You can train to be a football player for years, hone your skills and work on your fitness, but there are situations you can never prepare for until you are in the spotlight. Yesterday Mark Wilson had to field questions about his team-mates’ performance and his manager’s position, after another abject performance which drew criticisms from Neil Lennon towards the players.
Mark gave a textbook response to the BBC, “I don’t like slagging my team-mates off but we have to do better.
“Football is a result-driven game but we don’t want that [Neil Lennon sacked]. We are firmly behind the manager and we love working with him and the coaching staff.”
We should be in no doubt that harsh words are being spoken in the dressing room and team spirit must be awful, but the outside world need to see stoic unity.
Read issue 3 of CQN Magazine free online here or buy a print version at Magcloud.
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I still believe we should stand by NL, the carrot of the Leicester job will be a tempting offer for him though. Lets not forget he is only on a 12 month rolling contract. If they offer him a good long term contract and a lot better wage. Will the temptation be too much after the hell he has gone though?
I think Hooper and Commons showed us exactly what they think of Lennie when they jetted out to Marbella for a weeks golf.Even more they showed us the Celtic support what they thought of us they are two young men who have a very high opinion of themselves but imo both are over rated.As I watched yesterdays game I longed for a Roy Aitken type somone who would have grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck and drove the team to victory Somone the other players would have feared to go into the dressing room with if they had not picked up all 3 points currently we have no one like that at the club either in management or on the park.H.H.
Paul67
The thing that disgusted me most yesterday was the lack of fight and effort. Something is terribly wrong in that dressing room and it needs to change NOW!
HH
We are all including myself talking about the 10 point deduction and starting off a new League with them on more or less level terms. But the reality is at present we are no better then Motherwell or Hearts. There isn’t a team in the SPL who don’t feel they have a chance against us. The fear factor is gone, they are coming at us and having a go and are rattling us. If we lose next Sunday we will be 6 points behind Motherwell with a third of the season gone, when is enough enough.
Bada Bing Fella you are right we dont need more talk what we need is more action.H.H.
Forster
Matthews Rogne Chas Izzy
Broonie Ki Kayal Ledley Commons
Hooper
That team should start every game and only be changed due to suspension or injuries.
Forrest, Kelvin Wilson, Stokes, Paddy, Wanyama, Zaluska as subs
Mark Wilson and Bangura as emergency replacements only.
The rest used only in meaningless games where the result doesn’t matter, e.g Rennes on Thursday.
Sorted
Hello All,
it’s a very long time since I posted, have been suffering from chronic lurkitis.
Personally I can’t really judge this situation clearly as we have had so many injuries, though I would like to know if there is someone responsible for this, in terms of coaching.
It’s certainly a grim period that we’re mired in, my Dad went to the game yesterday and actually fell asleep, I would be grateful if someone could relay this unprecedented development to the team and management; people are paying to watch you and they’re falling asleep!!!
Hail Hail
does anyone on here seriously believe leicester city are interested in our manager? they have money to spend and they will look for some one with a lot more
experience and that has a reputation not a novice.
Estadio
Why dont you go as Saltyballs out of South Park? Heard you were a wee tubby!! lol. ps mind and black up. H H
I haven’t posted for a while. Always here though. No one but Neil knows what is wrong. Maybe we’re having last November this October. I do wish he hadn’t talked of ‘outing’. We all have our different opinions and rightly so. CQN, apart from the hun crashers, is brilliant for that reason. The club has to close rank. We don’t need sound bites cos we know the headaches and were in this forever and then eternity. On the way home yesterday my 12 year old was only worried that I hadn’t picked up Thursdays tickets yet!! It’s wee fellas like him that makes us the support we are. (BTW loads of posters have articulated the problems/remedies so it’s all been said) I just felt better yesterday evening given his desperation to get back to the Park. Ticket office tomorrow ofcourse. HAIL HAIL FOREVER and then some!
