It’s unusual to have two lefties in central defence but that’s how Celtic lined up against Hibernian on Saturday. Austin Trusty drew the short straw and was asked to play in the unfamiliar position. 25 minutes into the game a weak right-footed clearance only found Martin Boyle, who opened the scoring for Hibs against the run of play.
Nicolas Kuhn flipped the switch which put the champions ahead before the break with an excellent goal and assist. An end of season game was made look too easy for a Celtic team brimming with goals. Kasper Schmeichel returned from injury and demonstrated what a good shot stopper he is by denying Boyle early in the game.
With key players rested ahead of the Scottish Cup Final, there was a sense that Celtic were playing within themselves, happy to get the win without risking too much. The exception was Nicolas Kuhn, who was demonstrably riled in a confrontation. Good to see he is engaged.
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Taps aff!
But not here in horse and bourbon country.
Hello
P67
I’m sure B78 used similar words in his earlier post
“It’s unusual to have two lefties in central defence”
Plagiarism?
Does his girlfriend know?
A fine day in old Glasgow Town. Greetings from the Tolbooth.
Happy Monday to you BRRB.
I know you don’t track the days of the week.
Reckon Chiellini and Maldini would have been fine together at centre back
I was reading a piece from James Forrest, the blogger, about this Orange Walk on Saturday.
I would have thought by now the Police would have stopped it or at least asked for a route change but no it still stands. Who ever allowed this to happen shouldn’t be in public office because we know what will happen!
MONSIGNOR CHARLES CAVANAGH
Peacefully at The Holy Rosary Residence, Greenock on Monday 21st April 2025, Monsignor Charles Cavanagh. Much loved son of the late John and Agnes, dear brother of William, Anne and Rene, dear brother in law, uncle, great uncle and great great uncle. Sadly missed. Fortified by Rites of The Holy Catholic Church. RIP. Monsignor Charles will be received into St Mary’s R.C. Church on Monday 12th May at 6pm. Funeral Mass on Tuesday 13th May at 11.30am, to which all family and friends are invited. Committal thereafter at Campsie Cemetery, Lennoxtown at 2pm. Family flowers only please. Donations if desired to Ardgowan Hospice.
Aipple
I can’t even remember who you are. Oh aye, the Louisville Layabout. 🤣
The only other right sided Centre Back contender we have, has no chance of making the Cup Final side, makes sense to play Scales and Trusty one of whom will partner CCV.
Didn’t do any harm against Atalanta.
Father Charles may you rest in peace.
a weak right-footed clearance
——
Yes. A clearance. Not a 30 yard shot on goal or a long range pass, a clearance. I don’t have much sympathy for Trusty.
McGowan in the Herald
Today marks the 30th anniversary of Dermot Desmond’s appointment as a non-executive director of Celtic.
Controlling shareholder since Fergus McCann sold up in 1999, there will be no fireworks or brass band to mark the occasion. No thanks, praise or appreciation for the Irish billionaire’s contribution to what Brendan Rodgers now calls a “golden era” in the club’s history.
Since 2016/17, Celtic have lifted 83 per cent of the trophies available in Scotland. Rangers and St Johnstone are the only other teams to have won anything at all.
Yet, in the minds of supporters, Desmond is an absentee landlord, semi-detached from the day-to-day functions of the club. A man who pokes his head in to the Hampden showers long enough to pick a new manager before slamming the door behind him and going off to play a round of golf.
Most of this stuff is overblown. On a list of 28,000 shareholders, only one yields any real influence in the running of Celtic. In return for his 34 per cent stake, Desmond has 100 per cent of the say. If anything, he involves himself in things he shouldn’t.
Rodgers spoke recently of holding discussions with the major shareholder over a new contract for player of the year Daizen Maeda. As a rule, non-executive directors don’t insert themselves in the nitty gritty of contract discussions concerning key employees.
Yet, from budgets to player trading matters and remuneration, very little of any importance happens without Mister Big’s say-so. When Rodgers speaks of dealing with the club on matters of significance, he rarely name checks chief executive Michael Nicholson or financial director Chris McKay or chairman Peter Lawwell. On the issues that matter, he deals with Desmond.
When supporters underplay his level of influence, you can hardly blame them. Thirty years have passed and sometimes it still feels as if no one outside his inner circle really knows him at all.
The Companies House website reveals that his middle name is “Fachna” and lists a correspondence address in Gibraltar, while Ronny Deila once revealed that he keeps a harp, a piano and Irish murals in the front room of his London residence.
Describing Celtic as an emotional, rather than a financial, investment, he has been known to wine and dine Lisbon Lions at supporters’ functions but shows little interest in burnishing his man-of-the-people credentials.
