At the end of last month, looking ahead to the Miydjitlland tie, I predicted, “a Halloween movie awaits”. Home and away, Miydjitlland created few chances until late in normal time, when Celtic tired. They were unable to sustain periods of pressure and will surely not lay a glove on PSV Eindhoven in the next round. Still, we endure Halloween in July.
The young and inexperienced defenders performed well, this one was not on them. As did Scott Bain, whose confidence to drop the shoulder before playing a 30-yard forward pass, created our best chance of the game. He also made two fine saves, which makes me wonder what could have been had we never embarked on our Greek Odyssey.
Callum McGregor’s goal was sublime; he placed rather than blasted his shot, one of the few occasions we tested a keeper who never convinced. Anthony Ralston reminded us why we had such high hopes for him a few years back, while Stephen Welsh and Dane Murray outperformed expectations.
James Forrest should have put the tie beyond the Danes shortly after coming on but poked his shot wide. Within seconds, Miydjitlland were level.
Like Celtic, Miydjitlland were short of reinforcements, but started extra time with four substitutes on the field, including an 18-year-old debutant, Victor Lind. The teenager repeatedly mishit the ball whenever he got near it, but he and the other subs managed to provide what proved to be crucial energy. Celtic made only the one change, Forrest for Liel Abada, until after they went a goal down in the 94th minute. When energy sapped from ever-busy Ryan Christie and David Turnbull, the writing was on the wall.
Even though Celtic closed the game unable to pass out of their half, Ange Postecoglou stuck to his game plan. Teams on their way out of a cup invariably go Route One in the final minutes, not so this time.
I am sure none of us had Champions League expectations; we are not at PSV Eindhoven level, but Europa League group stage qualification is crucial for financial, competitive, coefficient and recruitment reasons. That would have been achieved with a win last night. Two qualification rounds now have to be negotiated, you have more fraught evenings ahead.
I remain hopeful the squad we have on 1 September will be significantly better that that available last night. Whether that will be sufficient to take the Champions League bounty available to this season’s Premiership winners is another story.
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BURNLEY 78
Well said, great to see you last friday at Aberdour.
HH
SLÁINTE ANGE on 30TH JULY 2021 2:36 AM
The CONCACAF Cup is for North American teams and the Copa America is for South America.
Qatar have been invited as it suits both parties – Qatar get to play competitive football in a World Cup year and the confederation gets a bundle of cash.
They’ve also played Copa America as have Japan on one occassion.
I’m sold on Joe Hart for the simple reason that he’s better than what we currently have got.
We should be signing a keeper today with an eye on the league opener and a trip to the Czech Republic next week.
If we lose more time haggling over a £1 million asking price then it’s only further evidence of the needs of the team being put on a back burner.
We need to be getting a RB and GK in today if Ange is really being backed.
What would we do if Ralston got injured tomorrow tonight ?! It’s a ridiculous situation.
Lawwell has not left the building.
Sell your centre back and replace him with someone who can’t play. Play an 18 year old replacement, giving him his first team debut.
Get knocked out of the champions league, losing upwards of £20 and handing a huge financial advantage to sevco.
This has lawwell’s fingerprints all over it.
If not, and this is mckay’s work, then nothing has changed.
Either way, this is not encouraging.
mckay is the CEO of a PLC
therefore his overriding agenda is to shovel as much money into his trough as possible and get dividends for shareholders
everything else is just window dressing to these people
and if it means shafting everyone else along the way then thats an added advantage to show power being exercised over them
PLCism is our problem
nothing will change while it is the main way finances are controlled
WESTCRAIGS
Nothing has changed we have not hit rock bottom yet.
The posters who were defending Lennon and Lawwell last season. You know who you are.
Desmond and Lawwell are the absolute scum of the earth, high handed Tory bar stewards.
Even Stephen McGowan now sticking it to them FFS.
What next, will P67 finally take off the short trousers, put his big boy britches on, pull himself up to his full height and squeak “Peter, great master, you might have done a teeny weeny but better”.
Discounting the usual multi-monikered sleekit trolls…………
Perhaps the support could reconsider the extremes of our reactions to the Club?
