On the road this week so today’s blog is by author Stephen O’Donnell:
Pick the bones out of that! I didn’t see Legia against St. Patrick’s Athletic in the previous qualifying round, but by all accounts they were fairly unimpressive, even in winning 5 – 0 in Dublin. I was even tempted to have a wee bet on Celtic to win by more than one goal on Wednesday night, and by the time my hastily arranged subscription to Premier Sports had come through things were looking good after Callum McGregor’s early strike.
Sadly, it didn’t last. It’s a measure of how poorly Celtic played on the night that they were lucky to escape from Warsaw with a 4 – 1 defeat because, let’s face it, but for Fraser Forster and some wayward penalty taking, it could have been worse.
As expected, it didn’t take long for the Celtic Newsnow stream to start filling up with tales of anguish and pontification from the mainstream media. From AEK Athens to Maribor, the list of European failures at certain other clubs (including one that is now defunct) is long and distinguished, but nothing gets the SMSM in full gloating mode like a painful Celtic defeat on the Continent.
On Wednesday we were reminded about Artmedia Bratislava, Utrecht, Karagandy etc., I even heard Neuchatel Xamax being mentioned at one point. The key of course is that there is no context and analysis provided when these previous losses are dragged up, Celtic supporters simply have to suffer such painful reminders.
This lack of constructive analysis is a pity because there are comparisons and parallels that can be usefully drawn with previous chastening experiences in Europe. It seems that new Celtic managers are particularly vulnerable to them; Tony Mowbray initially enjoyed a successful preseason, including winning the Wembley Cup, but his first competitive game was a 1 – 0 home defeat to Dynamo Moscow. Neil Lennon had Utrecht and Braga, and of course Gordon Strachan had Artmedia.
It’s what happened in Bratislava that I think has most relevance to Wednesday night – a new manager in post, replacing a club legend, trying to introduce a more cerebral approach, a squad clearly divided amongst those who are still pining for the previous incumbent and those who want to move on and embrace the new manager’s methods… the parallels in fact are numerous and really quite striking. Hopefully this is a sign that Ronny, like WGS before him, will turn this early setback around and grow into the role of Celtic manager.
One of the most important aspects of managerial success is the chemistry between the boss and his players. This lack of a connection in the dressing-room and on the training field is the reason John Collins failed at Hibs; it’s why Mowbray didn’t last out a season at Celtic. If the chemistry isn’t right then the team will lack focus, motivation and game intelligence at crucial times in the season, and these traits were all conspicuous by their absence in both Warsaw and Bratislava.
But chemistry takes time, it didn’t come immediately to either Lennon or Strachan, and Ronny Deila still has the opportunity to get his progressive ideas across and win the respect and admiration of his squad. If that happens then, like Lenny and WGS before him, he will go on to lead Celtic to domestic and European success.
In the meantime, there is the second leg still to come. If the parallels with Artmedia and Karagandy are to be heard in the media again then Legia could yet be in for a tough night next week. The tie is most certainly not over and it will slowly be dawning on the players who let themselves down on Wednesday that there is only one way to make up for what happened.
Pride and defiance have to come to the fore again, and the situation is still retrievable. All the ingredients are there for a potentially famous night at Murrayfield next Wednesday.
Follow Stephen O’Donnell on twitter @stephenodauthor
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A lot of long posts on here tonight, most a repetition of the last few days, I’ll just read the humorous short ones….as life’s too short.
My father’s eyes with anger flashed, he said what have you done….
For anyone who missed it, i can recommend the BBC2 documentary that aired at 9 o,clock tonight, titled a secret history of our streets.
It centres on Duke Street and for anyone, like me, who grew up in the East end, it was atrip down memory lane.
macjay1 for neil lennon
23:43 on 1 August, 2014
Absolutely no doubt it was lost on the park, but……….. we are so much weaker than we should be on the park due to lack of investment.
There are very wealthy individuals at Celtic park that have got richer whilst the team has went backwards.
Are you 100% happy that the custodians of the club have done everything in their power to mKe our team as good as they can be?, bottom line, regardless of anything else, this is the question that needs an honest answer.