TopCorner @15 57—-
di Natale —– 7th league goal in 8 league games
Add the 2 goals in 3 Euro games —
9 goals in 11 games
Udinese’s manager – Guidolin -has said that his ego wants to beat Atletico in Madrid and it is highly likely that Di Natale will play.
Striker !
Compare red carded Commons tackle with Naismiths career ending tackle that went unpunished. Does that pschologically cripple a group of players when continually subjected to it. Will Naismith be hauled before the beaks like he was for elbowing the buddies player. Does this help explain hun team spirit compared to the other three competitions they have been dicked out of ? I think their might be somethingin that. Maybe Stokes does not want another boogie inspired injury and Stokes does not want another lynch mob at his house. If they have been fooled into waiting for hun Armageddon they are not alone. Continually dealing with scum bag criminals on and off the pitch is not maybe their forte.
HH
If Neil Lennon was the current manager of Motherwell/Hearts/Hibs/Dundee Utd. etc, do you think any of those clubs would perform substantially better than they are doing so at the moment? Would he be able to work any miracles with a small squad and no transfer budget? Would he have the tactical nous and the motivational skills to turn an average SPL club into one challeniging for trophies?
I don’t believe he would. With the biggest and most talented squad in Scotland he is under-achieving at an alarming level. Neil is no better equipped to manage Celtic than most of the other managers plying their trade in the SPL. A good player and captain, yes. A man with Celtic in his blood, yes. A man who has been treated with sickening hatred, yes. A good manager. no. Why?
– No CV to justify getting the job (board’s fault not Neil’s – 100%)
– He shows no sign of building and improving his team, and it is his team now – not Mowbray’s or WGS’s.
– He shows no sign of being able to improve the weaknesses of individual players, in fact good players seem to be getting worse the longer the season goes on.
– He shows no signs of learning from tactical mistakes in Europe and in the SPL
– He chops and changes his starting XI often showing no reward to players after a decent performance/result the game before.
– He is quick to name and shame players in public while saying nothing of the far more obvious failings of the coaching staff.
Too many of us are blinded by our love for the man and need to wake up to the fact that being willing to die for Celtic does not add up to being qualified to manage the Club. I would have bet a fortune on a financially stable Celtic with NL at the tiller being far too good for a bankrupt Rangers with joker McCoist at the helm.
Our players are disgracing themselves but, as at other clubs, the manager has to take ultimate responsibility for what happens on the park. The time has passed for excuses. These players are not about to go on a winning run and turn into champions, to suddenly find form, to knit into a cohesive unit and discover team spirit. Our club has squandered away the opportunity to dominate domestic football for a generation. The board, the manager and the players should be ashamed of themselves.
This title is lost. We would perform no worse for the rest of this season with a caretaker in charge, someone with a bit of clout and presence to improve things while we search for the right solution for the next several years.
My choice would be to get Davie Hay in now and Paul Lambert in during the summer with Hay staying on in some capacity. An ambitious board should not take no for an answer from the rising star of the EPL. Put together a package, a vision, and a strategy to lure him back to Paradise. After bagging 3-4 titles in as many years he will still be young enough to get a top EPL job – and one day he will.
Stokes=Hooper
HH
Looked at today’s headlines in Tesco and totally despaired.
Not only is Neil naive in choosing his management team , ie not an ounce of experience amongst them, he compounds thing by
1) continually changing the team
2) Not having decent central defenders who can defend
3) Leaving out, potentially, his most effective game changer in Commons and
4) …..and this is the worst one….giving the laptop loyal the type of headlines to feed their fremzy. Player criticism is fine BUT it should be confined to the dressing room.
The worst thing now is they could go into admin and the Scottish Press would spend more time looking at the problems we have which are of our own making.
Sorry, Neil, time is up and Mr Lawwell so is yours……..Book the taxis now please.
Looking forward to Thursday when I would be next to certain that the upper tiers will be closed….yes, it’s that bad.
