Congratulations to Scotland’s Player of the Year, Stefan Johansen, and Young Player of the Year, Jason Denayer. It’s fair to say Stefan had an underwhelming first eight months in Scotland, but the turnaround since October has been stark.
It was during our home defeat to Hamilton Accies that month that I noticed a change in his game. He took on more responsibility and pressed incessantly for the equaliser. The next game, away to Ross County, was a Johansen virtuoso performance and he’s never looked back.
There was a similar ‘So what?’ reaction to Jason’s early season performances. Performances were far more like Efe Ambrose than Virgil van Dijk, but he grew increasingly assured as the season progressed. His international debut two months ago was merited.
Manchester City want him back for next season, where he’ll be second reserve for central defence. On the upside, he’ll get six games, some of which will be in the cups against lower league opponents. If City and the player want to map a route to the first team, this is a step in the process, but it’s not without its risks to the player.
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….PFayr supports WeeOscar
What before the QoS game:)))
Gordon j
Was thinking that too
They revelled in the Hun supremacy ….going to with the CL so they were …a European footballing powerhouse…ha …GIRFUT
Obviously that should have read Hannan.
Allegedly
Martin Hannan is far from a zombie
How much lamb must you eat to write that piece then?
OK, let’s allow that King was a Director throughout the EBT years, for which the club received an unprecedentedly heavy sanction.
Let’s allow that he was a Director of the Board that sanctioned the continuing use of these EBTs after HMRC had presented its huge tax demand in 2008, placing the club in a jeopardy it could not escape from.
Let’s allow that he was a Director under Whyte’s short, catastrophic regime up to and including Liquidation.
Let’s allow that he was singled out for specific criticism in the Inquiry into the collapse of Rangers.
Let’s allow that he has yet to demonstrate that he has any money to invest (oodles or otherwise)
And let’s allow that he is a convicted tax felon 42 times over.
Allowing all of that…
Has anyone figured out, were Dave King (or anyone else) to drop the requisite tens of millions into RIFC to allow the business to be stabilised and the team to become competitive, how the accounts would get past Uefa’s FFP rules? (We’ll allow that, notwithstanding the financial basket case, they’ll be licensed by the SFA, who clearly know how the system ‘works’)
Anyone? Anyone at all?
Starry
safety net … Heard ole Chick Dung on about it on RS two weeks ago
I expect it to gain momentum shortly
Yorkbhoy
Thinking the same myself.
Though I stopped reading after ‘Rangers’ ( my single quotation marks) and ‘back’ (same again).
Hannan…even worse
Vale Bhoy -you forgot Ex St Vincent’s Langbank seminary too! :) hh
johann murdoch
True.
Wait till I see him.
Yeah….cue all sorts of ex-players….saying,
They have been punished enough.
Or, in other words…..Let us cheat.
HH
I thought martin was Scotsmans racing correspondent ? Met him in Spain on the Seville trip ..maybe eaten too much lamb ??
I actually scrolled back up to the top of that Hunnan article to see if it had been Aw Nawed.
Hunbelievable!
Maybe these so-called journalists, instead of advocating rule-bending, might be better off asking why King can’t invest his oodles regardless of F&P. Or how last year’s £30m is now £10m. Or why the oodles haven’t been used to pay back Ashley’s loan…..
TBB,
Very one of those paragraphs is the reason why I wouldn’t be bothered if he was allowed back in :0)
Andrew Dallas flexed ones muscles, and says me, me, for the play offs with eight yellows and one red St.Johnstone v ICT.
RottenToTheCore CSC
Paul67
Maybe Jason’s been watching Mangala’s performances and thinks he’ll get quite a few first team chances next season!
Its the journalism of an idiot.
Someone who has lost the plot.
To actually propose rule changes to disadvantage Celtic….That can only be Hun inspired.
Shameful.
Rotten to the core.
HH
….PFayr supports WeeOscar
11:48 on 4 May, 2015
Starry
safety net … Heard ole Chick Dung on about it on RS two weeks ago
I expect it to gain momentum shortly
—————
One of two safety nets maybe. Is it a coincidence that talk of a new league sponsorship deal has just surfaced? Be interesting to see if it has any – ahem – “special clauses”. Maybe certain teams having to be in the premiership….?
