Neil Lennon was right to emphasise the importance of discipline ahead of tomorrow’s game against Rangers; there must be a high probability that 22 players will not be on the field at the end. Beram Kayal in particular should expect tumbling Rangers players anywhere in the vicinity of his tackling.
Rangers’ squad is sufficiently thin that there was no chance they would allow the opportunity to appeal Elbows McCulloch’s red card to pass. McCulloch is seen as part of the problem by a lot of Rangers fans, concerned at their recent malaise, but he is as experienced on these occasions as anyone who will play tomorrow. Celtic will need to dominate him and Steven Davis if they to win the midfield battle.
It was at least three years ago Celtic Quick News prefixed McCulloch with the name ‘Elbows’. An elbow is the face is remarkably effective at asserting dominance, something McCulloch knows too well. It may be that the player’s overt physicality will be inhibited by his recent red card, just as team mate Shauny Aluko declined to tumble in the box when presented with the opportunity on Saturday after recently being out-ed as a diver.
Both teams will deploy unfamiliar central defensive partnerships, which will worry both Lennon and McCoist. Rangers’ Jelavic has looked like he wants to be elsewhere in recent weeks but it he gets an opportunity to put himself in the shop window he is likely to take it. Winning the early battles may sap his enthusiasm.
I don’t know about anyone else but I’ve written a couple of versions of my match report already but in all of them Gary Hooper and Georgios Samaras are match winners. If Celtic can win the midfield battle these two – hopefully Samaras from the wing – will win the points for Celtic.
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anyone got any gems from FF tonight ?
“@RonnieJ1967: Tomorrow’s Daily Record with picture of McCoist and headine saying – WE WILL WIN!
Pin this to the changing room walls! http://t.co/FkdtD142“
cheers bud,
right offski for tonight.
leave youse with a wee sea shanty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3cl7Q2GI50
I hope all my fellow Celts make it over ok, the Irlanda Brigada are an important part of our club and they’re support is a large part of the Celtic story.
V
up_over_goal says:
27 December, 2011 at 23:59
I just think in defence he’s been beyond anything I’ve seen so far at Celtic.
—————————
Are you saying you think he’s better than any centre half you’ve seen at Celtic?!
Just don’t see this at all. While I think he has done fine as cover at centre half think he looks a bit like a fish out of water. Very good in the air for his height but he will struggle against Jelavic/Lafferty if the ball is lumped up to them. Think his best game was his full debut at tynecastle where he was outstanding in midfield.
Not saying K Wilson would do much better in defence but I reckon a midfield of Wanyama and Kayal would terrify the Huns. As good a footballer as Ki is, he goes missing in physical games like this. Keep him on the bench and bring him on when they are tiring/ down to 9 men!
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Forster :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Cha ::::::::::::: Wanyama :::::::::::::: Mulgrew ::::::::::::::::::: Ledley
Forrest :::::::::::: Brown ::::::::::::::::: Kayal :::::::::::::::::::::::::: Samaras
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: McCourt :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Hooper ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Right! Just heard.
A wee fairy told me awe them Irish Bhoys will arrive safe and on time tomorrow in time for a good Hun humping. Even better news is that all the Hun Irish (oh they’ll love bein called that) BILLY’s will arrive to witness it tae.
:-)))))
MWD
Safe trip to EVERYone travelling to the game.
If we win then I don’t believe the MBB will keep
sally too long . His salary is big . Also, he is
totally rubbish at his job . I agree with Craigy on
this one. Sally for the chop .
HH
Every rankers fan’s nightmares are unfolding –
They are insolvent
Neil Lennon is going to win the league and (I think ) will be our
manager for years .
top tip ;
( charlie mulgrew is 721 to score anytime )
GBNL
Saint Stivs – Kano 1000 – Glasgows Green and White says:
I don’t know how to access FF…but I will be watching the game tomorrow with 2 Hun mates – atypical in as much as they are decent guys.
They both still have a bit of the ‘we are the people’ arrogance about them under normal circumstances…was at my son’s football today with one of them and been exchanging texts with the other. I would describe their mood as resigned. They have no hope or expectations for tomorrow.
Both just want the Whyte era to run it’s course and are hoping something remains afterwards – one of them quite connected to Hun movers and shakers and he has had deep reservations from the get go …put it this way – even (God forbid!) the Huns get any kind of result tomorrow (tonight, even) these guys believe it is still all over for the Huns and they both know the worst is to come. They are defeated inside.
Cultsbhoy that is how most rankers fans with half a brain cell would see it.
Ps yir keeping bad co there :>)
V
Vmhan,no sailings have been cancelled as yet,some clubs have move just in case..Stenna line site saying sailings in doubt..3.30 looks a cert to go,but the 7.30,11.30 look to be in trouble..all part of the fairytail that is Celtic…over and over hail hail Hooper Hooper Sammi Sammi 4-0
VMHAN
last question and definately off to bed,
hows shadeen doing ? healthy ? weight and stuff ?
