Celtic have been completely dominant in Scottish football on many occasions but only once did this result in a domestic treble (the treble was won another two occasions when Celtic were only marginally ahead of the competition but were ruthlessly focussed).
At all other times we have had a morning like this, tossed out of one of the cup competitions by a vastly over-performing team. Little more than a handful of games against weaker opponents stood between us and a treble in each of the last two years, but as we have noted for many years now, Celtic are not consistent enough to win the treble. The evidence is substantial.
There are parallel ways we should react to this. In the middle of a Champions League campaign we should be focused on little else, players should be rested for the challenge ahead, even if there are resultant risks, but there will be disappointment that we didn’t see a recognisable performance from those drafted into the team. It wasn’t until Matthews, Commons and Stokes arrived last night that we looked anything like the Celtic we know. On no occasions should we lose at home to a Championship team looking for their first away win since April.
That domestic treble from a dominant position was achieved by Martin O’Neill in season 2000-01, a time when Martin scarcely made a substitution before 85 minutes, never mind rested players. This drew criticism, of course, as his ‘feeder’ players were denied opportunities to grow. Despite last night’s reversal I would still rather use these games to develop the wider squad.
I also don’t subscribe to the belief that ‘every game is a cup final’. Motivational strategies lose effectiveness if you roll them out too often.
Credit to Allan Moore and his “boys with desire and work-rate”.
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Ajax value Sigthorsson at £8m. Way out of our price range.
Yet more drivel from the Sun.
Good morning all (anyone?) from a dry, fairly bright but slightly chilly East Kilbride.
newalarmclocksneededCSC
Some people on here think Celtic should never lose to a Scottish team as were a lot better, but except us to beat European teams who are far better than us. If every game was won by the favorites we would never win in Europe. HH
Except-expect
Morning,
This quote from Fat Sally about Black is a belter.
“What he did was daft but we don’t think it was sinister, which is very important. I’m not saying it was right because it wasn’t.”
Morning all. Yet again grey down here. Where’s the wind when you need it? We normally get more than our fair share. Now, we seem to be under an unending cloud cover.
Are we still under thon cloud that MIB assisted Morton created? Sad as I am that we won’t win the treble yet again, I am more anxious that we don’t get a real doing from Messi and co.
Midfield maestro
Ive asked paul for your email address for champions league package
Brief visit before Golf. Felt I had to comment on Singing Dick’s nursing home post at 0.12. I spent a good few years regularly visiting nursing homes, the love, compassion and sheer goodness I witnessed there will live with me till the day I die. I’m not just talking about carers but patients looking out for and helping their fellow patients when they were down, confused & upset. In contrast to this goodness we have the cold mocking of the Singing Dick, this troll is an absolute blight on this site, he is no Celtic Fan as SFTB sad so eloquently he is amongst us but he is not one of us.
As the League Cup tie against Morton unfolded on Tuesday night on CQN, I was hopeful that Celtic would do enough to win and was disappointed that we ultimately lost 0-1. I didn’t lose any sleep, however and had put my chagrin behind me early next morning.
The League Cup is only important in that it forms part of ‘The Treble’. It is great to win a Treble but not the end of the world if we don’t, IMO. I would far rather we adopted a strategy towards the League Cup, for example, using it to measure the progress of our talented youth players bolstered by some new signings/players trying to regain their fitness against senior opposition. I had a ticket for the game but didn’t attend. This has been the case for several years. I get tickets as part of the Home Ticket Scheme but rarely attend League Cup ties.
I will be distressed, however, if we don’t put Killie to the sword at the weekend. Give me the League title, the Scottish Cup and Europe every time.
zimmerman
21:06 on
25 September, 2013
R.I.P.
John Henry Bonham
drummer of the best rock band in the world…died 33 years ago today.
The morning I heard about it,I had just got up for work
I promptly went back to bed..(think it was a Sunday shift too)
I heard a story about Jimmy page (Led Zeppelin guitarist /songwriter/multi-millionaire). He had a girl working for him as an au pair, helping with the kids, cooking etc. She told my friend that Jimmy started to wind down his work and spend more time at home. He hadn’t cooked, done a shopping etc since the 1960s. One day he decided to go to the local Sainsbury’s and had fish and chips in their dining hall. He enjoyed it so much that he started eating there all the time, wearing a tweed hat. He is worth 75 million and counting. Robert plant apparently is more into Wolves these days than singing.
