Every Celtic fan will be delighted Fraser Forster was included in the England World Cup squad. Fraser joined Celtic on loan four years ago, becoming a permanent member of staff in 2012. His transformation over that period has been remarkable, which is no fluke.
He is the most dedicated footballer at the club. First in each morning, around 2.5 hours before official start time, he’s also last out of Lennoxtown almost every day. He is possibly the most complete 365-day-a-year athlete we’ve ever had. This is a player who has set high personal achievement goals and has allowed no distractions to get in his way.
Enormous credit also has to go to the man who has guided him through his meteoric rise in recent seasons, goalkeeper coach Stevie Woods. Without the focus, technical development and remedial work Stevie has added to Fraser’s development we would not have nearly as effective a goalkeeper between the sticks.
It is never good to see anyone lose their job but surely the decision for Hearts to sack Gary Locke was one of the easiest to come out of Anne Budge’s 120 minute review (which was more productive than one 120 day review). Hearts early and late season form, where they comfortably recorded victories against most of their peer group, told a tale of what happened for six months of the season, when the team failed to show up.
Locke had the resources to keep his team in the league this season but found every excuse available to ensure they finished bottom.
I’m less sure Danny Lennon deserved to be hooked. The gap between St Mirren’s 8th placed finish with 39 points and Hibs on 35 points is narrow, but when he needed to dig deep, Lennon was not found wanting. St Mirren might not be so fortunate with their next guy.
Tommy Gemmell
We are going to have the one and only Tommy Gemmell on the blog on Friday afternoon between 13:00 and 16:00. He’ll be available to take your questions and talk about life, football and anything else you care to bring up. Tune in.
Issue 20 of CQN Magazine, CQLisboN, is out and enjoying great reviews. Click here to read for FREE.
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Geordie Munro
They are in with Chile, The Netherlands and Spain.
I reckon The Netherlands are the weakest of that trio.
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS ………Praying for our WEE HERO!
11:09 on 14 May, 2014
GEORDIE MUNRO
WHAT?
I leave the house for a fortnight and my place gets put up for grabs?
I bet the bloody locks have been changed anaw!
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Hope you’ve been paying your roofing bills! :-)
setting free the bears supports Res. 12 & Oscar Knox
11:10 on 14 May, 2014
Would love us to sign the AS Nancy boy, Jeff Louis, just so we could sing “Louie, Louie”, which would make a great football anthem
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I agree! More Nancy boys. CFC open to all…
just because its still funny –
offcourse you can have some jelly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YIa0qeoQJc
Bobby,
Lol. Eejit
Sftb,
Meh, Rogic will be used to groups like that. ;)
Nat Know
I think AS Nancy owe us a reduced fee for the boy as we released Tony Cascarino in 1992, following a lengthy spell where he had given up goalscoring for Lent (extended), and he eventually found his way to Nancy, 5 years later, where he scored 44 in 109 games.
Just shows that, in the right system, even a Cascarino and a Sebo can thrive. There is hope for Ibrahim Balde yet, though probably not within Celtic’s system.
I aim not to go down the sexism route. In fact, I wish this post to be pro-women in positions of power in football.
As such, here’s a glimpse of what the Brazlian’s get in terms of match officials:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Fernanda+Colombo+Uliana&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=a0NzU7HMG9TQ7AaLn4HABA&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1524&bih=719
and
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Ana+Paula+Oliveira&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=lUJzU5S5MO6e7Ab57YDAAQ&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1524&bih=719
(Careful not to open in work if in the firing line!)
In Scotland, we get:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=scottish+ugly+referees&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=50JzU4LMBMuv7AbfwoCQCw&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1524&bih=719#q=scottish+referees&tbm=isch
twists n turns
10:21 on 14 May, 2014
Gets better every day….
EXTERMINATE………..EXTERMINATE…….EXTERMINATE
Sydney Tim you never cease to amaze with your exhaustive knowledge of what is happening at Celtic Park. Please don’t disappoint and say your source is MSM, you,ve got to have a highly placed mole in there,Shirley?? Hail Hail Hebcelt
My friends in Celtic,
The season is over and now is the time for hard thinking and some really tough decisions.