The Honest Cover-up
Sorry – should qualify. Under Lennon, definitely the best.
The evidence is still based on a slim number of games. Look, after Commons’s first 5 or so games, I thought he outshone the rest by a considerable distance (no one was more heartbroken than I, a McCourt fanatic). Now, the guy’s an afterthought – harsh, but true. So, I’m not saying that Wanyama is a stick on to be the greatest centreback in modern times (!), just that he’s the best, so far, with Lenny in charge.
Disagree about Tynecastle – he was average.
Wanyama/Kayal is our best CM, but moving him to CM would damage our defence more than it would improve the midfield.
It is not through lack of confidence, but I would NEVER anticipate the result of an US & THEM game.
I KNOW only too well the capricious vagaries of such encounters.
What do those who predict an easy victory gain by doing so ?
NOTHING.
They simply make themselves a hostage to fortune for NO good reason.
The game will take care of itself no matter what nonsense we predict.
You never count your money while you’re sitting at the table.
There’ll be time enough for counting when the dealings done.
God bless Lennon’s Young Lions.
Coorslad Ta mi amigo, is Paddy et al on the 3:30am boat?
Was talking to Wullie T from Blackpool yesterday, he wants to go over to Doire with us for St Patricks day :>)
V
St Stivs he’s doing absolutely brill mate, Daniel said to me yesterday that he’s Desperate to get him to CP, what a day that’ll be.
Photo en route.
V
.
19hrs to go..
Summa
Summa
19hrs to go.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFufoOgCMW8
HaHaah!
G’day Aussietimland :>)
Sammy will play 001, but will he score?
V
born to wear the hoops.
thats a tremendous picture, give my best wishes to the parents.
Ton Che Dan has taken over from me as Dunkies favorite i think.
thats fine though, the bhoy deserves it.
I’m not a major fan of Paddy or Scott Brown but I would like to see both play tomorrow.
Don’t get me wrong I WANT both to be regulars playing out of their shirts week in week out but I think both have squandered their opportunity to do so. However, tomorrow I think they both have attributes that make them critical players for us.
Brown needs to play in the Broonie mode – keep the Heidi and have a pure conceit of himself and a contempt for them… A la Diouf wind up game.
Paddy is much more robust than his guile and fleet of footedness suggests. He must be a nightmare to play against when he gets dug in and when he starts his ‘dance’ with ball running direct at players in and around the box. it’s hard to make fellow pros look daft but McCourt can do it.
These two frustrate the he’ll out of me as when they play to their potential both show a much missing ‘ hero in the Hoops’ potential that we lack right now.
Tomorrow night is a stage for Heroes and both of them have the potential to take the role…
.
Vhman..OverTheGoal..
No Predictions from me Yet..!!
I Just hope there is NO Crown trouble To/From and at the Game..
Summa
Where ye watching the game 001?
I know my youngest is watching it in Rosie O’Gradys in Perth, I’m thinking of all those Celts from around the world watching the game and I know I’m lucky to be going to CP to watch it, enjoy it pal.
V
Flying up to Edinburgh lunchtime tm to drop my mum off after her Christmas visit then train over to Glasgow. Can’t wait for the game – this one is HUGE! As revolting as the Huns and their polis lackeys are normally, they’ll be out.for blood, literally, when we hump them.
To all bhoys everywhere, be smart and be safe…
Right, off to bed before the trip up to Celtic Park from NW England – a trip that’s as nothing in comparison to that endured by our Irish brothers and sisters.
Final thought, even IF the worst happens tomorrow night I firmly believe Neil Lennon will lead the Celtic family to the title this season.
Keep the faith, keep the hied and keep safe.
SwanseaBhoy
Summa
I Just hope there is NO Crown trouble To/From and at the Game..
Officers of the Crown at Whyte towers kinda trouble?
SoS if we do them there will be trouble, I’m positive about that and it’ll hopefully be the dying struggles of a stain on Scotlands culture,
Onwards to Victory my friend.
V
.
There is Me thinking I’m a Die-hard getting a 20Min train @ 5:21am in 30C Heat to the City for a 6:45am Kick Off..
Getting a Ferry in What Minus -5C @ 3:30am for a 7:45pm Kick Off..
Jings..OK You Irish Bhoys Win..
Seriously.. Safe travels Hope You ALL Make it Over for the Game..
Summa
Today is the day! Let’s win this thing!
Mon the hoops!
Jockybhoy
I think this game is huge for some of thebHun players as they will feel it is their last. They will be dangerous.
I feel relaxed about the result as I don’t see it being the determining factor in this year’s title race….
