The score-line shows a narrow win, but the substance of Celtic’s second half performance was significantly different from what we have seen so often this season, including the first half. Lots of good chances were created – and missed – however, this was reassuring as we hoped not only for a win, but for a substantive change of fortunes.
Moreover, Brendan Rodgers will surely ponder what changes were made at halftime to bring about an effect he worked on since Sunday’s defeat, but failed to materialise at kick off.
The first half provided only more frustrating material. Leigh Griffiths looked as ponderous as Odsonne Edouard has been recently. Had it been Edouard who missed two great chances with the scores still level, not Leigh, the French striker would have come under yet more pressure, but even our goal-den striker was finding it tough.
Progress happens one step at a time and with 83 minutes gone, Leigh was the wrong side of the ball when James Forrest’s header was blocked, with a defender either side of him and a third opponent closer to the ball. Leigh was the most alert man in the stadium. He swivelled and was on the ball before anyone else knew what was happening. His finish was none too shabby, either.
I don’t know what was said by Dedryck Boyata to referee John Beaton in the 90th minute but Brendan Rodgers summed it up well, intimating the player passed up several opportunities not to be red carded, but chose to persist with a grievance, the validity of which is moot. The card was more for rank stupidity than anything said.
Scott Bain has not had much game time recently, so I get that he wanted to be involved in the dying seconds of added time, but his walkabout nearly sent us into extra time with 10 men. Goalkeeping is first and foremost about decision making. Scott made a howler.
Ask anyone and they will tell you that inconsistency in defensive selection leads to poor understanding and results. Despite a catalogue of central defensive injuries, we have now achieved five clean sheets in six games – all with Dedryck in the team. He’s a leader.
Coming as it did during a form slump, last night’s League Cup quarterfinal was a worry, I could sense the triple treble disappearing in the Perthshire air. Lesser teams would have lost. But, we are through to semi against Hearts, which will be played either at Hampden, where we are imperious, or Murrayfield, scene of our memorable 3-0 victory over Legia Warsaw.
History turns on nights like that.
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21-5-79-You think they would have different coloured tops on…
!!BADA BING!! on 28TH SEPTEMBER 2018 9:14 AM
21-5-79-You think they would have different coloured tops on…
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You’ve just read my mind, ?
One of the ads on this site states “This fruit eats your belly fat.”
All I can say is it better be feckin starving! ?
?? ??
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⚪️ ?
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That’s enough a’ that kerry oan, am gaun fur ma messages…?
Good Morning Bhoys and Ghirls I wonder what the playing surface will be like for Celtic and Hearts at Hamdump after the Rangers and Aberdeen have played there semi -final.We all know the better the surface the better the hoops play so a poor surface would surely be a disadvantage.In my opinion all four teams should stand together and protest against the poor decision to play the two matches on the one day.H.H.
Pog- they spend millions on the Ryder Cup, both teams have dark blue tops on….enjoy the bier
Listened to the Policeman on Radio Scotland this morning. Utterly dismissive of any criticism of his force’s handling of football supporters. He believes there will be no problem playing the 2 games at Hampden on the same day. Imo, shocking.
I do hope Celtic make a statement. Who actually approved this?
Play one of the games at Murrayfield and be done with it.
PCS- Play a game on the Monday night and cancel the midweek league game, or play it the weekend after,what’s the rush?
Sorry! but I find ‘team golf’ ludicrous…
Fans will not stay away from hampden…and that’s a shame!
Can the sfa get any worse? It is such an amateurish and sneaky organisation…
Things you thought you’d never read “We want to start climbing up the league table” Chris Davies
” Stewart Milne calls on Scottish football to move on from Rangers fall-out”
July 2017
CONTROVERSIAL’ Rod Stewart covers Irish rebel song Grace on new album Blood Red Roses after hearing Celtic fans sing it
Rod, 73, admits the republican ballad might be a “controversial choice” but insists it is “not really an IRA song”
More $#/tell from The Hun…..don’t buy the rags…
For all that this is an SPFL tournament, the games are at Hampden.
What an opportunity it is for the supporters of four of the biggest clubs, well, three anyway, to eventually make a meaningful protest against the two governing bodies.
Every ticket sold and every click of the turnstile is an endorsement of the SFA/SPFL.
All the sheep are not in Aberdeen.
Come all you young rebels, eh?
Proper Journalism from the 50th Anniversary </i.
Football history can sometimes pose tricky questions, like the difference between the Invincibles of today and the Immortals of the ages. Not in Glasgow, however, as the splendidly consistent Celtic seek to complete an unbeaten domestic season with victory over Aberdeen in today's Scottish Cup final.