If there is anyone still looking for a Champions League package I have one which is going spare.
It’s in 406 (North Stand at half way line) about 6 rows from the back but unrestricted view so a decent seat.
Light Clouds but bright, still morning, in fact a perfectly clement day here in the Chilterns…
“Lack of consistency haunts Celtic again”
True, true.
But I would suggest there is something in common with our game against Karagandy in the Russian Steppes, or game against AC Milan and our game at Parkhead vs Morton…
It isn’t science for Rocketeers.
As an aside.
“I also don’t subscribe to the belief that‘every game is a cup final’. Motivational strategies lose effectiveness if you roll them out too often…
“
True, true…
But it would be nice to see “let’s get into the quarter finals” motivation.
Hail Hail
Can someone emailme paul67s email address please.
Send to bobbypetta@sky.com
Livorno bhoy. I am interested if ticket through midfield maestro doesn’t come through.
Maley’s Bhoy
Let me know as soon as you can because I’ll probably have to post them out by tonight to make sure they arrive in good time for Tuesday.
Posted yesterday about looking for tickets for CL games…Any other available please get in touch
HH
Steviebhoy
Feel free to contact livornobhoy for his package. I should get one elsewhere.
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS forza Oscar and Mackenzie
…are you able to contact whitedoghunch??
Great…. Have the package off you if you can Livornobhoy??
Contact paul for my address or Vice versa… whatever is easier
Where are BTW??
HH
Any idea why the odds in these matches are all the same on the William Hill site? Is the Scottish Division 2 the Best league in the world? ( Only the first question is serious).
28 Sep
15:00 UK
Elgin v Stirling 11/8 5/2
East Stirling v Berwick 11/8 5/2
Albion v Peterhead 11/8 5/2
Clyde v Montrose 11/8 5/2
JJ
Chairbhoy
I think the opposite in lack of concistency.
We are very consistent under Neil’s tenure .
A cautious and at times laborious team who rely on great individual moments to win games.
When this fails and we have no plan B we struggle and results like Tuesday happen.
Ian Black jokes aside.
DESERTBHOY
Yes. If you contact me on
bmcuwp@gmail.com
I will forward on to him
Corkcelt @ 08:56,
Nursing Homes in Ireland might be good places to spend your twilight years, however it is not always the case in England.
They are privately run institutions funded by the residents* or local Council.
The Homes are run in line with the Capitalist system so beloved of Mr Potter’s aberration, so many budding entrepreneurs deemed that there could be money to be found in owning and managing such institutions.
They were right many made lots of wonga, in fact they began taking over several Homes and consolidating their business.
Now here’s were the real Capitalists get interested, they buy up many of these businesses amalgamating them into one huge business.
Then they divide the extensive property portfolio and the operational side into separate Companies.
Now then the property Company charge huge rents to the operating Company.
The only way the Operational side can ford the Draconian rents is to cut back on costs, in fact they jade to cut back so much on costs it started cutting into essentials. Staff and materials were cut back, then they stopped paying for decent well qualified staff and lazy, manipulative bullies “looked after” our elderly. The conditions were appalling, OAPs left in a corner soaking in their own urine calling in vain for assistance, of course if a “nurse” did turn up they were as likely to get a beating as cared for.
Of course the whole thing was unsustainable and the Companies collapsed leaving. Pensioners stranded and the Government to sort out the mess and pick up the tab.
Oh! Remember the Property Company they were left to count their money and work out how best to realise their huge property portfolio.
So it didn’t end in tears for everyone, some can even have a good laugh about it.
*Either from relatives, savings or selling their homes.
StevieBhoy,
OK. I’ll ask Paul for your e-mail.
fan-a-tic @10:02,
Well the fact is our performances have varied greatly, from the sublime to the ridiculous in fact.
But I take your point, where it really matters there is far to much of the same old…
Hail Hail
StevieBhoy,
OK. I’ll ask Paul for your e-mail.
——————————
Great….Where are you??
My mate will pick them up & pay if Glasgow area
HH
StevieBhoy66
I live in Birmingham. So I’d need to post them out tonight. Would you be ok with that?