The transfer window will be critical – I thinkwe will both lose players but we will bring players in… They will just loose vital cogs (Jelavic)
I think we could lose Commons and maybe Hooper ( as I’m reliably informed they are thick as thieves) but we have Stokes to come in, Izzy coming back and maybe even some purchases.
Having beenn15 ptsvadrift I am delighted whatever the difference is after tomorrow.
CultsBhoy @00:59
A moment of clarity. Dead on.
Quixote needs his Sancho.
.
VHman..
Re;Watching Game..
The Celtic Club..Melbourne doors Open 6:00am Rolls and Sausage followed by Copious amounts of Alcohol..
9:00am onto The Casino..for More Drinkies..
12:00pm Down to Republika St Kilda Beach for a Day of Merriment bring Your Budgie Smugglers..lol..
Summa
I am driving tomorrow morning as nephews football is early doors (copyright BFDJ) , and hence not taking a libation, and i was knackered earlier, but now i cant go to bed cos the nerves are getting to me.
themightyquinn says:
28 December, 2011 at 01:10
just read Potters book on Quinn, bloody marvelous, what a man might quinn was indeed.
next time I am in kirkintilloch or croy for the football i am going to go see yir mans grave.
the greatest striker ever according to maley.
Everyone has gone to bed.
Still up thinking about the game.
More alcohol required methinks.
CultsBhoy hates being 2nd says:
28 December, 2011 at 00:59
everytime we beat them, all the team are heroes.
i want us to win, winn well, but in my dreams Paddy scores a wonder goal and the whole green and white sections belt out Fenian Army.
Summi, Sydney CSC does not open its doors, as pub does not close :) some of the boys going in at 3am, but i am sure there will be a few still in from night before
i am playing safe at 5:30am train, 30 deg!!! nope this is Sydney will be abouut 18 and overcast as usuall :(
1st setanta reply is at 12:15pm, 2nd reply at 8:30pm, will head home after 2nd reply
ST
Howdy Rascar
Just a quick visit as I need to get some shuteye before a bit of treatment the morra.
I noticed a few posts of the efforts some apply in their quest to see/hear/stay in touch with Celtic. Here are a few wee mental meanderings I scribbled in the past as I wandered God’s sod and communicated with Tims far and near.
********************************************************************
I know it is sometimes a trial of imagination and ingenuity for those far tossed from Glasgow’s bosom to see THE GAME.
I once sat on a balcony in Copacabana in similar vein having came through a multitude of plagues, pestilence and parasites.
I had was stranded in Brazil and was hoping to meet up with Rioskorrie of this parish, and while the ladies beach volleyball team kicked sand in the far corner of my mind’s eye I scribbled the following wistful memory of trying to catch a Celtic match.
********************************************************************************
From: Matt [mailto:msincent@yahoo.co.uk]
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 11:12 PM
To:Rioskorrie
Cc: Bill
Subject: Re: The mountains (and window ledges)we have to climb to watch Celtic!
RiosK
Where to start is the most challenging. Just arrived through the Pantanal and Amazon into Coastal Brazil. Travelled down through Forteleza and Recife to Rio and lo and behold – all flights to Europe cancelled. Because of the backlog the delay will be at least two weeks but I have developed a technical interest in the subtle tactical changes in women’s beach volleyball and am doing a investigative report on the Brazilian thong industry, so my time should be life-enhancing.
That is more than can be said for the huge earthquake in Chile and the three smaller ones as I headed up to Peru. This was followed by sudden attack of some form of food-poisoning in Peru which …..well you can imagine; It was brought on it seems by ‘some-form of food’ which is obviously where it gets its name from and suggests that sticking to alcohol is the best recipe.
Mind you I lost two stones so I can see an opening there in the diet industry.
Bolivia was just about the most dangerous place I have ever been (apart from the Rangers end at a Celtic game versus them) and the fact that I got out alive is one of the greatest escape stories since the Shawshank redemption.
However one particularly sad event should be recorded.
Two (or four) of my most faithful companions finally reached a sad end. Yep my £20 (TJ Hughes) walking shoes and my £4 flip flops (can’t remember from where) finally crumbled in the face of Mother Nature’s incessant onslaughts. From the icy wastes of Canada’s winter to the torrential rain and desert’s searing heat of Africa, through sub-tropical Oz and rain forest NZ and finally to the quake to end all quakes in my lifetime anyway, they put up with everything that I selfishly put them through.
I feel sad that I didn’t even give them names!
But perhaps an epitaph will leave a shadow of a memory on all those places that while they may not have even scratched the surface, they perhaps disturbed a few grains of sand along the way!
At last they’ve said ‘we’ve had enough’
‘through mud and slush we’ve no more puff
‘Gale and quake and worser stuff
‘no more smoother, no more rough’
Antofagasta seen their end
No stitch in time would ever mend
The heel or sole or thong, or lend
A suppleness to sun dried bend.
