Aberdeen are back at Celtic Park tomorrow, 10 days after their previous visit, having arrested their record breaking run of six league games without a goal by beating Kilmarnock 1-0 last time out. Derek McInnes will be relieved to take part in someone else’s soap opera.
Prior to losing to Ross County, Celtic were on one of their best runs of the season: five wins in February since going down at home to the mighty St Mirren. The performance and result in Dingwall surprised no one, though, even after five wins, there is a fragility about this team.
When the man running the US has a codename ‘Celtic’, there is a bit of symmetry that we appoint ‘The President’ as interim manager. Having worked as a coach at Celtic for a decade, John Kennedy will relish getting his hands on the levers tomorrow, but he is no miracle worker. Knocking this team into shape will take more than a few tactical or selection changes.
There are some indicators I am looking for. Will he retain Scott Bain ahead of Vasilis Barkas? Almost certainly. Will Scott Brown retain his place ahead of Ismaila Soro? Not so sure about this one. Scott is a voice of authority among the players and will be a key ally to John. You and I are always looking to the horizon, so we would probably opt for Ismaila, but corralling a couple of dozen egos is a tactical job in itself. What we notice on the pitch is not everything.
If we do not have unanimous agreement on the unsuitability of Tom Rogic for the energetic, up and down the park, right side of midfield role, I would be amazed. We have too many No. 10s and not enough wide right options. A less-effective Ryan Christie is always preferable to Tom on the right.
Albian Ajeti, Leigh Griffiths and Patryk Klimala will all hope to make more of an impact under the new regime. None has had the kind of run in the team required to reach peak performance. All three will hope that changes between now and May. John should pick Albian or Patryk and stick with him, we need to find out what resources we have in these two before we go shopping again. No harm to Leigh, but we know all about him – and he’s a keeper (not that kind of keeper) for a while yet.
I doubt we will see a change from the midfield diamond, which apart from a haunting January provided a significant improvement in performances and results on formations from earlier this season.
Good luck, John.
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Salmond currently reaping the benefit of the hideously low standard of SNP politicians. They’re as thick as mince.
Ernie- hes had a very easy time of it,quoting policy after policy,and pleading the 5th,the Cole Hamilton guy was embarrassing, constantly slapped down by the convenor.
Quorn mince isn’t thick.
It’s smart mince.
DANDAN on 26TH FEBRUARY 2021 1:26 P
Totally agree with you. Before they scored at Celtic Park, Slavia Prague won every 50-50 ball. When I noticed it, I thought it was going to be a long night for us. I’ve been going on about this for some time.
HEADLINES ON BBC SCOTLAND TV EVENING NEWS
RAAAAAIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJUUUUUUUURRRRRRRZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Mid Pandemic CSC
CADDINGTONCOMMON on 26TH FEBRUARY 2021 4:56 PM
It was someone I worked with down south back in the day.
Keep the Faith!
Hail Hail!
HANKRAY on 26TH FEBRUARY 2021 6:01 PM
Best of luck to gaffer John, may the force be with you.
——————————————————————————
👏👏👏👏👏
Chairbhoy @ 11.05
You have been a staunch supporter of this current (now crumbling) Celtic Regime. You say you have little time for Big Pedro, you say Lenny should have gone, you were scathing of Brendan Rodgers.
So
Who are the folks that you feel excelled and are supportive off during the last G. o. D. era?
I am supporting a regime now, eh? I supported Neil Lennon for all the good things he has done and felt he should be leaving the job with more kind words than he received. I still think he should have left when the 10 was next to impossible after the Sevco game.
I do have little time for PL (I assume he can’t be part of the “regime” since you separated him out) and I have never had much interest in the Board and plc side of things- most of it is wasted energy by back bar revolutionaries who want somebody (else) to do something.