The so-called happy-clappers and mine-shafters….? Usually a scenario of some panto name-calling, can become a bit extreme.The obvious hunterlopers aside…….. ( there isn’t many of them)
I think those who are genuinely hurting, those who also join in with the spirit of Celtic Quick News are easy to recognise for their humanity and common Celtic camaraderie. Too often imo, our legfitimate complaints, taken to extremes lets the trolls sneak in provides kover for their dark objectives.
Tims everywhere – Keep It Lit….and remember the grass is no greener.
HH
ILJASB on 30TH JULY 2021 4:56 AM
If Joe Hart is a contender for no. 1 GK then surely it is evidence that Ange is not calling the shots. Joe Hart won’t fit into Ange’s system of playing it out at the back. He is not good with his feet. There must be better/more appropriate out there.
ILJASB, the Bundesliga is awash with very, very good young goalkeepers who have been brought up/coached in the modern way, ie. they tend to be very comfortable with the ball at their feet and can play the ‘sweeper keeper’ role with confidence, following on from the very successful Neuer. But then again, you would need a Head of Recruitment in place to move in such directions.
Unite The Support, Back The Team ( That includes the Board )
…doesn’t scan well and might not fit on a T shirt, but…..
Surely what we do and how we do it defines us as a Club.
I don’t support bad management btw in any shape or form, players, ‘fishals, management….etc.
But I’m useless with a pitchfork or flamin’ torch.
The latter approach makes a poor situation worse and plays right into the hands of our real enemy.
Those in our world who are quick to crack our Blessed crest and introduce ” catastrophes ” more in hope and expectation are where our biggest threats lie.
Aye.
MELBOURNE MICK on 30TH JULY 2021 9:36 AM
Agreed, abundantly obvious.
Burnley 78
Excellent post. All true Celtic supporters want the same outcome for Celtic. Success on the pitch.
Time for the true Celtic supporters to Unite, and get 100% behind Dom McKay and Ange Postecoglou.
Ignore the huns and trolls on here.
Starve them of oxygen, and they will die.
I wonder what they despise more…Celtic or Celtic Quick News………?
Jealousy and bitterness will take years off thur lives.
Wee tune for all true Celtic supporters.
https://g.co/kgs/tMRC3Q
“For us, it’s disappointing that they’re not there,” Desmond told BBC Sport.
“But that was a decision by the various clubs, a decision by the various leagues and we accept those decisions.”
“Rangers is a great football club, it has a great history and it’s unfortunate that they have been relegated,” said the Irish businessman.
“We would certainly like to contest with them every week – we believe we’ve got a better team and a better management structure.
“Rangers is a fantastic football club, it is one of the greatest football clubs in Great Britain, we’ve got to acknowledge that.”
####
True Celtic supporter?
Burnley’78
More power to you
Keep saying it
Keep challenging the hunterlopers.
As BR said, to win anything we need the Trinity, supporters, footballers & coaches & the board unified.
Board members,managers & CEOs are human, they make mistakes, now let’s get behind our club because if we don’t we’re only shooting ourselves in the foot & who does that favour?
I hope your good lady is well
HH
ERNIE LYNCH
Absolutely shocking from the Celtic “owner”.
Relegated?
He’s an arsehole, but a huffy moody arsehole who will feck us up to spite the supporters.
We need to get rid asap, although I don’t know how.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/58015649
can’t argue with a word of this
Do not dare criticise or give your opinion.
Just keep quiet and do play into their hands.
There might be huns lurking on here.
If PL’s not there anymore, who’s buying the players?
JACKIEMAC
How dare you post that on here.!!!
A Gold Medal for BMX Biking……ever think the Olympics are being dumbed down? If they could get Strictly and LoveI Island on it they would….
ST TAMS
Criticism and anger is fair, constant monologue and team handed
disruption is hunlike.
H.H. Mick
Burnley ’78 at 11.53pm last night – brilliant post.
We are all hurting at the moment. It’s part of the game and it should be part of what ‘seasons’ us as a support collectively and individually.
I totally agree that the idea this position we find ourselves in is a deliberate act on the part of the plc board. It is in fact more worrying – it is down to poor performance in a key area ie the football department.
Structurally we are still the most solid stable club in Scotland whatever way you look at it. In the 90s it seemed like oldco were too far ahead of us to ever catch up. I don’t feel like that now. I feel itvis a matter of when and not if we get the bragging rights and the top spot back. Admittedly that feels further away than it should be and I am as annoyed as the next Tim that we’ve allowed this situation to develop.