‘We simply said with saddened eyes
It’s not with you our future lies
Recycling now with grubs and flies
Consigned to bins – our last goodbyes
‘But let us say afore we go
That we’ve enjoyed the to and fro
From lions that bite and worms that glow
No challenge brought the answer ‘no’
‘Mountains high and valley’s deep
Escarpments treacherous and steep
Where mountain goats would stand and weep
No look we took afore our leap
‘But now our flips will flop no more
our walking boots stride aff the floor
for there on Chile’s sun drenched shore
It’s ‘adios’ ….the party’s o’er! ‘
Anyway, they have been left on the beach and who knows perhaps a stray wave may pick them up and send them Scotland bound; perhaps they’ll even be waiting for me when I eventually drift across the Albert Bridge and watch the flotsam and jetsam swirl beneath the weir’s tidal ebbs and flows.
And so in summary:
I’ve woken up with a deadly Australian brown in my tent, I’ve got lost in the Kalahari, I’ve fallen off Table Mountain and been washed back down 3000 feet on a tide of torrential rain and mud slide, I’ve had a gun held to my head in Durban and Cape Town, My tent was overrun by a herd of Wildebeest in Botswana, In Namibia I had to sneak over the border past more big guys with Guns, the whole of the Southern African continent was hit by the coldest and wettest summer in recorded history, I got involved with a half Irish/Half Xhosa drug runner in Durban and when I finally got to OZ the bank blocked my accounts again and left me to stew with no place to sleep and nothing to eat.
When I got to New Zealand the basement penthouse (Thanks Tauranga Bhoy) I was sleeping in at Tauranga was the centre of the North Island’s greatest flood since Noah, I was attacked by a herd of man-eating alpacas and froze to within an inch of my life on Franz Ferdinand Glacier. I was caught in an erupting mud flat in Rotorua and my tent was destroyed in a cascade of boiling water mud and rock. In a town called Hamilton I was the subject of an attempted mugging by a drunk Maori and his two even more drunken Molls . They got zilch for their pains – Maoris should stay off the drink – it is like anesthetic to them!
I escaped to Chile where I got hit by two major quakes and three huge after shocks. During the first my hotel collapsed around me and a few of us held what we thought might be our last banana and beer party (it was also our first) on the roof terrace of Santiago’s answer to the Caledonian Road Flats!
I crossed the border into Peru….Aye you’ve got it……it’s one of those ‘unofficial’ transit agents who tell you when to keep quiet. But it is very cheap!
I got arrested twice and had two tins of Tuna confiscated.
In Bolivia I was abducted by brigands but managed to escape and in Rio 200 people were killed in my Favela when a landslide brought on by South America’s answer to the Niagara falls deposited all its water in one week.
OH…..And I met BILL Macintosh in Jo’Burg!!!!
But there have been compensations……Ah the alluring Africans, Ample aborigines, magnificent Maoris, and oh for the silky chili flavoured Chileans and big boned Cariocas (female persuasion – is that Cariocinas?) …….I think I’ll save those stories for my dreams.
Being around me is not beneficial to ones health especially when trying to get a an update on a Celtic Match!
The mountains (and window ledges)we have to climb to watch Celtic!
Illegal Feeds
The pillas are puffed, the wee screen’s turned on
The glow frae its lamp tints the room
The earphones are plugged, ma tea’s by ma side
Ah’m chuffed as a wean in the womb
But whit’s a’ this buzz? There’s snow everywhere
The picture is full of white noise
They’re here then they’re no’, jist blur, fade and freeze
Time tae rise frae ma bed fur the Bhoys
Eight thousand miles isnae really that far
Fur a “PC that’s state of the art”
Wae buttons and knobs tae turn, press an’ tweak
A bargain frae Exchange an’ Mart
Wae ma coat hanger bent, twisted an’ kinked
Its hooked bit stretched up tae the sky
Wae wan foot on flair, and wan on the sill
“An inch or two mair, if Ah try”
The picture looks great from this vantage point
Ma neck will recover wan day
Strain under ma arm or in between legs
See the Hoops really startin’ tae play
Precariously I shift on wan foot
A cramp stabs frae ankle tae spine
The house o’ cards falls, I crash tae the grun’
An erse in ma face – “Feck, that’s mine”!
An’ now the back in bed, wae sweet smellin sheets
Re-running the game in mind’s eye
An angel in white, a cup wae a spout
In traction, in ward six Ah lie
*******************************************8
Hail Hail
Estadio
I’ve been attempting to physche myself up for this game and be 100% positive for the game, it’s my way of coping with it and I can assure you I’m not always this positive, I’ll say this though if we start with Izzy and Victor is playing in midfield then it’ll be a 90 minute party.
The adrenaline buildingCSC
V