JJ
Just looked at the table and teams 1 to 8 have points in the range 8 to 12. Team in 9th place has 6 points and only the bottom team in 10th place (Queens Park who are not n your betting list) is detached at 1 point from 4 games.
The fixtures are:-
9 vs 4
1 vs 2
3 vs 6
5 vs 7
So the odds spread seems reasonable, though lazily uniform, for all bar tie one, where the odds on an away win may be slightly attractive,
PFAyr.
I agree 100% with you,keep up with your Criticism.it’s good to know that we all don’t follow like a herd of sheep.The management and the players deserve to be criticized when their playing badly, and they were at their lowest point on Tuesday.
No problem, email me when you get it from Paul and we’ll work everything out
HH
Chairbhoy @ 10.08
Great post on the nursing home issue.
fan-a-tic
“A cautious and at times laborious team who rely on great individual moments to win games.
When this fails and we have no plan B”
That juxtaposition seems to carry the implication that Neil and the coaching staff advise the players to “play cautiously and hope for a moment of brilliance” which, of course, they will not be responsible for having coached.
You cannot possibly believe that any of the self-motivated sports achievers in our management team are either so lazy or so stupid as to behave in that fashion.
When we lose and play poorly, we hit out and attribute negative behaviours and attitudes to the guys who let us down.
Bizarre substitutions
Bizarre selections
No Plan B
Plays his favourites
Is too cautious/defensive
You can play cliche bingo with these accusations as they are routinely thrown at the losing manager in Ryman League 13 as well as at Neil, Capello, Ancelotti, Mourinho, Wenger and Ferguson.
You would have to marvel at how many useless eejits get jobs in the professional game when there are so many out-of-work tactical and motivational experts whose skills are being overlooked.
Oldtim,
No-one is saying they are above criticism.
Pfayrs point was that some weren’t in enough of a rage for his liking.
Just received a reply from the BBC with regards to thier apologies for Jim Spence telling the truth that is the football club know as Rangers FC are dead – legally.
Responses makes no mention of my concern that there is a concerted effort within some sections of the media to deny legal facts and that the BBC apologizing for one of their reporters simply telling the truth is a ludicrous situation.
Anyone else receive a brush off from the beeb?
Thank you for contacting us.
Your comments were passed to the Sport Editor, who has asked that we forward his response as follows:
“Thank you for your correspondence. We received and responded to complaints about remarks made by Jim Spence on Sportsound (4 September), a number of which are subject to further scrutiny by the BBC’s independent Editorial Complaints Unit. On the issue of personal safety, we take our duty of care to staff very seriously and we have in place policies to ensure that, when security issues arise, staff receive the support they need”.
Thank you again for your comments. Details of the BBC’s complaints processes are available online at http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints
Kind Regards
What do you remember about last season?
I remember winning in Moscow and the elation of that late winner, being so unlucky in Barcelona then the glory and world wide recognition of beating Barca at home. I remember the Kris Commons scoring that penalty against Moscow to put us through and then the build up to the Juventus game and being annoyed that they achieved a very flattering scoreline considering how the tie went.
I remember the early inconsistency in the league when all this was going on and a few really dodgy performances – Killie at home after Barca springs to mind. But I remember pushing on and winning the league, reaching the Scottish Cup final and winning that in some style.
I don’t remember too many better seasons to be honest.
League Cup? Not winning that doesn’t really affect my re-collections of a marvellous season. Not winning it this year is a minor annoyance. Before a club outside of ourselves or Rangers (RIP) could win a trophy they needed both these teams out of the way. It seldom happened. The freeing up of the League Cup for these teams to win – because they died and we are seldom able to win this cup – is probably on balance a good thing. I’d rather we win it but the greater good suggests it is no bad thing to share it around the other top league teams.
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS forza Oscar and Mackenzie
..mail sent.
Oz Tims –
Celtic v Barcelona live on SBS – council telly – 4:45 Wednesday morning.
Much better than ESPN because with SBS you get a studio discussion before, at half-time and after the game.
Just in to say…
The People’s Friend Quick News……naaaahhhh thanks.
Kojo and ‘ithers’ keep it lit :)
Hail Hail – Off oot.