15000 will be a good gate and maybe that’s what it takes to finally get through to the board that we are being desperately short-changed in every respect. My £26 is staying in my pocket.
Sad times indeed.
On Thursday compare our gate with the rest of the Europa league ties.
You might be surprised at how high up we are on the list.
poolbhoy1603
“I still believe we should stand by NL, the carrot of the Leicester job will be a tempting offer for him though. Lets not forget he is only on a 12 month rolling contract. If they offer him a good long term contract and a lot better wage. Will the temptation be too much after the hell he has gone though?”
Please tell me you’re joking!!
We are all making excuses for Lenny.
He is one of us – of that there is no doubt. His end of season address to the stands “Just the begining” was truly memorable. It is therefore much harder for us all to admit that he is not the man for the job. However we face a choice. Change manager or fall further and further behind the horribles.
We also need to change the CEO.
We need a CEO motivatied by success on the park.
Alan MacDonald was not everyones cup of tea but he pushed the board into signings that changed the Scottish football landscape.
We also need an owner who turns up at games , AGM’s supporters events with passion.
I am sturggling to think of the last player Celtic signed who I had either heard of or was excited about.
I remember the days ( recently ) when the fans sang for Henrik Larsson , Lubo , Andy Thom , One Pierre , Jorge Cadette. Now we sing for Charlie Mulgrew. No disrespect to Charlie but the gap says it all.
Every transfer window we call for defenders, leaders , men. We get 19 – 22 year olds with potential. The potential is that we can sell them for a profit. We have players on loan all over Europe – simply because the are not up to the standard. I will bet my house on Bangura being loaned out next year as he clearly is not up to it either.
We have coaches who spend too much time in the Drake in the West End rather than fixing the problems.
Celtic are in real trouble – freefall in fact and we need to act now to stop it. Dermott time to stand up and prove that you are a Real Celtic Man.
Seville67
PABLO68 says:
30 October, 2011 at 15:01
Paul
One real concern of mine if R*****S go into administration and are duly deducted say ten points. I don’t feel in the least bit confident that we could win the title. How bad would that be? We would be the laughing stock for years!
share
Ah! so it’s just fear of being a ‘laughing stock’ eh! Don’t tell anybody your a celtic fan then!
Is the dons player that was hurt by Naismith out for a few games.
Will Naismiths previous recent behaviour also be taken into account if he is hauled before the beaks ?
Will any punishment meted out also adhere to lower league English football when he attempts his comeback ?
HH
Joe Fillipis Haircut- We are treading water, waiting/expecting for our next flop and more points dropped.The “team”yesterday played as if they wanted the manager sacked IMO.The dressing room is lost,the lack of team spirit tells me that.For Neil’s sake and the Clubs’ ,it is time to move on.We all wanted Neil more than anyone to be a success for a million reasons,but it is not going to happen IMO.The players and Lawwell have to take a good look at themselves today.
Revenge is a dish best served cold
cartuja
I know what you are saying Algarvian but we are a support who in the past could fill Parkhead playing St. Mirren. I am a member of an Irish based Supporters club, we used to run trips with up to 70 traveling, now its 5 or 6 lads getting together and organising their own trip.,
First ever post and what a time to do so, after that pathetic excuse for a Celtic performance yesterday. None of us can be happy with the way this season has unfolded so far but the past has gone and the key issue for me is what happens from next Sunday onwards. Although the Board lack a forward thinking and coherent strategy that we can all see, my biggest concern is that Lenny has had enough funds to buy decent players and mould them into a team. He has failed to do so – millions wasted on people like Juarez for little or no return and the individuals on the park lack the basic essentials to even be called a team (clear roles, work hard for each other, help each other out when the going is tough,etc). The buck stops with our manager and I do not have any confidence that he has the ability to change this group of players into what is needed to even compete with Rangers for the rest of this season. Obviously we cannot buy new players (and we need lots of those) until January but whether we have the funds or not, I would prefer a new manager is brought in as soon as possible to try to stop the rot. I have no idea who we may be able to attract but surely someone with experience to at least mould a team spirit would be a start!