….PFayr supports WeeOscar
I’m sure it won’t be this year PF and I think someone posted on here it was 3 seasons notice for a change like that..
Let’s hope QoS stuff them and at least we will get some kinda peace till the wheels fall off the Mullet Miracle Bus Resurrection Show:))
Wee Jinky came in 3rd for the 1967 Balloon dOr.
Obviously not good enough to come first in Scotland.
Anyone know when the new strip is on sale ?
Yeah….its time to move the goalposts again.
Don’t forget what Dungcaster attempted recently.
A whirl of handshaking going on as we speak.
They will try anything.
HH
I see the NB hoops kit on Newsnow has only 4 big hoops.
Maybe theyll add one each year and wé’ll end up wearing pinstripe hoops!
Twintyinarow CSC
Jinky was one of only 3 Scots to ever feature. Denis Law and Kenny D the other two
John Greig never won it
JOHNNY DIVERS: GREAT UNCAPPED CELTS (Part Nine)…http://www.cqnmagazine.com/?p=5054
joe_joe_john_bobby_teddy
today.
Ah that Hannan article.
Quintessentially Scottish.
The Huns can’t win fairly so they should be allowed to cheat. We can’t have Celtic winning all the time so we should cheat.
In any other country this article would be ripped apart.
In other news no journalist in Scotland, none, will look at res12. It’s a massive story. Enormous. But not one will touch it.
Institutional sectarianism in action.
Yogi Hughes getting MOTY is nothing more than two fingers up to Timmy.
No logic behind the award or justification other than they knocked us out the cup, thanks mostly to goat-pumper McLean.
Scottish football has suffered so long because of the mentality at the top – all the intellectual sophistication and emotional stability of sulking teenagers.
Even last-16 CL qualification has failed to land Celtic managers the award in the past so RD had little chance. Perhaps if we tank through Madrid, Barca and Bayern next season he’ll be neck and neck for the award with the Mullet That Time Forgot, although I’d have McCall as a shoe-in right now; the SMSM are a gaggle of giggling teen girls in his presence. Three wins on the trot in next season’s Championship will seal it for him.
Well done to Stefan and Jason.
Denayer will go back to City but we’ll not miss him if we get a fit Mick Lustig into CH for the qualifiers.
Virgil? Another almost definite departure. I think his mind is on the EPL. £10 million easy, and buy a new quality defender (the Dutch boy on the radar right now?) in his mould to partner Mick (or Charlie when Mick inevitably gets injured).
And a number 10 with proper PACE who can play up front or attacking mid.
Just unveiled today Bourne, not on sale,
What did Martin say?
Can someone post a link to the article please?!
“May the 4th be with you” … Starring…
Dave King as Taxe Vader,
Jim Traynor as Jabba the Hun
Keech Jackson as Havea Jar Blings
Campbell Ogilvie as C EBT O
Bro Steven McLean as Hand Saw’no’
Bro Alan Muir as Noway One Penalti
… and the SFA as Fekim Maul
StarWarsOnAllDay CSC
theglasgowcelticway
12:16 on 4 May, 2015
Can someone post a link to the article please?!
=============================================
http://www.celticquicknews.co.uk/?p=17296&cpage=36#comments
near bottom of page.
Hilarious.
Looks like Hannan is being worked by King in the same way Keith Harris used to ‘manipulate’ Orville.
Hunguffery of the Highest Order.
Martin Hannan: Give King a chance to help end Celtic’s rule
May 4th, 2015
CELTIC’S fourth successive title should have everyone in Scottish football worried. It is surely not healthy for a single club to be so dominant, and can anyone seriously doubt that Celtic will go marching on to win championship after championship?
Seven or eight titles in a row is not just possible but probable, because Rangers could take years to get back to their best.
If ever there was going to be the semblance of a chance that the Parkhead juggernaut would be derailed, it was this season. Neil Lennon’s departure robbed the club of a legend, and the signing of an inexperienced manager had more than the fans saying “Ronny who?”
Ronny Deila’s arrival did indeed see Celtic wobble at first with their dismal exit from the Champions League a real blow. The other clubs in the Premiership had to pounce then and make Celtic’s job more difficult.