I apologise if I’m about to sound negative especially after the euphoria on Sunday.
It is generally acknowledged that we will win the league next season regardless of who or what changes occur. The bookies will reflect this fact. In the longer term this un-competitiveness is unsustainable. The only way it will change is for us to go backwards to the level of the pack which will make qualifying for Europe and signing quality players that much more difficult, and expensive.
I’m afraid this is the reality. Even the song ” Bring on the Hibs, the Hearts & the “Rangers” no longer applies.
It is becoming imperative that we play our football in an environment where our club can realise its full potential. This surely must be our objective.
I fail to understand the logic of many on here who advocate ground breaking constitutional change for the country but cannot envisage change in footballing terms in these Islands.
HH, always in Celtic.
Greenpinata
11:23 on 14 May, 2014
For there to be ground breaking change in football on these islands, there needs to be a willingness for it to happen. There isn’t. England don’t want us (Celtic & Scottish football) and England don’t need us.
Only change will come from UEFA and Platini and his pal’s noses are so far in the trough there’s no way they will disrupt the status quo. There laughable FFP policy, where the penalty for breaching the rules is fining a multi billionaire pocket change says everything need to know about where their priorities lie.
Modren ground breaking constitutional change is rubbish.
setting free the bears supports Res. 12 & Oscar Knox
11:21 on 14 May, 2014
Nat Know
I think AS Nancy owe us a reduced fee for the boy as we released Tony Cascarino in 1992, following a lengthy spell where he had given up goalscoring for Lent (extended), and he eventually found his way to Nancy, 5 years later, where he scored 44 in 109 games.
Just shows that, in the right system, even a Cascarino and a Sebo can thrive. There is hope for Ibrahim Balde yet, though probably not within Celtic’s system.
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Reduced fee?! If only. Business is business etc.
Your 2nd point is one I completely agree with. Some players (especially noticable with strikers) are good in a certain system. In the past we have had players who didn;t quite fit our style/system. Harold is a good example – as he proved when he came back to play against us! He wanted to sit deep-ish and use his pace to run onto a ball played across the face of goal. Didn;t always happen for him. In other teams he looked unplayable/playable (take your pick!).
Anyway – how about giving Craig Gordon a chance…? ;-)
SydneyTim. I think quite a few players will leave Celtic over the summer in my opinion two will be sold for big money Virgil and Fraser for a combined transfer fee of around £16 Million we are a selling club and as you say if PL is offered that kind of money he will grab it.I think a fare number of fringe players will leave as well in order to reduce our wage bill.It will then depend on who we bring in how we will do in the CL qualifyers. H.H.
gary67 (formerly kayal33)
10:54 on 14 May, 2014
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Cant see clarke being happy with a no2 role anywhere apart from maybe top 4 in engurrland.
NatKnow…
shirley the wee huns will take him
I think VVD will stay for one more season. The only significant departure, someone who is a first team regular, I can see happening is FF who will head back South.
More worryingly is the amount of players in the squad who I am sure the Club want off the wage bill, especially as that includes three of our big summer signings last year, and the difficulty they will encounter trying to move them on.
desertbhoy
11:37 on 14 May, 2014
NatKnow…
shirley the wee huns will take him
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Which ones? They’re all wee these days! He’s been training with the hun huns but personally I don’t think they’ll offer him anything. And I think Anne Budge will be looking to create a yonug team of diet huns – I don’t think he fits their profile. Nor ours probably – I would prefer to see a young player with talent that Stevie Woods can develop – but those can be expensive. Mind you, our oft-criticised policy uncovered and developed Fraser…
No big names will leave this summer.
There….ah said it.
Geordie Munro. I wish I shared your confidence. H.H.
Who is going to take our “fringe players” and pay them what we are ?
We are in the same position as the big english clubs all be it on a far smaller financial scale.