The answer is simple and, surely, without challenge. It is the gap which separates a nod of respect and that racing of the blood which you know will never pause until the last of your days.
It is 50 years since the Lisbon Lions of Big Jock Stein overwhelmed one of the powerhouses of Europe, Inter Milan, to win the European Cup. But it might have been yesterday, so vivid and brave was the football of the team of Jimmy Johnstone and Bobby Murdoch, Bertie Auld and Tommy Gemmell.
Stein's men didn't just beat the Inter of Helenio Herrera, the legendary Argentinian coach whose defensive genius had strangled much of the life out of the game with two European Cup wins in the previous three seasons.
Epitaph
They outplayed them, outgrew them. They gave them a moral lesson so profound, so thrilling that no-one at Real Madrid or Benfica, and still less Inter, could begin to raise an eyebrow when Stein delivered a verdict which today still serves as a perfect epitaph for the fallen Johnstone, Murdoch, Gemmell and goalkeeper Ronnie Simpson.
He declared: "We didn't come to make war. We did it with football. Pure, beautiful, inventive football."
And so fast and urgent, they might have been seeking survival in one of the meaner streets of their sometimes turbulent city.
Herrera was the high priest of catenaccio (the locked door of Italian defence) and a heavy favourite to get the better of Stein. But after the first shockwaves reached out from the Estadio Nacional, he was candid about the fears he had taken into the game – especially after his fabled Spanish midfielder Luis Suarez had lost a battle for fitness.
The normally imperious Herrera, who often appeared on the touchline with an elegant overcoat draped casually over his shoulders, admitted: "After we beat Real Madrid (reigning champions after Inter's two straight triumphs), the only team which caused me much concern were Celtic. They were very fast and robust."
They also had a fierce commitment bred in their native city. The only outsider was the flying Bobby Lennox, who came from just 30 miles away on the Ayrshire coast.
It was a victory at the peak of the game they could never quite repeat, coming closest three years later when going down to Feyenoord at Inter's home of San Siro.
But what they would never lose was the name of a team which had for a few unforgettable years joined the elite of football, a fact underlined on that run to San Siro when outplaying a superb Leeds United side moving towards the highest level of their formidable powers.
With the Lisbon triumph, Stein acquired an almost mystical reputation among his peers, not least his great compatriot Bill Shankly.
The founder of Liverpool's winning tradition was so impressed by Stein's achievement, he remonstrated with two American women sitting in the lobby of a five-star Lisbon hotel who paid no attention when the Celtic manager passed by. "Ladies," said Shankly, "do you realise you have just ignored the greatest man in the world?"
Shankly may have mildly exaggerated the status of his hero but it was an assessment which would have found little complaint in the Celtic Park dressing-room, even from the impish, devastating but not always entirely disciplined Johnstone.
Wee Jimmy was frequently mortified by Stein's ability to chart his movements around the city.
On one occasion, he did not have time to sip from his pint before the barman handed him the phone.
It was Stein, saying: "If you know what's good for you get out of there right now."
It wasn't radar, just a network of Celtic loyalist barmen and publicans drawn into the cause by a football manager who knew his values – and his men.
When, nearly 20 years later, Stein died on the touchline at Ninian Park in Cardiff, after suffering a heart-attack while guiding Scotland towards qualification for the 1986 World Cup in Mexico – a feat he had also performed four years earlier – the devastation in Scotland swept beyond all the old tribal Old Firm loyalties.
Such sentiments will no doubt swirl again these next few days as Glasgow celebrates the 50th anniversary of the greatest achievement in the history of the football nation.
Vigorously
They will be voiced most vigorously by five of the seven survivors – Jim Craig, Auld, John Clark, Willie Wallace and Lennox, with centre-half and leader Billy McNeil and match-winner Steve Chalmers suffering from dementia.
The talk will be of a time when a football team reached out and found the very best of itself, won nine consecutive Scottish titles and the supreme prize of the European Cup.
It was an epic achievement at time when competition in Scottish football was so much more intense, when the Invincible description applied to today's Celtic would certainly not have survived a 7-0 massacre by Barcelona and a home defeat to Monchengladbach.
But this isn't to diminish the worthy deeds of the Celtic of Brendan Rodgers. A team can only be the best of its day within its own world and capacity to compete.
The wonder of the Lisbon Lions was that they didn't even recognise such restraints. They stepped beyond all the boundaries set before them. They played football that would never die.
James Lawton RIP
Maybe Police Scotland want the offensive behaviour at football act back and are orchestrating things in having the 2 games same day.
WEEBOBBYCOLLINS on 28TH SEPTEMBER 2018 10:44 AM
Sorry! but I find ‘team golf’ ludicrous…
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I’m not into golf but I find the Ryder Cup enthralling.