Beyond the odd morsel for Sky Sports News from the 18th hole of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, journalists are regarded with withering contempt and he sees no benefit in exposing himself to questions on Resolution 12 or the nick of the public toilets in the south stand. His face is more likely to be seen on a fans’ protest banner than it is at the Annual General Meeting in Glasgow.
In a rare interview for the lavish, leather-bound Celtic Opus, the 75-year-old outlined his distaste for the unpredictable whims of the general public.
“We lose a big match and I’m the greatest bollox on the earth. It’s all my fault, all the directors’ fault. But when we win, it is down to the manager and the team, not the directors. We are beneficiaries of abuse, we are never beneficiaries of praise.”
There was no acclaim at all in May 1995 when Desmond invested in a nervous, neurotic basket case of a club which hadn’t won a league title in seven years. Any trophy at all, for that matter, since 1989.
While Pierre van Hooijdonk rose to head the only goal of an edgy 1-0 win over Airdrie in the Scottish Cup final, a period of flux continued until the day Desmond – now running the show – began to assert himself by marching Martin O’Neill into a London board meeting and introducing him as the next manager.
He was equally decisive in the decision to hire Rodgers twice and, since the Northern Irishman’s unexpected return in the summer of 2023, Celtic have overhauled the Rangers trophy tally of 118, reaching their target of 119 when they won the Premier Sports Cup in December. The latest title triumph at Tannadice made it 120 and you’d get long odds on Aberdeen preventing another one on May 24.
In the first 107 years of their existence, Celtic won 35 league titles. In the last 30 years alone they have won 20, adding 13 Scottish Cups and the same number of League Cups.
It might be coincidence that the swag haul coincides with a period of boardroom continuity overseen by the major shareholder. Then again, maybe not.
While smaller shareholders fret over Celtic’s non-executive directors hanging around far longer than the UK Corporate Governance code recommends, the trophies tell you that there might be something to be said for boardroom stability. While owners and managers come and go through a revolving door at Rangers, Celtic have been under the control of one careful owner since 1999.
“What we do is make a club people can be proud of,” said Desmond in his Opus interview. “We want Celtic to be a showpiece for how football clubs should be run, without having money thrown at it.”
Last year, the champions threw more money at new players than usual. They shattered their transfer record to spend £9 million on Adam Idah. They did it again when they lavished £11m on Arne Engels. Defender Auston Trusty was lured north from Sheffield United for £6m. While Idah’s goal tally of 19 is respectable, he struggles to convince. Engels looks a player, but remains a work in progress. Trusty recently lost his place in the team to Liam Scales, the man he was bought to replace.
For the club kingpin, this conjures up a dilemma. He can either release the sums Rodgers craves to go for broke in Europe this summer or go back to signing low risk players in the £2.5m to £3m bracket and hoard tens of millions of pounds in the bank for the new main stand no one ever builds.
This tug o’war between the spending ambitions of slightly frustrated managers and a board of directors fans regard as cautious, conservative, out-of-touch Tories has been a feature of recent years.
When 10-in-a-row disappeared, a stubborn determination to stand by Neil Lennon ended with supporters lobbing stuff around the car park. They still feel ignored and overlooked whenever a tifo is banned or the club send goalkeeper Viljami Sinisalo out to address the subject of Ibrox missiles instead of tackling the issue in a blistering boardroom Statement.
And yet, through it all, the uneasy truce is maintained by a quid pro quo.
It took Celtic 80 years of existence to make it to 47 trophies. Beat Aberdeen at Hampden and they will have won that many in the three decades since Desmond pitched up with a Bank of Ireland chequebook in one hand and a calculator in the other.
Keep the trophies rolling in and people will turn a blind eye to the rest.
Bournesouprecipe
Are we certain CCV will make the cup final ?
Genuine question. I honestly don’t know the answer. If he does not then it may be sensible for our right sided deputy to get some minutes. Obviously if he is certain then I get your point.
I would prefer to see more emphasis on playing academy and development players, if we’re not seeing them now we never will. Records seem to matter more to Brendan which will have an impact on the club, but I guess thats part of the deal.
There is something to be said for the team maintaining as high levels as possible, we will go into the cup final in great form, and to maintain our performance level to the end of the season isnt easy.
Against an-inform Hibs it was impressive and controlled. Even when we went behind you were confident we’d run out comfortable winners.
BORGO67 on 12TH MAY 2025 12:22 PM
Reckon Chiellini and Maldini would have been fine together at centre back
Wasn’t Maldini right footed?