I personally feel they could have given us more of a helping hand.
HailHail
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/southampton/11007085/Southampton-goalkeeper-Artur-Boruc-an-unlikely-target-for-German-champions-Bayern-Munich.html
.
Setting Free..
Don’t know Why but l re-read your last post but swapped Champions League Versus Europa League..
You know where l am Going don’t You..;-)
Celtic FC.. pre-Rangers IL FC.. Versus Celtic FC.. post-Rangers IL FC..
The Excitement..Determination..Etc Etc of Winning the Scottish Title beating your deadly rivals and merely Qualifying for the Champions League with the Hope of reaching the Group stages has been replaced by cross our fingers that we reach the Group stages..
That might reflect our Recruitment policy this Year..a PLC that won’t sanction to spend Big or Even Mediocre for CL Standard players because if we don’t Qualify we don’t need them..because we will be in the same ‘Crap Game’ this time next Year..And the Next..and….
Just a Thought..
Summa
celtictom
23:59 on
1 August, 2014
macjay1 for neil lennon
23:43 on 1 August, 2014
Absolutely no doubt it was lost on the park, but……….. we are so much weaker than we should be on the park due to lack of investment.
==============================================================
I understand that Lenny went to the World Cup looking for possible signing targets.
Presumably with the blessing of the Board.
What happened between then and his departure,we can only speculate about.
But it has all the hallmarks of a sudden completely unforeseen decision.
Ronny arrived with one month to assess his “assets ” on the playing field.
Had he shelled out a stack of dough in that first month,with so little time to do the “inventory”,I for one would have been concerned.
The debacle in Warsaw is down to him and J.C.
However………………………..
We need 10 mill. spent on an experienced central defender.
.
Sipsini..
Drat..
l normally do short Humorous posts..;-(
Summa
Are you 100% happy that the custodians of the club have done everything in their power to mKe our team as good as they can be?, bottom line, regardless of anything else, this is the question that needs an honest answer.
Seriously ??
up like a bird
00:22 on 2 August, 2014
???, I’ve no idea what your “seriously ??” means, care to explain?, it was an honest straight forward question.
Twists n Turns – Rainbow Rock 2.40 Goodwood.
Noam Chomsky’s statement on Israel’s latest aggression in Gaza:
“The incursion and bombardment of Gaza is not about destroying Hamas. It is not about stopping rocket fire into Israel, it is not about achieving peace.
The Israeli decision to rain death and destruction on Gaza, to use lethal weapons of the modern battlefield on a largely defenseless civilian population, is the final phase in a decades-long campaign to ethnically-cleanse Palestinians.
Israel uses sophisticated attack jets and naval vessels to bomb densely-crowded refugee camps, schools, apartment blocks, mosques, and slums to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command in control, no army… and calls it a war. It is not a war, it is murder.
When Israelis in the occupied territories now claim that they have to defend themselves, they are defending themselves in the sense that any military occupier has to defend itself against the population they are crushing. You can’t defend yourself when you’re militarily occupying someone else’s land. That’s not defense. Call it what you like, it’s not defense.”
If this question has come from a representive of the club ,it is neglegence .the whole majority of the Celtic support is dissalusined with what has happened over the two years .
I believe in my own estimate ,we should have a profit of at least £30m + the overdraft which is due in 2019 !!!another £20m !!
Finbogsson should have been a formality this season .
As a scottish person i have a low estimation ,i dont expect much so i cannot be let down it is expected .
Summa
I am heading for my kip.
I think what you say is right.
We have been one of the victims of the demise of Rangers. A lot of our fans drifted away because the league is a formality and because it is more fun to watch the games in a pub than in a stadium.
G’Night
celtictom
00:25 on
2 August, 2014
i have tried
Celtictom
my enter button returned before it was suppose to ,nothing to do with your post ,personaly :)
Gordon64
00:27 on
2 August, 2014
Noam Chomsky’s statement on Israel’s latest aggression in Gaza:
=================================================================I I hope Obama`s listening,but I doubt it.
Israel is digging it`s own grave.