??????????✔️✊?????
The problem for this years Ryder Cup is that the country hosting it doesn’t ‘do golf’.
“IN THE HOLE!”
There you go! I shouted that really loudly…
Tontine,
Disappointed to read your comments about Dumbarton Harp last night. Please let me know if you have any plans for being “home” in the near future and as a club member will be more than happy to buy you a pint.
HH
I miss big Colin Montgomery’s greetin’ face…
Golf just doesn’t have those soor faced characters anymore…
And none of them have tattoos…so out of date…
Friday -way down south . 22 and overcast .
Stepping –
https://youtu.be/3WTyTPdA-UM
A fine 45 from 67 . A fine year !!
https://youtu.be/InSx6LJCRIU
SOT
do you know if the Rhodes is going through a Leslie on Mercy Mercy Mercy, it’s very clean
Dundee FC officially the worst league side in the world.
new article posted.
CQN Saturday Naps Competition
please post your Week 6 selections here, Week 5 results to follow…
Cheers, fleagle1888
Auckland CSC
CQN Saturday Naps Competition : WEEK 5 results (Sep 22nd)
WINNERS:
21-5-79 and fleagle1888 (Snazzy Jazzy) @11/1
:)
LOSERS:
16 roads (Snowy Winter)
BMCUWP (Equilateral)
Bull67 (Equilateral)
Cathal (Cold Stare)
Cosy Corner Bhoy (Bernardo O’Reilly)
Fastbhoy (Burning Question)
Gerryfaethebrig (Perfect Pasture)
Graffitionthewall (Diamond Set)
green T (Napanook)
Gweedore Celt (Shared Equity)
leftclicktic (Fools and Kings)
Nye Bevans RS (Gunmetal)
Onemalloy (Muntadab)
Rockon (Queen Jojo)
Som mes que un club (Autumn Flight)
twists n turns (Seinesational)
voguepunter (Coup de Gold)
Zihuatanejo (Golden Spear)
Hyperlinks to Week 5 selections:
https://www.celticquicknews.co.uk/celtic-v-rosenborg-live-updates-3/comment-page-14/#comments
https://www.celticquicknews.co.uk/celtic-v-rosenborg-live-updates-3/comment-page-15/#comments
Cheers, fleagle1888
CQN Saturday Naps Competition : Week 5 standings (Sep 22nd)
Snazzy Jazzy was the only show in town last week with both 21-5-79 and myself (fleagle1888) napping the easy 11/1 winner of the Ayr Silver Cup… the rest of ye’ need to try a bit harder this week… :)
Thankfully no-one napped either of the Ayr Gold Cup dead-heaters so the calculator was not needed for half-stakes winners/losers etc.
Fastbhoy still leads the way, but only by a nostril…
Naps Table – Week 5:
+7.20 > Fastbhoy (3)
+7.00 > 21-5-79 (1)
+7.00 > fleagle1888 (1)
+6.00 > Graffitionthewall (1)
+4.00 > Zihuatanejo (1)
+1.38 > Bull67 (2)
+0.50 > Som mes que un club (1)
+0.41 > BMCUWP (2)
-1 > green T (1)
-1 > Rockon (1)
-1.5 > leftclicktic (1)
-5 > 16 roads (0)
-5 > Cathal (0)
-5 > Cosy Corner Bhoy (0)
-5 > Gerryfaethebrig (0)
-5 > Gweedore Celt (0)
-5 > Nye Bevans RS (0)
-5 > Onemalloy (0)
-5 > twists n turns (0)
-5 > voguepunter (0)
Cheers, fleagle1888
FLEAGLE1888
I was thinking of my late friend,THE BARCA MOLE,during the week. Probably because of the typhoon in The Philippines where he lived. Smashing fella,and much much missed.
Anyway,you used to wind him up about picking a certain horse all the time-I think its owners liked a Saturday in The Owners Enclosure,tbh-and I think it is running tonight at Chelmsford.
Franny always reckoned it was just short of Group class,he was certainly right about that! Class 2 tonight,but I can’t get the card online. I’ll post the details later,but meantime,my nap is
BRONZE ANGEL Chelmsford.
15:40 Newmarket
What’s The Story
HH…?
Haydock 315 Militia
Good luck everyone
3.40 Newmarket – Tricorn
A bit gutted I missed the eachway 25s yesterday
Best of luck to all
Cheers GFTB
Morning ,ALFARRIS 3.40 Newmarket,good luck.
Soie D’leau 3:15 Haydock, good luck all.
Try again…,
Confessional
Haydock 1515
Freiheit 2 10. Navan,
CONFESSIONAL 3.15H
Petite Jack 1845 Chemsford.