Kasper Schmeichel was a surprise selection on Saturday, although always likely to be given his Cup Final berth. Viljami Sinasalo did well on the field and off, including his revelations at the press conference. Former player Ross Doohan rumoured to replace Scott Bain who comes to the end of his contract in summer. Sinasalo has nowhere to play and develop, so can’t sit on the bench again for all of next season, and is likely to go out on loan.
Scott Bain I see will be 34 in November, by no means old for a goalkeeper. What did surprise me is he has made 46 appearances for Celtic since he joined in 2018, I didn’t think he made that many to be honest, although 31 of those were in season 2018-19 and 23 in season 2020-21.
Celtic versus St.Mirren
Sold Out 💨💨💨💨
I see the official attendance at the bigotdome was £50k – must hold 80k when full 🤔
Here is proof positive of why Arsenal will never win much under Arteta
Interesting couple of performances witnessed in the game.
His fluffed clearance aside, I thought big Auston was pretty trusty.
Tony R was solid with a range of composed and considered passing
Given the game time wee Greg is getting, I guess that he’s more likely than not to stay on.
Harder to see what a guy like Luke adds to the squad.
I actually thought he might find more fulfilment at a side like Hibs; as likeable as he is I can’t see him taking us up the necessary levels or developing that much further at his age.
As aside, what was that w@nk Cerby up to with his forehead-skoosher gesture last night; Czech yourself before you wreck yerself ya stumer!!
Cerny not Cerby.
SausageFingers CSC
bournesouprecipe
The lights are on…..but theres nobody home
BURNLEY78
Only guessing, reckon he’s fit and promised a rest as he was when Ange, had won the league.
Nawrocki was a ‘supporters shoe in’ including me, for Saturday, but BR virtually two years down the road doesn’t seem to want to play him.
Interesting window opens early this summer.
CELTIC40ME
Yes , I think you’re right, maybe not the best example I could have used 😂.
To be fair though, probably as two footed as Lubo
Celtic Mac
LOL 💡
Barrowfield
https://youtu.be/iQF_t0uDeAI?si=gNtmTaaQgNntuJI7
HH
BORGO67 on 12TH MAY 2025 2:16 PM
Easy mistake to make, I’d say. We were lucky to see some of the best defenders play against us back then for Milan – Maldini, Costscurta, Nesta and Cafu. Bit of a lost art at the top of the game these days unfortunately.
Although the inter team seems to be built on a lot of the old Italian traditions
BURNLEY78 on 12TH MAY 2025 12:56 PM
BR is on record as saying CCV will be back for trophy day and the Cup Final.
McGowan in the Herald
Today marks the 30th anniversary of Dermot Desmond’s appointment as a non-executive director of Celtic.
Controlling shareholder since Fergus McCann sold up in 1999, there will be no fireworks or brass band to mark the occasion. No thanks, praise or appreciation for the Irish billionaire’s contribution to what Brendan Rodgers now calls a “golden era” in the club’s history.
Since 2016/17, Celtic have lifted 83 per cent of the trophies available in Scotland. Rangers and St Johnstone are the only other teams to have won anything at all.
Yet, in the minds of supporters, Desmond is an absentee landlord, semi-detached from the day-to-day functions of the club. A man who pokes his head in to the Hampden showers long enough to pick a new manager before slamming the door behind him and going off to play a round of golf.
Most of this stuff is overblown. On a list of 28,000 shareholders, only one yields any real influence in the running of Celtic. In return for his 34 per cent stake, Desmond has 100 per cent of the say. If anything, he involves himself in things he shouldn’t.
Rodgers spoke recently of holding discussions with the major shareholder over a new contract for player of the year Daizen Maeda. As a rule, non-executive directors don’t insert themselves in the nitty gritty of contract discussions concerning key employees.
Yet, from budgets to player trading matters and remuneration, very little of any importance happens without Mister Big’s say-so. When Rodgers speaks of dealing with the club on matters of significance, he rarely name checks chief executive Michael Nicholson or financial director Chris McKay or chairman Peter Lawwell. On the issues that matter, he deals with Desmond.
When supporters underplay his level of influence, you can hardly blame them. Thirty years have passed and sometimes it still feels as if no one outside his inner circle really knows him at all.
The Companies House website reveals that his middle name is “Fachna” and lists a correspondence address in Gibraltar, while Ronny Deila once revealed that he keeps a harp, a piano and Irish murals in the front room of his London residence.
Describing Celtic as an emotional, rather than a financial, investment, he has been known to wine and dine Lisbon Lions at supporters’ functions but shows little interest in burnishing his man-of-the-people credentials.
