I stay away from YouTube videos of new Celtic signings or prospective signings, they are about as reliable as a TK Maxx original price ticket, it is always more informative to wait and see how the player settles in green and white hoops.
But the World Cup was on. And Celtic target Haissem Hassan played for Egypt against Argentina, so I watched. He was outstanding. So much so, that I suspected Ally McCoist’s eulogising about him was a tactic to entice English clubs to compete with Celtic for his signature. I felt sure the exposure would take him out of our reach. My interest in the player receded.
He spent last season at Real Oviedo finishing bottom of La Liga. The club scored 26 goals in 36 league games, even the second worst side in the league scored 50% more. You may remember our conversations about Patrick Roberts? Patrick needs to be in a side who have lots of possession. Teams who defend 90% of the season invariably employ agricultural wingers, to bolster their defensive cover. The creative types have no outlet for their fruits.
Perhaps as a consequence, Haissem had an unproductive term, curtailing competition for Celtic this summer. Reports that he is a medical away from signing for Celtic are genuinely exciting.
304 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- »
Interesting that we have never been endowed with truly ‘great’ goalkeepers.
Ronnie Simpson and Artur Boruc probably the pick of the bunch…with Fraser Forster of a certain vintage running them close.
Re goalies….I’d say we’ve continously had good goalies for 20 years
Bruce
Forster
Gordon
Hart
Schmeichel
Any of them (maybe not Gordon) we’d have won the cup.
Boruc not Bruce
In Saville I mean
Seville…..fek
“ The Prince of Goalkeepers “
After John Thomson’s death in September 1931, a floral tribute to the Celtic goalkeeper was placed in a shop window in Bridgeton by the local Rangers supporters’ club. The tribute attracted such crowds that pedestrians stopped to look at it and traffic was brought to a halt.
In our goal a spirit stands Johnny Thomson is his name
🇨🇮🇨🇮🇨🇮🇨🇮🇨🇮
Laxalt
What have Bruce Forsyth and Jimmy Saville got to do with it ? -))
John Thomson truly a legend – but not in our lifetime.
Sobering thought that many of those we have revered in our lifetime will be a footnote for future generations, but at least there is plenty of archive film from the 1960’s onwards to let people see what we were raving about.
Fraser Forster – nicknamed
“ The Wall “ ( started by the Catalan press after his heroics against Barca )
Glen….😀….I know….red neck
I need specs but I keep putting it off….doh!
BSR…..yip named by Messi as the best goalie he ever faced
La Grande Muralla I think
I’ve visited John Thomson’s grave in Cardenden.
To stand in that type of area with a massive bit of our history is truly awesome.
I would recommend.
It’s a bit like the feeling you get when you go to Carfin Grotto.
Ronnie Simpson nickname “ Faither “
His most famous moment?
Laxalt
Did you walk it from Glasgow like the 30,000 that went to his funeral 🤣
Agree, it is not what i expected to find, the setting is more modern only the graveyard is untouched by time, immaculately kept graveside and a must visit for Celtic fanatics.
The brilliant Paul Heaton night on BBC 2
To all the smart arses trying and failing to be smart.
Quadro,this post,
” quadrophenian on 8th August 2026 12:42 am
Watched Shaun and Austons’ media briefings; we’re fortunate to have such lucid and likeable ambassadors.
Clever, credible and no-BS types. I’m super-impressed with them both.
Re possibly losing AJ or Arne, I’d be more feart over CCV, Auston or Scalesy leaving; all great – not perfect – defenders.”
To WBC.I will see your lawyers in court.
Nice to see rangers ladies ? Knocked out of CL tonight. Cruel luck v Ajax after they had bullied Sparta Prague in the previous round.
Equalising with a few minutes to go only to concede in the 91st minute from a penalty.
Why does it matter ? Well as with the CL for men clubs benefit significantly from qualifying for this. Any vague scent of success for that lot never makes me feel good tbh. Even their women play like Rangers imo.
Thought this might be of interest to those who are picking players they have seen. In Billy McNeil’s autobiography, published in 2004, he had a chapter on the best players he played with for Celtic. He chose the Lions, but made three changes. Danny McGrain, George Connelly and Kenny Dalglish for Jim Craig, John Clark and Stevie Chalmers. He said Kenny was simply outstanding in all departments of the game, Danny was the finest right back and George could have become one of the greats. Interesting.
timmy7_noted on 8th August 2026 3:36 pm
Turkey, for clarification one of the quotes you’ve attributed to quad was written by me.
Which one?.I think this post is very clear.Did you write the same thing.?
Burnley,
For maybe the second time,I agree.
Thanks for heads up Bada.