And, finally, I was scathing of Brendan Rodgers for one thing only, his desire to leave. If you look at the blog from the time of Brendan’s tenure, you will see that I was appreciative of his coaching and of the bravery that he demanded of his players. I was pro-Brendan in the face of unjustified criticism from some who now paint themselves as pro-Brendan and describe him in glowing terms, but were complaining, often and long, about the football he served up while here. I got annoyed with Brendan only when he planned to leave (and take Moussa with him) , while still professing his love for Celtic. That was when I turned against him. I have no problem with his going back to England. I do have a problem that his actions and timing harmed Celtic’s prospects at a time that we were paying him handsomely.
So, the premise of your arguments are framed wrongly still. I liked Brendan adn Neil as managers until I stopped liking them. I still dislike Brendan leaving mid-season with only a LC nailed down. I don’t dislike Neil at all because he wanted to be here and has had to be reluctntly removed form his job because he lost the 10, nothing more and nothing less.
On your 2nd and longer point I have some milder disagreements.
From the beginning of his Celtic tenure BR always made it clear that he intended to return to England to Manage
It was always felt that he wanted to re-build his reputation at Celtic to the level that he returned to England as a manager of a top six Club
I don’t think Brendan made that clear at all. In fact he signed a new contract , to get off the old rolling contract and made all the positive noises about both the bright future he foresaw at Celtic AND made positive noises about the support he had received from senior figures at the club (Code for PL and DD)
Of course, most non-deluded Celtic fans could foresee that any talented and ambitious coach would prefer to get back to the big bucks and bigger prestige that was avilable in the EPL but we did not get that impression from anything Brendan said. He was too busy blowing smoke up our orifices to tell us he was bound for “Bigger Things”.
DD and PL were entitled to fel betrayed when BR showed interest in the China offer as that only offered him big bucks but no prestige. Now many big name coaches were happy to take the Chinese money for short contracts and I don’t blame him for that but …. attempting to take Moussa with him?? That was undermining Celtic. Brendan may have re-negotiated a contract to allow Celtic to claim bigger compensation but he did nothing about Moussa’s contract, to earn us extra money and Moussa called him out about it which forced Brendan to change his mind about holding on to him. That honesty is why Moussa could show face at CP but BR will have to wait a bit. Sure, the Board were willing to sell a player who wanted to leave buT BR was not keeping him here for Celtic’s benefit; he was delaying Moussa’s transfer so that he could take him with him to a new club for his benefit.
If Brendan had been honest and forthright about Celtic being a short term gig, none of us would have felt betrayed. But he was less than honest. The fall out and the split had faults on every side. DD and PL lost trust in him and were less vigorous in pursuing his targets; they were also less confident that he was a good identifier of targets ( I can accept Castagne and McGinn WERE great targets but they needed to be weigheed against BR’s previous record of De Vries, Gamboa and Kolo Toure). As DD and PL became more distrustful of their manager, so BR began to play the support and get them to turn on the always popular target of the “guys in suits”.
Signings and signing practices that he had accepted at previous clubs and in his early days at Celtic, he now started to rail against (“too many wingers” “I know nothing about that” etc;). It was only ever going to end badly and it suited both warring parties, but not the football side of Celtic, that he was allowed to leave mid-season. People looking for a way out can easily develop “leetle problems” ( © Di Canio, Van Hooidonk etc;) to justify their stance
He may say he will be glad to come back, but I am willing to back my judgement that you won’t see him here in the next 20 years, except as a customer of hospitality.
So, I value everyone who contributed to the GOD- MON, WGS, NFL , RD and BR. I even appreciate Tony Mowbray though he was the only one where I called early for him to go for his refusal to call out the honest mistakes, and in particular, the cheating of Rev McCurry. Tony’s stoicism even pissed off Peter Grant who wanted to show some fight but our suits were equally cowardly on that front.
I believe we won every title through sweat and effort. I am not buying into the hun narrative, which is becming more proclaimed by the Celtic support, that all our titles were diddy titles won under no threat and not worth anything. We used to laugh at that “fox and grapes” hun reasoning but it is now a widespread orthodoxy among Celtic fans as we try to rationalise how we lost the 10.