Beyond the odd morsel for Sky Sports News from the 18th hole of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, journalists are regarded with withering contempt and he sees no benefit in exposing himself to questions on Resolution 12 or the nick of the public toilets in the south stand. His face is more likely to be seen on a fans’ protest banner than it is at the Annual General Meeting in Glasgow.
In a rare interview for the lavish, leather-bound Celtic Opus, the 75-year-old outlined his distaste for the unpredictable whims of the general public.
“We lose a big match and I’m the greatest bollox on the earth. It’s all my fault, all the directors’ fault. But when we win, it is down to the manager and the team, not the directors. We are beneficiaries of abuse, we are never beneficiaries of praise.”
There was no acclaim at all in May 1995 when Desmond invested in a nervous, neurotic basket case of a club which hadn’t won a league title in seven years. Any trophy at all, for that matter, since 1989.
While Pierre van Hooijdonk rose to head the only goal of an edgy 1-0 win over Airdrie in the Scottish Cup final, a period of flux continued until the day Desmond – now running the show – began to assert himself by marching Martin O’Neill into a London board meeting and introducing him as the next manager.
He was equally decisive in the decision to hire Rodgers twice and, since the Northern Irishman’s unexpected return in the summer of 2023, Celtic have overhauled the Rangers trophy tally of 118, reaching their target of 119 when they won the Premier Sports Cup in December. The latest title triumph at Tannadice made it 120 and you’d get long odds on Aberdeen preventing another one on May 24.
In the first 107 years of their existence, Celtic won 35 league titles. In the last 30 years alone they have won 20, adding 13 Scottish Cups and the same number of League Cups.
It might be coincidence that the swag haul coincides with a period of boardroom continuity overseen by the major shareholder. Then again, maybe not.
While smaller shareholders fret over Celtic’s non-executive directors hanging around far longer than the UK Corporate Governance code recommends, the trophies tell you that there might be something to be said for boardroom stability. While owners and managers come and go through a revolving door at Rangers, Celtic have been under the control of one careful owner since 1999.
“What we do is make a club people can be proud of,” said Desmond in his Opus interview. “We want Celtic to be a showpiece for how football clubs should be run, without having money thrown at it.”
Last year, the champions threw more money at new players than usual. They shattered their transfer record to spend £9 million on Adam Idah. They did it again when they lavished £11m on Arne Engels. Defender Auston Trusty was lured north from Sheffield United for £6m. While Idah’s goal tally of 19 is respectable, he struggles to convince. Engels looks a player, but remains a work in progress. Trusty recently lost his place in the team to Liam Scales, the man he was bought to replace.
For the club kingpin, this conjures up a dilemma. He can either release the sums Rodgers craves to go for broke in Europe this summer or go back to signing low risk players in the £2.5m to £3m bracket and hoard tens of millions of pounds in the bank for the new main stand no one ever builds.
This tug o’war between the spending ambitions of slightly frustrated managers and a board of directors fans regard as cautious, conservative, out-of-touch Tories has been a feature of recent years.
When 10-in-a-row disappeared, a stubborn determination to stand by Neil Lennon ended with supporters lobbing stuff around the car park. They still feel ignored and overlooked whenever a tifo is banned or the club send goalkeeper Viljami Sinisalo out to address the subject of Ibrox missiles instead of tackling the issue in a blistering boardroom Statement.
And yet, through it all, the uneasy truce is maintained by a quid pro quo.
It took Celtic 80 years of existence to make it to 47 trophies. Beat Aberdeen at Hampden and they will have won that many in the three decades since Desmond pitched up with a Bank of Ireland chequebook in one hand and a calculator in the other.
Keep the trophies rolling in and people will turn a blind eye to the rest.
HH
CELTIC40ME 2.50pm
True. It was amazing that Barcelona scored so many against that Inter defence. Hopefully a good final against PSG, the contrast makes it more appealing to me.
Costacurta was a left footer , I’m sure
BORGO67 on 12TH MAY 2025 3:38 PM
CELTIC40ME 2.50pm
….
Pretty sure right footer but not sure enough for a wager
HH
An Dun
Thanks for that. I had thought I heard he was having an op so maybe just a rest if BR has made that point clearly.
Remember a game at Parkhead against AC in the Champions League when Maldini and Costacurta both in their mid 30s play a high line nearly at half way , as Messers Sutton and Harrison were considered too slow
Unfortunately, the Italians were right
HH
McPhail Bhoy on 12th May 2025 1:26 pm
Your maths seems a bit weird – did you miss a 1 in front of the 46 maybe?