There are five games between Celtic and a third successive Scottish Cup win, a run of success achieved only by Rangers (in the 60s) and Aberdeen (in the 80s). Brendan Rodgers’ priority for the remainder of the season will be to win the league title, but with the embarrassment of trebles and seven-in-a-row leagues, matching the successive wins record in the Scottish Cup is a significant and worthy target.
Retaining the Cup also denies pretenders the opportunity to put a stake in the ground, a bit like we did against the other Airdrieonians (who perished when they were unable to pay David Murray’s bill) in the 1995 Final.
There’s a notion that Celtic playing Monopoly with Scottish football is a bad thing from a competitive or commercial sense, but I suspect the opposite is true. On any given season the Cup would be sacrificed for the league, but everyone else wants to win a trophy, any trophy – this trophy. Every competition is a chance to deny historically imperious champions. So let’s just win it.
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Glendalys
Cheapskate Hibs.
Refs summit in Perth with Stevie G. Embarrassing and simply not good enough.
Which Ludge is the meeting in?
Refs meeting – what’s the point?
Steve Clarke isn’t stupid.
RUGGYMAN
The McTominay link may be with the knowledge that we are cashing in on Ollie?
An alternative could be a coach who hasn’t found a balance with our plethora of midfielders.
The shifting around and tinkering with the midfield suggest this.
After Brendan’s first great season teams devised strategies to counter and we have struggled to find rhythm .
I felt our best balanced team was away to StJohnstone when Ollie and Calum sat deeper Rogic ahead had creative role and Ed and Forrest on flanks with Griff leading attack.
This brought movement and balance as it freed space for Rogic and the two sitting midshipmen’s allowed the creatives like he ,JF and Ed to take men and attack space without the fear of a turnover being disastrous..
The defense also pushed higher in that game compacting space so opponents had less to exploit.
The introduction and emergence of Ryan Christie after that has led to the coach making choices he does not seem clear on.
To many choices sometimes causes loss of focus and confusion.
Please Mr Fleming. I have a player who likes to go around kicking people. He is just a bit silly sometimes. Is it okay for him not to get booked, or does he have to play for a club that the president wants to be strong?
Fan a tic- seems we are in for McTominay, as Everton want too much for a loan fee for McCarthy…
FAN-A-TIC on 17TH JANUARY 2019 5:47 PM
Replacing Ollie with a loanee would not seem to make much sense . Even if there was a loan to buy option on McTominay ,I doubt we could afford him.
The balance between signed players and loanees is getting a bit out of kilter IMO.
I hope the point Celtic stick to tonight is that whilst the JPP cannot intervene if a referee says he saw all instances and did not think them worth caution of any kind, that does not stop his performance being independently assessed for competence if in the view of an independent assessor or assessors he got it wrong on more on one occasion involving the same kind of physical clash, then the referee is demoted for a number of weeks retraining in line with his error of judgment.
The key here is to insist on some kind of independent assessment process or the games a bogey because if Celtic think it necessary, but fail to get change, they are accepting that incompetent refereeing is part and parcel of the Scottish game and can only sell tickets with that Caveat Emptor.
This of course requires backbone to stand up to the other clubs Boards who don’t care enough to demand the same.
It’s high time Celtic outed them to let their supporters see what their Boards are happy to accept.
Change will only come if somebody stands up and says “Enough!” with all the justification for doing so.
There is a famous cartoon from 1940 after Dunkirk where a soldier defiently stands facing occupied France and the caption says
“Very well then. Alone”
It’s high bloody time we geared up properly to right wrongs before they wound us permanently.
That requires a strategy to do so and it requires unity amongst the disparate groups who represent Celtic officially or unofficially as well as individuals with a bit of financial clout, working with Celtic, to make it happen.
GLENDALYTONSILS
Agreed.
But it does make sense if money in the bank is a priority.
Plus to often our transfer strategy is just made up on the hoof.
FAN-A-TIC on 17TH JANUARY 2019 6:03 PM
Presumably McTominay has been well scouted ,( albeit he has not had a great deal of first team game time)
and Brendan sees something in his game which can provide the midfield balance you referred to earlier.
It all does seem a bit hit and miss though.
An SFA summons to appear in Perth for a lecture on how we should stop criticising referees?
Tell them to shove it, Celtic. It’s sly, sleek it deflection.
Then release footage in public of
The FOUR unpunished red-card offences on 29 December,
The stills of Beaton posing for selfies in a hun pub directly after the game,
The Naismith attack on Hayes,
The numerous unpunished assaults on KT, Scott Brown and others,
The off-the-ball kick by McGregor on Ajer,
Kenny Clark’s after-dinner speech in which he admits, to cheers, that he saw but did nothing about a brutal assault on John Hartson,
The ‘he can be a bit daft sometimes’ excuse – from a Grade 1 referee – for no action after another Morelos assault.