Naismith is a dirty, horrible wee rat but they will be too busy giving him sympathy to even think of a retrospective ban.
It’s the Rangers was and was ever thus.
Naismiths assault on Aberdeens Milsom and his subsequently linked self inflicted injury, was a reminder that there may indeed be a God?
Hate to see players (even huns) sustain bad injurys,but in Naismiths case
I will hold my hands up (just like him) and say “up ye ,ya wee bass”
South Of Tunis says:
30 October, 2011 at 16:17
Asamoah some player
and Basta too, excellent
in Handanovic, with 11 v 1, teams would even struggle to score
1-0 toulouse à face stade rennais
un coup de frang de limité de la surface (de la reparation)
woosh !
Jimmci
You could be right about thursday as my 2 sisters and a few nephews all have the package but say they won’t go.
Board won’t care as tickets already purchased.
We are a rudderless ship in a sea of icebergs.
DeniaBhoy says:
30 October, 2011 at 16:19
The biggest and most talented squad in Scotland?
I see this kind of thing continually posted.
It is your opinion. It is not mine. Maybe the biggest squad – I don’t really know.
But most talented? Really?
I really don’t think so.
Must admit the constant guff in the press from the players makes me cringe too. Please stop talking about it, if you can’t walk the talk.
To Believe
To believe in your hype, well that’s a sin,
Forgetting your history, your kith & kin,
You can’t just turn up, watch others play,
Thinking you’ve put a shift in, a sterling display?
To believe that you’re better, than the rest,
Without trying a leg, putting it to the test,
You can’t just turn up and wander about,
Thinking you’re ghod’s gift, without the clout.
We have to believe you can do better than that,
Get off yer fat arse or we’ll come in fir a chat,
You can’t just turn up and think we don’t care,
Think you better wise up and start growing a pair.
Bada Bing Once again I agree with what you write but we the Celtic support must make our feelings known not only on blogs such as this but at Celtic Park there will be no change until the board realise the support has had enough and start letting it be known.H,H,
Deniabhoy-Agree, i posted on last thread to bring in Davie Hay and maybe Willie McStay as interim management team,and see how they do.Advertise the job,dont let PL bring in yet another guy he can control.Alas i cant see Lambert coming in, his star is on the rise,Spurs possibly if ‘Arry gets England job.
BTW
Anyone else read Andrew Smith’s piece in SoS today?
Interesting from a number of different angles. Here are some of them:
“If a club sets up a new company simply to avoid paying its debts or obligations then they would almost certainly fail the three-year rule,” a spokesperson for UEFA told Scotland On Sunday. “This is to ensure clubs do not simply create a ‘newco’ and leave the previous entity in charge of dealing with debts.”
Question: The SFA have a similar rule. Will they apply it?
Following the CAS ruling on an appeal against this rule from Timisoara:“Clubs are not allowed to change their legal form or structure in order to obtain a licence, simply by ‘cleaning up’ their balance sheet while offloading debts – thus harming creditors (including employees and social/tax authorities) as well as threatening the integrity of sporting competition. Any such alteration of a club’s legal form or structure is deemed to be an interruption to its membership of a UEFA member association and consequently three years must pass before a club can apply again for a UEFA licence. In other words, the three-year rule is designed basically to avoid circumvention of the club licensing system.”
Note: Any such alteration of a club’s legal form or structure is deemed to be an interruption to its membership of a UEFA member association: The SFA.
“If Rangers cannot exit administration via a CVA any further punishment would be at the discretion of the SPL board, whose role it would also be to decide on what basis Rangers would be allowed to transfer their SPL share to a new company.”
Note: this ignores the fundamental fact that the entity that is Rangers will be DISSOLVED if a CVA cannot be agreed. The SPL cannot punish a dissolved club. The SPL indeed cannot be called to make a decision at all until the SFA have reconciled Newco Rangers’ predicament with the Rules of the Game.