The players wont get the same money anywhere else so will be hard to move on.:((
SFTB,l1.10,
Morning. Now that is a terrific suggestion for a terrace song!
Jfh,
Well you can keep yer pessimism;)
Geordie…..
…said it last week.
greenpinata & Gary 67
Reading the runes of where change is going to come from is notoriously difficult. I would not be confident in asserting that we will move soon, in the long term, or never.
Who foresaw the Bosman rule coming?
Who foresaw the drastic effects of the EPL creation and TV money?
Who foresaw the FULL impact of a re-structuring of the Champion’s League?
UEFA has shown a willingness to, at least, look at the issues and come up with half-hearted solutions like FFP, the Europa League, and joint leagues between nations (though they chose a bad precedent with the country pair chosen).
UEFA and FIFA cannot and will not kill the fatted calf that is the CL and World Cup for them. They can put limiting factors on the Big Leagues but they cannot directly challenge them for fear of a Packer-type revolution.
In many ways I feel that such a revolution, by the wealthy debtor clubs will offer us the quickest chance to get in to a new, probably 2nd or 3rd tier set up, on their coat tails. That might sit badly with many of our fans as we like to think we are different to these “Sugar Daddy” clubs and leagues, but our choices are stark.
Stay with the declining fortunes of Scottish football and hope that a new Golden Generation is on its way, or try to get into the financial elite set up and stay afloat there in an environment where we will enjoy much less regular success?
I fear that, even a Golden Generation, will not save us as you can see that Belgium produced one recently but their domestic clubs performances in Europe do not reflect this as they are constantly raided for their best players. I see the signs in the SPFL, where Motherwell can finish second with a collection of players sourced from the cast offs of the lower leagues in England paired with a few Scottish journeymen. ICT managed to run close the much lauded Dundee United starlet team in the league with a team populated with non-league cast offs.
The SPFL is, I fear, heading to the levels of the leagues in ROI and Wales slowly. Any promising player, such as Ryan Fraser at Aberdeen, can be tempted away by League One and Two clubs in England and some of our seeming promising players, such as Atajic, cannot make an impact on squads in those leagues.
Change is unpredictable but gradual slow decline is more foreseeable, if nothing changes.
Geordie Munro. I dont see it as pessimism just the reality of the way Celtic work. H.H.
It’s the guy responsible for signing the duds and underachievers we need to get off the wage bill!
So it is!
Philbhoy- still interested in the Spurs job?
Or are you bidin’ your time , waitin’ for Supercoisty to get the ole steakbake driven through his cold, cold heart?
sftb…
orbs are flesh an hairy… not crystal. Would be living the life of luxury were it the other way!!
If Celtic bring in money for there top players that allows them to pay up the contracts of some players in order to move them on they did that at the end of last season with Bangura and Lassad.H.H.
DBBIA
I’ve gone cold on that one.
Hoping to speak to Man U after they talk to Louis.
Jfh,
As do many clubs bud.
Philbhoy,
And every club had one of them annaw.
Philbhoy
11:48 on 14 May, 2014
It’s the guy responsible for signing the duds and underachievers we need to get off the wage bill!
So it is!
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:-)
That’ll be the same “guy” that bring us the stars and overachievers then.
Get his jotters looked out!!
Philbhoy…..
Manure??…. shirley you’re aspirations are bigger than that!
desertbhoy
Who’s got fleshy and hairy orbs, then?
There’s a sentence I’d never thought I would be writing.
Geordie Munro The point I was trying to make is that you can manage your fringe players out of the club if you have the money and the will to do so. H.H.
PHILBHOY
He’s responsible for the diamonds too,mate.
Unfortunately his successes make the situation profitable.
The unfortunate aspect being the frustration suffered by the fans,players,and Neil Lennon.
Btw,meant to ask-how did the christening go?
We watered the baby’s head a bit for you.
Philbhoy- you kno what they sa’ -faint heart never won Wayne Rooney.
YOU’RE THE MAN! to turn that bunch of Fellaini’s round.