Just put it all out there, Celtic, and ask the bloody question – Why? The one to which there is only one answer.
Cheating.
BADA BING
Why would we pay a huge loan fee for a player unproven after a serious injury?
Hope we told Everton to GTF.
Have not seen much of McTominay so no opinion but watched McCarthy and he just seems to me like another midfielder who can pass it side to side without much positive impact on a game.
I once went to the annual dinner of the SFA N.E. district referee’s association
No idea who the speakers were from the MIB fraternity/brotherhood.
The main speaker was William McNeill MBE, and i spent the whole evening in awe of the great man, and the fact that I was in the same room as my hero.
There was a fair bit of criticism of referee’s in his speech, from what I remember, but all done in a very humorous way. When I met him afterwards, he told me he could tell stories about referee’s that would make my hair stand on end ( it was quite a long time ago ? )
Ffs Stevie G asked about the leeds spying gate story….
Wants cheating stopped, anyone know where I can buy a cheap tv, mine is about to go oot the windae…
Foo ken brass necked Scouse git, join the bloody que.
Aaaaaarrrrrrgggghhhh
Good evening CQN
Why are we attending a meeting with other managers present, surely if we asked for a sit down with Fleming/Maxwell then it should be private. Is it a case of get everyone there, so as Celtic don’t say what they want to. In other words bullying tactics.
Ffs Celtic divide and conquer.
Get the cheating SFA to sit down with us alone and make them listen to us, not the other way around. Lead do not be lead.
Grow a pair of haw maws Custodians, and stick up for us.
D. :)
Hoping for something from this meeting in Perth. Can’t really see any real change. Too many vested interests in the status quo.
How do we get support from any other team. Steve Clarke would be the only one and he’s not going. That probably says everything about the meeting.
I see a hitman got life today for murdering Stevie G’s gangland ‘minder’. Nice company he keeps.
If McTominay is coming it suggests to me that there’s not much joined up thinking currently being applied by the acquisition team.
Is he going to be any better than what’s at the club?
If McTominay arrives then we will have Brown, Bitton, McGregor, Christie, Eboue, McTominay and Ntcham on our books as central midfielders. To me that suggest that we would be getting rid of Ntcham as I can’t see any of the others leaving this window.
We have a very confused transfer strategy at present (if there is indeed a strategy at play).
Unless we get a RB and a CB in on full contracts,the short term thinking, i.e 6 month loans,tells me Brendan won t be here next season.
BBC reporting on phil the greek in an accident.as he is the only person they are mentioning he must have been driving both cars, or do the others not matter?
Why does BR just not say when being interviewed players are not for sale ,if that is the case?
Dessybhoy
Every player has his price
Duke of Edinburgh (98) crashes his jeep and crawls from the wreckage.
He’s either gonny get an audition for James Bond – or sign up to Stevie G’ s revolution.
Auldheid @ 5.59
BBC TV NEWS HEADLINES …………………………the meeting is because referees have become targets
And there you have a stitch up right there CSC
I’m very aware of that, but he doesn’t say that, goes on about improving players and other clubs will take an interest.
BSR
Well one of them was hit by a newco fan – I must have missed the summit on that one.
Chick Young asking the guy from Auchinleck about the CLUB’s finances.
Errrr, isn’t the BBC line not that clubs don’t have finances?
No enough of them are targets, targeting them might actually make a difference
I assume DoE was breathalysed at the crash
Onlyaskingcfc
Only read the article.Having said that,calling it an article is a euphemism.I don’t know where Paul67 meets HIS Celtic supporters but ones I know enter the Scottish Cup to win it – the number of times and successive wins mean nothing when you are going to the game.
Don’t think that in over 75 years of going I’ve ever thought if we win it this year that will be x times or y times in a row,who gives an z.
BBC start piece on the alleged death threats……..
“We’ve improved with the three players we’ve brought in. I’m very confident that by the end of January we’ll be very strong.”
Brendan Rodgers
GENE
They just did the whole article and mentioned Brendan Rodgers and Celtic (three times) Aberdeen and Hearts
GuessWhoTheyMissed CSC
98 and driving on a public road,seriously….
How will full time refs make any difference when they will officiate in the same way and be unaccountable ? It will not make the slightest bit of difference only make them richer, they are very happy doing what they do and in how they do it, that is the problem lack of scrutiny accountability and independent performance auditing that highlights issues that need addressed.
Roy Buchanan – The best unknown guitarist in the world
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-_nog_lW6M
A great wee choon
KINGLuBO