And finally: “But the reality is that SPL clubs are likely to allow a reconstituted Rangers back into the fold because without them the championship and its television and sponsorship deals would be devalued, with serious financial implications for the member clubs. Like the very bank that allowed the Ibrox club to rack up huge debts across the past decade, in terms of Scottish football, Rangers are simply too big to be allowed to fail.”
Notes: A remarkable conclusion given the evidence presented in the article from UEFA to the effect that a Newco phoenix taking Rangers’ position in the SPL without interuption is “threatening the integrity of sporting competition”. That it is “deemed to be an interruption to its membership [of the SFA]”. And that the SPL is presented as having authority to make a decision on admitting a club to membership despite the fact that the applicant club is not a member of the national association.
Moreover, in permitting Newco Rangers to leave their debts behind without meaningful sanction, the SPL clubs individually and collectively trash their own credit rating. Which bank would be prepared to provide mid-season cashflow support to a club that operates in an environment in which Adminstration and Pre-packing agreements are encouraged? Which non Scottish clubs would be prepared to sell players to SPL clubs on instalment or deferred terms?
And finally, the numbers: If as predicted widely, Rangers declare an insolvent position in the coming month or two, the scale of it will be breath taking.
They will owe £25M or thereabouts to Rangers Group Ltd, secured under the floating charge.
They will owe their creditors including season ticket holders, trade and football creditors, and Debenture holders in the order of £52M based on last year’s balance sheet. This assumes that Whyte has been paying the bills lately.
And they will owe HMRC in the order of £55M.
They will also owe JJB the balance of their £18M payment for merchandising rights. With 5 years left to run, that’s another £9M.
There are likely to be other lease based creditors, plus of course some wages and salaries, and the odd former Director.
The total creditor sum outstanding is likely to be in excess of £140 Million.
Set against this are the assets in the business, primarily football players, say £20M, and debtors shown as £6M, plus their stadium and other properties.
If we allow Whyte to take the receipts from debtors and player sales to satisfy the secured debt, that will leave only the properties to cover in excess of £120 Million of creditors.
Rangers’ insolvency will not simply be the biggest in football history, it will rank amongst the biggest in Scots corporate history.
And we have not discussed the 10 year period of dishonesty, deceit and duplicity that brought them to this point. The shareholders of MIH put up £50M to pay down Rangers debt in 2005. Of course we know the shareholders of MIH did not have that money, and it has subsequently been swallowed by the shareholders of Lloyds Banking Group. That’ll be us!
At every turn in the past decade, Rangers have knowingly borrowed more than they could repay, and embarked upon and continued unlawful tax evasion measures, all to be able to dominate the other clubs in Scottish football. The damage done to the game in this country during this period is fathomless.
As it comes to a head, Rangers will be dissolved. Their place in the SPL forfeited. Their membership of the SFA forfeited. Their creditors, all £120 odd Million of them will be toasted.
And given all of this, we are now to accept that Rangers are too big to fail? Andrew Smith will I’m sure forgive me if I beg to differ. In all of the circumstances, Ego, Deceit, Fraud and Financial Recklessness, Rangers are too big to be permitted to survive.
TBB
Awe naw
I agree, Rangers without Naismith may well start to malfunction and drop points. 12 points is probably too much to recoup seeing as it’s likely we’ll drop more but it will at least give us hope
good news for le Tic
rennes best player oot injurt
kana-biyik
big guy rarely gives ball away
Afternoon bhoys, cooler still hun free.
So many theories about what’s wrong at the club.
For all the posters who are smart cookies, only a handfull seem to be able to grasp what the problem is…
Celtic football club play to a different set of rules to the rest of scottish football, end of.
A poster yesterday, can’t remember who, said we were akin to a Jewish team playing in Nazi Germany, pretty close I would say.