Summa
macjay1 for neil lennon
00:10 on 2 August, 2014
celtictom
23:59 on
1 August, 2014
macjay1 for neil lennon
23:43 on 1 August, 2014
I try to be as carful as I can when I talk about Celtic. The reason I always say “custodians” is because I believe there is more than one party at fault, it ain’t all PL’s fault!.
For me the custodians of Celtic are all that take a wage, regardless of size, if you work for Celtic there is a responsibility to uphold what Celtic mean to us as fans.
RD & JC are as responsible as the fholks that are honoured enough to hold the position that appointed them, I ain’t looking for scape goats, I want collective responsibility, if something bad happens I want all involved to look at themselves and ask how they could have done things better.
HailHail
67 Heaven
I wish you’d left it where it was, That’s my old Fenian gun.
Sorry mate couldn’t resist :-)
Just wondering if we were too cocky before the match on wed! Rd and jc went to dublin to watch the second leg and left 10 mins into second half before legia destroyed pats and they did tge same to us. Looks to me like they didnt do their homework thoroughly enough!
celtictom
00:37 on
2 August, 2014
Summa
macjay1 for neil lennon
00:10 on 2 August, 2014
celtictom
23:59 on
1 August, 2014
macjay1 for neil lennon
23:43 on 1 August, 2014
I try to be as carful as I can when I talk about Celtic. The reason I always say “custodians” is because I believe there is more than one party at fault, it ain’t all PL’s fault!
================================================================
Well said.
———–
macjay1 for neil lennon
00:35 on 2 August, 2014
Gordon64
00:27 on
2 August, 2014
Noam Chomsky’s statement on
Israel’s latest aggression in Gaza:
======================
======================
=====================I I
hope Obama`s listening,but I doubt
it.
Israel is digging it`s own grave.
—
Hamas Wants Us to Care about Palestinian Children, Even if They Don’t
Posted by Rachel Molschky
Hamas sacrifices Arab children and celebrates the victory. Then we are supposed to cry over the very same children.
If there is one talent Hamas has, it is propaganda. After sacrificing their own children, they point the finger at Israel and say, “They did it!”
Feeding lies to the media, creating a network of bleeding heart followers on social media who will spread the word of the “terrible atrocities” taking place in Gaza by showing the world photos of dead Syrian children, (who were killed by their own people), indoctrinating the Muslim community to take a stand against “those evil Jews” in order to help the “poor, helpless Palestinians”… United in their hatred of Jews, Muslims everywhere protest in so-called “demonstrations”, which are often violent riots. And they hold up their placards announcing the “Holocaust” taking place in Gaza, with the “innocent children who are dying” claim their most strategic tool in the propaganda war against Israel as well as Jews in Diaspora.
They even take photos of the rubble in Gaza with carefully placed, brand-new clean toys on top and a stroller in the background. (Check it out at Israellycool.)
Here’s the problem. Hamas does not care about Palestinian children. They are but a pawn in their ploy for support and sympathy. Some examples to illustrate:
Hamas Killed 160 Palestinian Children to Build Tunnels
They use people’s homes to hide their weapons, even with children in the house:
Israel Defense Forces shared this photo on Facebook, along with the caption: “Hamas continues to use its people for terrorist purposes: two days ago, we found explosive devices adjacent to a baby’s cradle. This is the true face of Hamas.”
They run to their deaths and take their children with them:
Photo from IDF. Caption: We fired a warning shot at this Hamas target in Khan Yunis, a city inside Gaza. In response, these civilians ran to the roof and brought their kids.
Hamas has a history of launching rockets from schools, residential neighborhoods, mosques, etc., and has often targeted Israeli schools as well- even kindergartens and preschools.
UNRWA schools were used to store rockets. After issuing a condemnation, the “UNRWA handed the rockets in its schools back to unnamed ‘local government authorities in Gaza.’ The ‘authorities’ turned out to be the terrorist group Hamas.” Rather than deterring the terrorists from using Arab children as human shields, the UNRWA has made itself an accessory to the crime. Sure, they do not want the weapons in that particular school, but Hamas will simply move them to another school, hospital, or residential area, putting their own children at risk.