Lucky to have seen him in various guises a few times. Great to rekindle memories .
bournesouprecipe on 8th August 2026 8:39 pm
Fraser Forster – nicknamed
“ The Wall “ ( started by the Catalan press after his heroics against Barca.
Or ,our Greek tragedy,nicknamed “The Wall”,by the Greek press after his fantastic performances in Greece.
Turkeybhoy
👍🍀⚽️
TB,,,,,,
Was it not the Great Wall ?
Imo, John Clark did indeed make Big Billy but George Connolly was even better.
Oh, I feel that visiting Cardenden to see John Thompson’s grave is an awesome experience. I took my late Dad there years ago.
Wow, what a finish.
A narrow 17-10 victory for the Boks.
Fair play to the Argies, they took it to the wire and had a chance at the very end but fluffed their lines.
Thankfully they didn’t kick off as of late.
Me thinks it will take them a while to rebuild affection with the neutral.
BSR….I never walked it no but I always think of the distance the mourners walked every time I’m up there.
A 60 mile walk….unreal
Many of you will probably be aware, but if not, Ronnie Simpson played for the UK in the 1948 Olympics.
Or GB. Not sure how they differentiate in these sporting events😁
And what doesn’t appear to have written by Quad is what is quoted below:
Quadro wrote
In the meantime I’m looking forward to Ralston at right back and big Scales at left back it’s definitely the way forward for us to qualify for European football. Why were we worried when the players we needed were already in place?
Croftcelt, karrect as a great friend of mine loved to post.
They’ll never destroy our game but the parasitic monemen are having a right go at it. We don’t just need to get rid of Infantino, we need to ensure no one person ever gains the power he has. This from the Athletic:
Football is too powerful to have one king. It’s time to abolish the FIFA presidency
Among the statements of support for the FIFA president Gianni Infantino, there is competition to be the most craven.
In a congested field, the Argentinian Football Association, which is very keen on an expansion to a 64-team World Cup in 2030, may have just nosed ahead.
“We address you, dear President,” it wrote in a public statement issued on Thursday, “and through you to the FIFA board, to express our support for the management carried out during the last 10 years, which had as its main axes the development of football throughout the world and the institutional solidity based on a clear, stable and transparent governance model.”
These pledges have now come from nations in Africa, Asia and both Central and South America, and are similar enough in tone and structure to have come from a template. They have all addressed Infantino with the same reverence, loudly applauded him for abandoning his private-equity scheme, which would have seen a portion of FIFA’s business sold to external investors, and then praised him for a style of leadership — clear, stable, transparent — that he stands accused of not showing.
Infantino is being praised for having to abandon a plan that was conceived in the dark, but then exposed against his will by the media.
It might be one of the only times in recent history that someone has drawn a standing ovation for being forced into an embarrassing U-turn.
Strange?
No, this is football, where cognitive dissonance is a survival skill. These are less gestures of support, more sacred oaths at the feet of a monarch.
The lack of dissent is startling.
Over the past 10 days, Infantino’s unilateral behaviour has led international football and FIFA to a point of crisis. And yet there is no room at all, in any of these statements, for even the gentlest of warnings about his future conduct. None of this support is conditional, nor is there an implementation of any safeguards that might prevent such overreach ever occurring again.
On Wednesday, at an emergency meeting in Morocco, Infantino and members of FIFA’s management board — with some notable absentees — disappeared into a room to decide that, actually, everything was fine. There had been some mild communication issues, the resulting statement said, euphemistically, and perhaps some minor processes that could do with work, but nothing to cause any alarm.
“It was agreed,” read the press release, “that it was not the intention for the FIFA Council and FIFA Member Associations to feel excluded from the process.”
That extraordinary line was in reference to the FIFA Forward Enterprise plot, which never saw any formal committee gather and was hidden from the FIFA Council for more than a year. If members did feel excluded, they had cause.
But, again, no public dissent. No censure at all from these supportive nations, and no real concern shown.
This week began with another controversy that almost escaped notice.
Prince Ali bin Al Hussein of Jordan, the president of his country’s football association and a former FIFA presidential candidate, complained on social media that prize money owed for their national team reaching the final of the 2025 Arab Cup had still not been paid, eight months later.
Prince Ali also claimed he had been advised that were the Jordanian FA to profess its support for Infantino ahead of next year’s presidential election, this could help expedite the payment. The situation was tantamount to “blackmail”, he said, and if his account of events is accurate then it would be difficult to disagree.
FIFA did not respond to The Athletic’s request for comment.
A few days later, FIFA remembered that it had a bill to pay and quietly made the necessary arrangements. Prince Ali thanked the federation for the funds, adding that his association is small and depends upon them, but added that “it does not change the serious concerns we in the football world have regarding the FIFA leadership, nor does it change what our FAs have been subjected to in the past”.