To an extent that happened, but despite a fine showing by Aberdeen in particular, Deila got his squad to buy into his philosophy and the sheer strength of the playing resources at Parkhead saw the inevitable happen. You could argue that only the outstretched arm of Josh Meekings stopped Deila winning a treble in his first season, though that would be unfair to Inverness Caledonian Thistle whose manager John Hughes has worked miracles with scarce resources and should be named the Premiership’s manager of the season.
Nevertheless, with the League and League Cup in the bag, Deila can now look forward to next season with relish, though it is likely that he will need to replace Virgil van Dijk and Jason Denayer – no easy feat.
He will have the luxury of adding to the squad with quality players, though when you consider that five of the seven substitutes on Friday were full internationalists, as was every one of the starting XI, while Charlie Mulgrew, Adam Matthews, Callum McGregor and Mikael Lustig are waiting in the wings, he doesn’t really need to sign anyone.
To make progress in Europe, however, Deila will need more quality players and the chances are he will get them.
Who can possibly catch Celtic domestically? Aberdeen, Dundee United and a resurgent Hearts have the best chance of doing so next season, but it is all so different from the 1980s when the New Firm briefly broke the Old Firm’s stranglehold on the Scottish game, and proved potent in Europe, too.
With all due respect to Derek McInnes and Jackie McNamara, they are not yet Alex Ferguson and Jim McLean. Nor do they have the class of player that Aberdeen and Dundee United had back then – what an XI you could have made from the New Firm in the 1980s (try Leighton, McLeish, Miller, Strachan, McGhee, Narey, Gough, Malpas, Bannon, Sturrock and Gallacher for size).
So Celtic will march on, unless the only club comparable in size and resources can resurrect itself. Rangers need to get back into the Premiership before the destination of the league flag stops being inevitable into the 2020s.
You may think that a duopoly is not much better than a monopoly, but it will make for excitement in the Premiership again – that is if Rangers can get past Queen of the South, Hibs and probably Motherwell to qualify from the play-offs.
All of which leads me to say that the SFA is shortly to make a very important decision indeed. The Professional Game Board of the Association has already cleared Paul Murray as a fit and proper person to sit on the board of Rangers, despite his involvement in the club prior to it going into administration.
A much bigger decision awaits the Professional Game Board – will they allow Rangers’ main shareholder Dave King to also be a director and chairman of the club?
When you consider some of the people that the SFA has allowed to operate in Scottish football already this century, you would seriously have to question whether the fit and proper test is in any way sensible.
Giovanni di Stefano at Dundee, Vladimir Romanov at Hearts and Craig Whyte at Rangers were all permitted to operate in their various clubs even though their track records were, to say the least, rather dodgy. Di Stefano, who is now a guest of Her Majesty for the next dozen years or so, was never subjected to the test even though I personally proved he was a convicted fraudster. Romanov’s unsavoury conduct at Hearts should have had him flung out of Scottish football long before his debt-ridden empire crumbled. Whyte was only found to be not a fit and proper person by an independent inquiry AFTER Rangers went into administration, even though there was plenty of evidence against him long before he drove the club to the brink of extinction.
Dave King would be a certainty to be passed fit and proper if the SFA applied the old criteria to his application, but the Association is much more conscious of public opinion and at the very least will give King a severe grilling. Since he has settled his tax debts in South Africa some time ago and is allowed to be a company director there and in Britain, I think the SFA will give him the nod.
The fear is that if they don’t, then King will rein in his millions – and believe me, he has oodles of them – which will prolong Rangers’ woes and mean they won’t be able to challenge Celtic for, say, a decade or so. That would not be good for Scottish football, including the national squad.
It’s time to stop giving Rangers a battering for the sins of past custodians. Let King and Rangers have a fresh start, otherwise be prepared for Celtic to certainly dominate the game here for the foreseeable future.
Glorious day down here in ol Prestwick.
I particularly like this line, I guess Martin forgot Quiffy and Gliiby were the previous custodians, easy mistake to make when your stuffed to the gills with succulent lamb…
“It’s time to stop giving Rangers a battering for the sins of past custodians.”