They raise their children to kill themselves:
Hamas Commander Zaher Jabarin: We Teach Our Kids to be Suicide Bombers:
“On December 18, 2012, senior Hamas commander Zaher Jabarin gave an interview to Hamas’ Al-Quds TV. In the interview, Jabarin said Hamas labors ‘day and night’ educating Palestinian children in Gaza to become suicide bombers.
“Becoming a suicide bomber is a sought-after career move, Jabarin claimed. ‘The Palestinian youngsters, the resistance and Jihad warriors, fight and quarrel over performing a courageous suicide operation,’ he said.”
Hamas is not the only group sacrificing children. Fatah has also been known to pay children to throw pipe bombs, and if they die in a suicide bombing, the parents receive a cash prize, along with a “badge of pride.”
During Operation Defensive Shield, “children were sometimes left behind to trigger booby-traps that terrorists set for troops.”
Nobel Peace Prize winner Yasser Arafat encouraged children to play a part in “the struggle” and stressed the importance of “martyrdom.”
“29 suicide attacks were carried out by youth under the age of 18 in 2000-2003, the bloody peak of the Second Intifada,” and “The PA furnishes a cash payment – $2,000 per child killed and $300 per child wounded. But it is more than money, it is ideology, culture, religion…” -I Don’t Dress My Sons with Suicide Belts
Palestinian terror groups have been using children as suicide bombers for many years: Willing to Die: Palestinian suicide bombers
Hamas’s Web School for Suicide Bombers
Hamas TV encourages children to participate in the fighting and to kill Jews.
Hamas holds youth summer camps. “Instead of classrooms and swimming lessons, the camp boasts military training facilities and uniform-clad children and teens.” This summer they were expected to have 100,000 “students,” though Operation Protective Edge may have changed their plans!
At the graduation of one of these youth camps, the militant children were told, “Our path- is jihad. Our utmost desire- is death for the sake of Allah!”
At Hamas’ rallies, they dress up their children as jihadists, encouraging them to aspire to become terrorists:
Palestinians also dress their children as terrorists at kindergarten plays and graduations and even display mock coffins draped in terror group flags in order to idolize “martyrs” and celebrate “martyrdom.”
Hamas treats its own children in this manner but then expects us to cry over the same children. And somehow the leftist, liberal media takes the bait, hook, line and sinker!
——
10% Of Missiles Launched By HAMAS From Gaza…..
Land WITHIN Gaza…!
*ttp://chersonandmolschky.com/2014/07/29/hamas-wants-us-to-care-about-palestinian-children-even-if-they-dont/
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/07/31/Journalists-in-Gaza-Fearing-Retaliation-from-Hamas-Tell-of-Rocket-Fire-on-Return-Home
——
summa of sammi….
I take that post back.
It was informative reading posters views of the result, the negative, the hopeful and the blind loyalty…it all made good reading on the nightshift.
Think like most, I’m just disappointed in the manner we got beat, even had a couple of hunchbacks raising their heads.
That is when it struck home, thems in their new format will just brush off all they have done and give it w..p again.
Our board should be ensuring we beat them at every turn and build a team that can ridicule them.
I do realise at the moment they are in dire straights but once they climb from their gutter to challenge us, every trick in the book will be used to aid them.
It’s been said that we are building a war chest….my a..e, the board is sitting on their laurels…rant over.HH
Just watched there on the late RTE news.Weans lying in Gaza with limbs blown off, mothers desperately trying to lift lumps of concrete to look for their children and others lying in bodybags.
How in the name of God can countries sit back and watch this and do feck all?
Before anyone jumps in and gives it Hamas this and that I am not interested.
Israel has the most sophisticated systems and weaponry in the world.
They know precisely who they are targeting.Mass murder. Utter scum.
macjay1 for neil lennon
00:35 on 2 August, 2014
Gordon64
00:27 on
2 August, 2014
Noam Chomsky’s statement on Israel’s latest aggression in Gaza:
=================================================================I I hope Obama`s listening,but I doubt it.
Israel is digging it`s own grave.
…………..
