It was quite a fascinating weekend in the Scottish Premiership. Celtic started the action by labouring before taking the lead and moving into cruise control against Ross County. St Mirren bookended the action by scoring a 95th minute winner at Easter Road. Motherwell rode their luck to earn a point at Dundee, St Johnstone continued to concern their fans by going down 0-2 to Hearts, while Aberdeen failed to make a single attempt on target in a 0-0 at Livingston. Oh, and Kilmarnock failed to read the script by beating Newco.
The excitement Kyogo generated two years ago, on his first league start for Celtic, against Dundee, was palpable. He scored a hattrick, causing us all to hope we had signed the real deal. Two years on and the evidence is overwhelming. His performance on Saturday was just as impressive.
Twice he dropped deep to create a chasm of space behind that he filled with two inch-perfect passes. David Turnbull should have scored with the first, Matt O’Riley made no mistake with the second. His goal was not an easy strike; placing a bouncing ball from 12 yards with enough control to keep it on target, but still managing to beat the keeper. Turnbull’s head-flick and Liel Abada’s early cross both contributed to an excellent move. He is without doubt in the top two Celtic players of this century.
Maik Nawrocki showed enough to indicate why we spent so much money bringing him to Glasgow. His first involvement was a choice to concede a corner within 15 seconds of the start. It’s what we would expect in a Champions League encounter, less so against County, but the player was right to take no chances.
For two years I have lamented the infrequency our central defenders break the lines and carry the ball forward – as Kris Ajer did. Maik took one opportunity to do this, hopefully we’ll see it again.
We are a few weeks shy of two years since Carl Starfelt and Cameron Carter-Vickers teamed up in central defence. In that time, they have not lost a single game over 90 minutes to Scottish opposition. Carl took the more difficult left-sided role, despite being right footed. If, as likely, he moves on this week, he leaves a big jersey to fill.
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I’m with St Stivs, I hate England as a Country, I don’t hate any individual English Person .
Their teams represent the Country, therefore I naturally support the opposition.
As an Irishman I don’t expect I need to explain why I feel this way , neither does St. Stivs.
6 foot 3 is obviously far too small…..
https://twitter.com/TheRyanMcGinlay/status/1688659402520244224?t=_rtLVqZc3u7jBmoLzA7LWQ&s=19
Looks like Virgil Mark 2
SAINT STIVS @ 5:20 PM
I am going to set myself up here but ………….
I dont understand anyone of Irish or Scottish or Black heritage buying into the whole I am an England supporter first.
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As the son of parents who were both born and raised in County Monaghan, I consider myself as being of Irish heritage (and very proud of it).
Though as I, myself, was born and raised in Scotland, I am a supporter of the Scotland football team first.
Is that similarly difficult to understand?
If so, I blame the schools…
HH
Kieran Tierney of the Real Sociedad
doesn’t sound right
BSR,
Rubbish.He is 6 foot 3.
Bada,
VVD,with a Jozo tackle thrown in.
Best promo video of a player I have watched.Excited now.
CORKCELT on 7TH AUGUST 2023 10:14 PM
I’m with St Stivs, I hate England as a Country, I don’t hate any individual English Person
*as Liam Neeson said “I hate them for making me hate” or words to that effect
https://youtu.be/TyCP7MzJzDo
For the lurkers.
55 seconds in.
Close up of the incident and Beaton’s proximity both highlighted.
And the SFA have the barefaced cheek to trot this guy out to justify the ridiculous no penalties against Sevco statistic.
A cheat is always a cheat.
If he always has been a cheat he always will be a cheat.
BTW – we’ve got to endure Beaton for six more years.
Then he’ll do something at work or in the media for a couple of years before becoming SFA Head of Refereeing ….
… and the cycle will continue.
CALL ME GERRY on 7TH AUGUST 2023 10:44 PM
SAINT STIVS @ 5:20 PM
would you play for england ?
Bada Bing!! on 7th August 2023 10:07 pm
Celtic have made an offer in the region of £3M for IF Elfsborg centre-back Gustaf Lagerbielke. The 23 year old Sweden international saw his agent meet with the club on Sunday in order to iron out a deal.
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I think this is where the model let’s us down.
Now, this lad may be a great signing but at 23 and playing in Sweden, there’s still a lot of room for development.
We sell Starfelt at 28 years old and entering his prime and bring in a far less experienced player, how have we improved the squad for Europe?
Constantly going into Europe with young lads that need to gain experience means we’ll be up against it.
Have we built on last season’s CL campaign if we lose Starfelt and Jota, replacing them with younger players with little experience of europe ?
An Dun
Correct
TT
An Dun
We also did it with GG for Oh.
TT
Moly out Holm in .
The same loss of experience.
TT
Mooy for Holm.
TT
We must give BR time to bring in others this window.