” No disrespect but for goodness sake its only Slavia Prague ”
Steve McManaman
bournesouprecipe @ 4.13pm
“42% of religion based hate crimes in Scotland are against Catholics”
No that is not what the research tells us. That is your interpretation of what it tells us.
Celtic Mac
The report itself states
“In two-fifths (42%) of religion aggravated hate crimes, the perpetrator showed prejudice towards the Catholic community, which equates to an estimated 150 crimes (Table 17).”
The difference appears subtle, to me
TOSB
Celtic didn’t play Slavia Prague, they played Sparta Prague.
Mogwai story features on BBC Scotland Sky 115 ,The Seven in a couple of minutes…I believe one of them posts on here,congratulations sir
I would bring in a few of the Karamoko’s of our young talented squad. How will they get experience if they don’t play. We cannot afford to lose these guys, they are the future
SCHUMMI
It was Sparta Prague who beat us 8-2.
God knows how many Slavia Prague would have scored.
HOT SMOKED on 26TH FEBRUARY 2021 4:19 PM
“BHOYJOEBELFAST on 26TH FEBRUARY 2021 3:37 PM
Re the jab:
Got the jab three weeks ago,told by practice nurse,once I got home to take 2 paracetamol and apply a frozen bag of peas etc to arm that was ‘jabbed.”
That seems really strange to me. Anyone else given the same instructions as BJB ?
——-
This is actually spot on, for three reasons:
1. Many people – a good few – will experience a mild reaction, including the shivers. Hence the paracetamol as a precaution.
2. Where you get jagged can be a wee bit tender, hence the ice
3. BhoyJoy is a pure jessie
(Disclaimer – only 2 out of 3 of these statements have clinical validity!)🤷🏼♂️😉🙃💚💚
It is seventy two years since I first saw the hoo
Rodger Daltrey would only have bin a wee boy then.
Aye he was playing guitar at four😱I’m on the gin😂 and can still count😂
Bads
He does indeed. Has property next to me.
Big SNP man btw.
JAMESGANG on 26TH FEBRUARY 2021 7:13 PM
I got a bag of peas fae M&S & combined that into a dine for 14
Bottle of plonk & meal.
No pain.
Sorted.
HH
£14
Well I got the vaccine.and I was in my bed Ill for 2 days after it.it was a horrendous experience one I’m dreading doing again HH
When I got the jag I put a cold beer on my shooder for a coupla minutes then necked it.
Didny make any difference to my shooder, but I enjoyed the beer.
Ive had 1st. Bit sore on shoulder for 2 days.
Nothin after
The Sparta Prague manager – Kotal – got the sack last month, which puts our poor performance in an even worse light…
quonno
is that right?- 72 years.bowing here.magic.
so
1stmatch?
best match?
best memory?
best o times?
worst o times?
players seen?
oh go on give the blog a treat 😊
hh
BSR
cheers for your many attempts and the numbers.
hh
PHILBHOY on 26TH FEBRUARY 2021 7:19 PM
Rodger Daltrey would only have bin a wee boy then.
am away to make a cup o tea laughin hahahah
hh
BSR – thank you
JAMESGANG 7.13
Well more sound advice for those about to receive the jab/ jag.All three statements,in my estimation,are true I’m sure, there is a jessie out there proud and glad of being identified as Bhoyjoy.
Vaccination for the nation is a dawdle.
Widnae like any of you wooses in my back 4.
😂💉😂💉😂💉
D :)
Should that no be Ghirljoy?
AN TEARMANN
Spent my life on here and screw up once 😂
BTB
You’re welcome
HH
Free on the bird
https://youtu.be/GK3KndiOgg4
I was fine after my jab but Mrs gene had flu like symptoms overnight but fine the next day – I put it down to her being English 🤭
Reeling. What a week!
JACKIEMAC
How?
Whits happened te ye?
VINNIETHEDOG on 26TH FEBRUARY 2021 3:55 PM
The truth