I posted the same weeks ago, when will enough inoccents be killed to satisfy the games played by Hamas and Isreal.
Off out again, Hx2
—-
My Dear Macjay….
~~~~~~~~~
*ttps://www.embooks.com/blog/single/iran-is-the-real-threat-and-the-us-is-on-its-side
Melanie’s Blog

July 31, 2014
Iran is the real threat, and the US is on its side
Posted by Melanie Phillips
While war in Gaza rages on and the West dumps on Israel for having the effrontery to defend the lives of its people, attention has strayed from the most important actor in the region, Iran.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is actively involved in the Gaza war. Relations with Hamas which had deteriorated over Syria are back on track. Iran armed Hamas and Islamic Jihad with rockets and other weapons and is reportedly now directly instructing Hamas commanders in the Gazan tunnels.
Osama Hamdan, who runs Hamas’s foreign relations, says it is continuing to coordinate its positions with Iran and its proxy army in Lebanon, Hezbollah.
Hamas’s deputy political head Mousa Abu Marzouk says he hopes “the Lebanese front will open and together we will fight” against Israel. The Hezbollah chieftain Hassan Nasrallah has pledged “all means of support” to the Palestinian “resistance.”
Israel cannot dismiss this as saber rattling.
After the discovery of the massive network of tunnels from Gaza into Israel, posing the strategic threat of establishing an Islamist beachhead across southern Israel through infiltration, the suspicion must be that Iran is planning a similar strategy for northern Israel too.
A US federal judge recently ruled that North Korea and Iran had assisted in building “a massive network of underground military installations, tunnels, bunkers, depots and storage facilities in southern Lebanon.” As Brig.-Gen. (res.) Shimon Shapira of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs told analyst Lee Smith, the Gaza tunnels might provide a horrifying explanation of what Nasrallah meant when he said that Hezbollah had a twopart operational plan. “One is rocket fire on Tel Aviv and two is conquest of the Galilee,” said Shapira. “Nasrallah means Hezbollah is going to penetrate Israel through tunnels.”
In recent days, Iran’s rulers have been stepping up their bellicose rhetoric – urging war on Israel not just from Gaza but also from a second front in the West Bank. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has said that “until that heartless and child-killer [Zionist] regime is destroyed” armed resistance is “the only path” and that the West Bank should be armed just like Gaza.
This prompted similar calls from other Iranian leaders including Amir Mousavi, the former adviser to Iran’s defense minister, who said Tehran would arm the West Bank with “strategic weapons” including missiles to target Tel Aviv and Haifa.
Not to be outdone, the West’s Iranian sweetheart Prime Minister Hassan Rouhani asked Muslim states to help Gaza, declaring that the “unity of Muslim countries against the enemies is a vital matter at this stage” and adding that the “resistance” displayed by Gaza would undoubtedly lead to the “defeat of the Zionist regime.”
So the principal terror-promoting state in the world, at war against the West for the past 35 years and committed to the genocide of the Jews, is waging a proxy war of extermination against Israel which it announces it is now to step up. Yet astoundingly, the US-led P5+1 coalition is continuing to negotiate with Iran over its nuclear program, as if its leaders really are the moderates the West so risibly claims them to be.
The negotiations have been extended for another four months, with the US lead negotiator Wendy Sherman insisting there has been “significant progress in the negotiating room.” This from people whose interim agreement signed with Tehran last January effectively acknowledged Iran’s right to enrich uranium – junking the West’s previous nonnegotiable redline.
Now the US is to give Iran another $2.8 billion in unfrozen assets, in addition to the $4.2b. it unfroze after the interim deal was reached. No wonder Sen. Marco Rubio has denounced these negotiations as a “dangerous national security failure.”
America’s craven capitulation in these talks, not to mention Obama’s shocking demand that Israel unilaterally surrender to Hamas, has empowered Iran to ratchet up its aggression against Israel. For Iran understands that – astonishing as this sounds – under Obama the US is actually on its side.