TT
Good morning all from Govanhill.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKztPy0z-ww
https://cdn.celtsarehere.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/851360b7-40df-4361-b62d-68902230072c.jpeg
TinyTim/An Dun
That’ll be Aaron Mooy that started once in CL bhoys?
HH
If we do sign LAGERbielke who do you think on here would adopt him as his favourite player ?
In his entire career to date Starfelt started once in the champions league, a 5:1 defeat.
He played three times in the Europa conceding ten and twice in the disastrous conference knockout conceding 5
Not the sort of European experience we’d pay decent money for
Domestic record without CCV is awful.
First capped at 25, previous experience a season and a half in the Russian league after a 1m move
Lagerbielke was capped at 22, is moving for 3m three years earlier than Starfelt did for 1m. I’d say we’re getting a better player than the Starfelt we signed
Starfelt had no european experience before he came to Celtic
I have confidence that Lagerbielke will be a good signing and will be introduced carefully. He is not being bought to go straight in as a CL player. That was clearly Nawrocki. He is first team ready.
Starfelt was a good Celtic player domestically but by no means difficult to replace, especially as a third choice pick
Reliable in as much as he could be relied on to play well against SPL opposition when he was playing with CCV and you could expect one mistake. The end of last season and the 3:0 game at ibrox and the final goal there showed his limitations
Our recent “experienced” expensive purchase at center back, Chris Julien had 100 apperances in Ligue un, but wasn’t good enough.
I think with both our recebt signings the possibility is that they’ll be better than Carl, in Maik’s case straight away. Which is what you want in team development. We’ve spent €8m doing it, so not nothing
I’d say we’re getting a better player than the Starfelt we signed
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You could very well be right, mate. But the question is, are we getting a better player than the Starfelt we’re selling ?
AN DÚN on 8TH AUGUST 2023 9:27 AM
Starfelt was 26 when he came. I don’t think his performances show a marked improvement since then. He was very poor in Europe which is where we’re aiming to improve
I don’t know enough about Maik, his replacement in the first team to say for sure but I’d like to think he is better. No idea about Gustaf but he’s been capped already at an earlier age than Carl so I’d say he has the promise to be
DeniaBhoy on 8th August 2023 9:21 am
I have confidence that Lagerbielke will be a good signing and will be introduced carefully. He is not being bought to go straight in as a CL player. That was clearly Nawrocki. He is first team ready.
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I think that’s largely fair enough.
Nawrocki looks good so far. But we’re still going into Europe with a brand new CB pairing. Throw in a new keeper and maybe a new left back and we’re back to gaining experience as opposed to progressing in europe.
It’s telling that the selling price for Carl is the same as the price we bought him for.
AN DÚN on 8TH AUGUST 2023 9:38 AM
“But we’re still going into Europe with a brand new CB pairing.”
Judging by our results in Europe since Carl came, and his goals conceded that is not necessarily a bad thing.
Regardless of whether Carl went or not we were always going into the CL with a new CB partnership
BACK TO BASICS – GLASS HALF FULL on 8TH AUGUST 2023 12:11 AM
Obviously not a penalty but iwould be telling my players NOT to put their hands up to reflect innocence after an opposition player goes down. It only sparks the bias plug in the MIBs to give a penalty/freekick.
CELTIC40ME
We often don`t know how our posts are being received so, let me say, I enjoy your posts and tend to agree with the sentiments expressed therein.
Judging by our results in Europe since Carl came, and his goals conceded that is not necessarily a bad thing.
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A bit unfair.
I think how our former gaffer set us up in those games played its part. Baresi and Maldini would look dodgy in an Ange team playing in europe.
All buy ins come with a Health Warning, If you get 2 cracking players, 1 OK & 1 Dud out of every 4 you bring in them you are doing well.
The Swedish lad we are now being linked to looks the part and we have been talking about bringing in a bit of height so he does tick a few boxes, I hope we get him.
An Dun@9:53
“Baresi and Maldini would look dodgy in an Ange team playing in europe.”
Loved that one 👏👏👏
Lagerbielke and Starfelt share the same agent. Smart bit of business there.
AN DUN
Nawrocki looks good so far. But we’re still going into Europe with a brand new CB pairing. Throw in a new keeper and maybe a new left back and we’re back to gaining experience as opposed to progressing in europe.
Good point. Let’s withdraw from the Champions League and try again next year.
AN DÚN on 8TH AUGUST 2023 9:53 AM
Maybe a bit, and the same could be said all over the pitch but even allowing for how exposed he was there’s certainly room for big improvement, especially given that all his experience was at Europa league level or below bar conceding 5 in Madrid.
He wasn’t good without CCV. His domestic record without him was poor. We lost 5 and drew 1 out of 16 games when he played there without him.
We need someone who isnt so reliant on Cameron.