How does an incident of such severity not trouble those now falling in line?
The answer, of course, is because it does not pay to have concerns. To be in opposition to a FIFA president is to deny your country or federation the office’s favour. That is why global football increasingly resembles a fearful royal court, in which subjects are either trying to fill their pockets with gold or avoid being sent to the gallows. That cannot continue.
There is no cure for self-interest in football, and there can never be any expectation for national or continental bodies to think beyond their own borders. That is why the office of the FIFA presidency itself must change and be reformed in a way that prevents its occupier, whomever that may be, from having this bestowing role.
Football is too big now. It is too rich, too globally consequential and can be used in too many ways. To place all that power in the hands of a single person, elected but not properly constrained, is to strengthen the mechanisms of control that prevent the position from ever facing proper scrutiny.
The current situation precisely characterises that danger. Do the countries that have been so quick to move past the events of the past week genuinely believe in Infantino’s leadership, or does he now wield such executive power that they have to?
In the past year alone, he has altered the structure of the game itself, breaking over a century’s tradition to incorporate hydration/advertising breaks. He has allowed political interference in a World Cup disciplinary process and led a clandestine push for the infusion of private equity. His office has been used to award peace prizes and sponsor political incursions that challenge FIFA’s own neutrality statutes.
Football will continue to grow. With it, so will the power of the FIFA presidency, leaving the sport increasingly at the mercy of an individual’s ego, ambition and ideology.
Is there a reform candidate? It is the wrong question to answer now, but how can anyone know the answer?
Infantino is a timely reminder that the president elected is not the president who serves. A little over a decade ago, he was the person who hosted and conducted UEFA’s Champions League draws. No charisma, no hint of any megalomaniacal ambition. He was credibly seen and accepted as the antidote to FIFA predecessor Sepp Blatter. Yet 10 years on, he seems to exist independently of FIFA, rather than as an extension of it, doing with the game whatever he believes is right.
Why would that not happen again with somebody else?
The solution is not to usher a new person into this role, place a crown on their head and hope that their benevolence and better judgment persevere.
Whether the move now is towards a rotating presidency shared between the six geographic confederations every four years, stricter term limits, a more ceremonial role or something entirely different, there must be a lesson learned. International football must not only heed the warnings of the past week but also recognise the direction of travel.
There can be no more kings.
Sebastian Stafford-Bloor German Football correspondent
TURKEYBHOY…
timmy7_noted on 8th August 2026 8:23 am
Wow the 🐛🪱 were doing a sterling job of defending the indefensible last night, well done chaps Peter will be proud.
In the meantime I’m looking forward to Ralston at right back and big Scales at left back it’s definitely the way forward for us to qualify for European football. Why were we worried when the players we needed were already in place?
Relax CSC
——-
Since you couldn’t be arsed to find the post you wrongly attributed to me, I’ve pasted it above, TB. ⬆️
As TIMMY wrote and embdy can see, it was he who posted what you mistakenly said I did.
Anyone fair-minded who doesn’t see it as a big deal and likes a good half-joke, could quickly admit they got it wrong on this one and we just move on.
Cheers CROFT & TIMMY for clarify trys.
Good Morning CQN
According to Celtic blogosphere we are in for a big transfer week ahead up to 4 players entering the famous Parkhed gates before the end of the transfer window for C/L qualifier……………..mmmm
Matchday and our visit to the grass at Rugby park, 3 points a must
Can’t see any changes to the starting line up, Engles workmate off the ball despite his poor play with it will help keep him his place
The misfiring forward line will keep their places despite drawing a blank last week, like to see better movement, interchanging positions and link up play today from the front three, please bring an end to hugging the touchline wingers, its easily defended
COYBIG
aff oot
Today is a crucial game as the team need to improve from the second half of the Dundee game.
Overall team is way below what we need and will face a battle today from McCanns Killie. So we need everyone to be up for it. At a couple of games in post split fixtures we made changes at half time as it wasn’t working. Hope Maloney will be as bold today if required. Maybe MON will be on the blower at HT.
Referee Ryan Lee, is one for the watching as he has previous against Celtic ; he will be hurting as to how his team lost the league with 3 minutes to go….
Hail Hail
Good morning all. Gerrintaethum Celtic!!!!
With the news that Johnny Kenny is staying we have 4 strikers which would suggest we will be playing with two strikers on occasions I would guess.
Maestro on 9th August 2026 9:31 am
With the news that Johnny Kenny is staying we have 4 strikers which would suggest we will be playing with two strikers on occasions I would guess.
I would suggest they are trying to get more money out of Bolton for Kenny