America is tacitly supporting Iran as an ally. Last month a Pentagon spokesman, Adm. John Kirby, noted that the Iranian Quds Force was training both Iraqi security forces and Shi’ite militias in Iraq. He then added: “Iraq has the right to reach out to its neighbors for support.” The right? The US has named Iran as the world’s principal terror supporter and lists the Quds Force as a terrorist organization.
The British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom has called this legitimization of the Quds Force “a dangerous policy.” It also pointed out that Iran’s military supply to Iraq is in flagrant violation of the UN Security Council resolution which explicitly prohibits Iran from supplying military materiel to anyone.
The British Parliamentary Committee has expressed alarm about Iran’s growing military interference in Iraq and warned it is destabilizing the region. Yet the US is enabling Iranian terrorist militias to further destabilize Iraq and thus pose an additional threat to the West.
That’s because, in the wider civilizational conflict being waged against the free world by Islamic fanatics, Obama has positioned the US on the wrong side.
He has lined up America not just with Hamas but with its backers, Qatar– with which he has just signed an $11b. arms deal – Turkey and Iran. His aim is, on one side, to empower the Muslim Brotherhood through using Qatar and Turkey against Egypt, whose actions against Hamas have derailed the Brothers’ otherwise seamless progress to power in the region. On the other side, his aim is to empower Iran which – on the most benign view of his intentions – be believes with amoral idiocy will maintain a balance of power in the region against Saudi Arabia.
Accordingly, the US is simultaneously supporting both the Sunni and Shia wings of the Islamic jihad against the West. Quite a position for the one-time defender of the free world. And of course, Israel is utterly expendable. That’s the fix Israel is in. It is having to fight for its survival not just against Hamas, Iran, Turkey and Qatar. It is having to fight against America too.
Posted on: Jul 31st, 2014 –
—
All hail the Great AMERICAN TAX PAYER
All hail the great Celtic Executive bonus
Whats left to talk about on this blog?
tell me?
Palestine is a crime to humanity.
I don’t care for politics in general, I especially don’t care for politics when it try’s to excuse the murder of children and other innocence.
Regardless of Hamas, Israel has committed genocide and war crimes of an unspeakable nature.
It is a slaughter, pure and simple, any person that makes an excuse for it is a person i have nothing in common with.
TSD
Ive told you before
go lie doon and have a wank
macjay1 for Neil Lennon
00:50 on 2 August, 2014
Correct!
it’s not all PL’s fault
Its all the happy clappers pandering to the likes of Betdaq :)
T.S.D.
10.20 am Oz time.Taking the dug oot.
Will read your posts on my return.
Thanks for the info.
Always interesting.
Teuchter,
if you are still on pal,
I hope you and burghbhoy enjoyed yer time together.
I was telling bb I may well take a trip to Winchburgh the next time I am over.
Look after yerself mate.TAL.
Mags, that’s a bit hard on tsd…:)
reading back to some of the disappointments
Tony Watt Couldny hack it
Mjallby couldny hack it
Samaras couldny hack it
WGS couldny hack it
lenny couldny hack it
MON couldny hack it
thats right!
We are Celtic
ExecutivebonusesareusCSC
Bitchin on here 24 hours a day looks like a good hobby but it dismay cut the mustard at qualification in the CFC supporters ranks.
oldcuntsscfc.co.uk
margaret mcgill
01:15 on 2 August, 2014
All hail the Great AMERICAN TAX
PAYER
All hail the great Celtic Executive
bonus
Whats left to talk about on this blog?
tell me?
~~~~~~~~~~
M♥ggie….Doll !
Hmmmmmm..!
Still On For ‘Happy Hour’ In Girdwoods’…..
A Week Next Friday..? ;-)
Something that has to be stopped,.The old rangers in pamplonna,villareal.Barcelona …Celtic,Celta vigo ,Amsterdam ,warsaw .its a brittish thing not a ….
margaret mcgill
01:15 on 2 August, 2014 All hail the Great AMERICAN TAX PAYER All hail the great Celtic Executive bonus Whats left to talk about on this blog?tell me?
———-
Well I’m lying in an hotel room in Donegal town listening to guys belting oot the Boys of the old Brigade ootside.Wish you were here pal? :-)