren game on Saturday? My tickets are in the main stand which I think has been empty to date.
The Matchday pass is saying 2 days 22hours 42 mins etc till the next game being shown (the St Mirren game).
I haven’t entered the ballot for seats for games to date.
So, don’t want to stroll up to Celtic Park and there ST doesn’t work and I have got it on the pass to paradise.
But also, don’t to be sitting on the couch waiting for the pass to paradise to crank up and it doesn’t because my season ticket is valid for entry.
Any help would be appreciated.
ST’s are active for the St. Mirren game for the Main Stand but not FS2 Front stand, as yet.
Celtic should have their own bus an awe, the team could get stripped on it.
Primadonnas.
Lawwell out.
POR CIERTO @ 4:02
Jeez, it’s a small world, isn’t it? You’ll appreciate this story. Sometime in my first 2 weeks, I was assigned on an afternoon shift with a blonde conductress I had not met before. I was driving a 48 or 48A along Peat Road about 4:00 o’clock. I swung round the Househillwood roundabout to the Bundy Box on Barrhead Road, and the bus was swarmed with teenagers from the adjacent school
( Bellarmine? St. Bernard’s? It’s 50 years ago, I can’t remember ).
When we reached Midland St, I was immediately assailed by an extremely pissed off conductress, who had some mouth on her. She yelled, “WTF were you doing back there?!” I was baffled, and said, “Whadya mean?” She continued yelling and only calmed down when she realized I was new.
The school kids had a reputation for abusing conductors and sure enough she was subjected to it, despite being hard as nails. I learned that the appropriate tactic was to be 2/3 early or late, allowing the No. 21 or 39 bus out of a different garage to pick up the kids, or to overtake them at the bus stop without stopping!
On my first week, I was baffled by being asked if I wanted any “Buck.” I learned that it meant overtime, but it was a term I didn’t know, despite summer jobs at Black and White, WD and HO Wills and Securicor. For some reason, I remember it now!
Had a wee squint on Celtic news now there . Hardly a one when reading hasn’t references from either the hun or the daily ranger , are these sites owned by these papers . As soon as we go after a player one of these sites has every club in Europe in the hunt for him . No more clicking onto these sites for me .
Por Cierto – thanks for that.
In WS1 near the Celtic end, so good to go.
Thanks again
2/3 minutes early or late, DOH!
INIQUITOUSIV on 18TH AUGUST 2021 4:25 PM
POR CIERTO @ 4:02
Was probable that I was one of the school wanes!! Went to Bellarmine Sen. Sec. por cierto
Por Cierto
You would have been one of the guid’ wans.
It would be Lawwell that was causing all the bother. 😉
TEUCHTER ÁR LÁ on 18TH AUGUST 2021 4:40 PM
Por Cierto
“You would have been one of the guid’ wans. It would be Lawwell that was causing all the bother. 😉”
:))))))))))) por cierto
TEUCHTER ÁR LÁ on 18TH AUGUST 2021 4:40 PM
Mind you PL lived in Eastwood, a more upmarket place than where I came from, Arden, so no sorry, that doesn’t work! :)))
Sure I read somewhere he went to Bellarmine?
TEUCHTER ÁR LÁ on 18TH AUGUST 2021 4:46 PM
“Sure I read somewhere he went to Bellarmine?”
Yes, he sure did, lots of catchment areas went to Bellarmine, por cierto
Probably got a chauffeur to pick him up then.😂
It was a Parks of Hamilton bus that picked PL up.
Used to play for the fire station team in a bus garage league back in the day….
Celtic women’s Champions League game just started on BBC Alba.
wanting a football fix ?
craving to see those green and white hoops ?
wanting to see a Celtic team play in a Champions League tie ?
BBC ALBA NOW
Levante Spain vs Celtic Scotland
cmon you ghirls in green.
frustrating we are not linked with any center backs lately – this is thee most crucial position for us as Welsh and starfelt will be exposed soon. Hart gives us a presence but we need that dominant player as a priority!!
Happy about Josip coming in and would have liked Couto as he can also play on the left.
looking forward to tonights match!
hail hail
ive heard of ringers in a footbsll team, myself included playing for the real Murray works team out in Livingston ………..
but a whole team of them ?
fire station eleven playing in a bus garage league,
pea and ham from a chicken moment surely.
ST STIVS
I guested for STV a few times.
No a bad side.
So, Celtic TV selling tonight’s match as PPV for a tenner?
Serious questions …
Does anyone know (even roughly) the going rate a home club would charge a broadcaster for the rights to a game of this kind?
What constitutes a satisfactory level of PPV uptake worldwide?
20,000 ?
30,000 ?
More?
In Blairs the joiners and then in IBM , overtime was know as “ham”, never heard it anywhere else, dont know if its a port and greenock thing,
In the glory days of Spango, during peak production, you would often get asked to extend a friday back shift (3-0) to an “all-nighter” working through till noon on the saturday, in an anomoly you got double time from midnight, “double bubble”, a meal voucher and a paid for carry out was an added incentive.
One time we went straight from Dalrymple Street up to the Scotland – England game.
The folly of youth, the OT only really got spent on holidays and celtic away days.
I regret not taking my own football serious enough.