I hadn’t realised until recently that my Dad, born during the second World War didn’t experience a Veltic league win until he was in his late 20’s!! That is no excuse for where the club is at now but that was a long haul…..
You have to hand it to the cap doffers and the PL fan club — they put in a shift when required.
All that is missing is Radio 1’s SB of decades ago playing “Our Tune” to PL’s recent efforts.
Tugging at the heart strings is the last gasp of a Club hierarchy that has nothing left.
After this years season ticket success — no figure given / the only data point is 46.5K plus sold means that we are staring down the barrel of a very big gun. The gun that means — fool me once shame on you / fool me twice shame on me.
If this season ends with us 25’ish points behind the TFOD2 — behind the Dons / Hibbees would be the tin lid — then the season ticket sales for 2022/23 will be 25K at most and our collapse as a credible football club will be complete.
As noted by the EuL scores last night — history counts for nothing now.
If you don’t change / take up the new opportunities you are pretty quickly history.
Nobody can say that we have not been warned.
And no amount of tear jerking Little Nell stories will be able to cover up that failure.
From the outside looking in PL might have Interflora on speed dial but he is a no mark / second rate property been counter who has made a lot of money doing a rich man’s bidding — the football is secondary to his bonus and we can all see the results.
AP was not my choice to be the manager.
But now that he is here he has my full support.
He has a strong personality and he is a quick learner — all he needs is a couple of pals.
JK / GS have to go — they are hanging about like a bad smell and reminding everybody of last years failures.
I just hope that AP manages to deliver the facts of football life to the board.
We need to support him and he needs new players to strengthen the team.
If he fails then we really are in the shi*.
Our talent pool is being sold and we will have very little left.
At least PL will see his failure close at hand.
Mick did you see than Hello Melbourne banner pic from 1980 cup final, anyone you know ?
Even the definitions and reasonable appreciation of debate gets twisted and bent out of shape.
Sad,
DD- McKay needs to step out of Lawwell’s shadow, and start making big decisions quickly, as this is just looking like a continuation of the shambles of the last 18 months. New manager, stuck with damaged goods coaches,projects getting signed from nowhere, do you think AP had heard of the 2 Sheffield Wednesday guys? Who identified them and the others? Who sanctioned signing them? Lawwell? Mark Lawwell? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss?
Desperation …yawn.
I must be a lot thicker than I thot that I was, I was under the impression that a hunterloper or troll, maybes some should look up the meaning of troll BTW, would be telling us that everything was fine with the club and the team, the suits are doing a great job, the recruitment is superb etc etc, but no, according to many on here anyone who dares to crit the suits are hunterlopers, that, when you think about it is so efin stupid, but none as thick as folks as they say.
there is nothing that can be said on this blog that can ‘disrupt’ what celtic are hoping to achieve on the park, blogs on their own dont have that level of significance
RT @ 10.06
Structurally — you are in for a very big surprise.
PL has delivered the “House of Cards” that DK of TFOD2.1 fame predicted.
ST T – can’t argue with one word of it – I’m scared to look at all the other signings. However, my biggest fear is that – after a club model which coped with the biggest cheat in sporting history, brought in many titles, brought in quality despite us being beside an unsustainable monster/the EPL; that now, we know that model isn’t working but the ‘club’ have no idea what to implement. The ‘club’ was in essence PL. PL is now gone and there isn’t anybody to come up with a model for the new environment which has crept up on us. Ange already knows this.
those awful, awful remarks above should show that wan up for what he is…and what he is not…………
awful. shameful.
someone mentioned mineshafters and happy clappers eatlier
got me thinking that another phrase that appeared on here often about 9 months ago was ‘pantywetters’
that phrase isnt seen on here these days
funny that
looks like last seasons pantywetters were right all along, and the wetting of panties entirely justified
STIVS
Will ask Paddy, I’m only here 12 years, as I’ve said on here many
a time he started the first CSC in Melbourne, I’m sure he’ll know
someone lol.
H.H. Mick
Ange Postecoglou is the real deal. A far greater manager than the loser Howe.
Great appointment, but he needs supported by the Celtic PLC Board.
He also needs the backing of the Celtic support.
Will Ange get that?
Sadly, I have my doubts.
BADA BING @ 10.09
You are correct with that.
Nothing has changed.