Are you feeling confident? I’m not as confident as I would like to be. We’re so ‘on’ and ‘off’ these days it’s difficult to anticipate how tonight’s Europa League game against Rosenborg will unfold. I am assuring myself that we turn it on when we need to, as we did for much of last season too.
Since drawing with Celtic on 1 August, Rosenborg have been on fire. Nine wins and a draw in 10 outings is impressive consistency. That run has given them a two point lead in the Norwegian league and given temporary manager, Rini Coolen, reason to think he may get the job on a permanent basis.
Celtic Park has not been kind to Rosenborg on their two visit since July last year. They had chances to win the first game and took an early lead last month, but lived to regret being unable to capitalise on opportunities that came their way. The mini-league setup is different from the knock-out contests we have previously played, which reduces any incentive Rosenborg have to seek an away goal. They will be happy to shut up shop and will have watched St Mirren do just that on Friday.
It is going to be a calm and damp night in Glasgow, the perfect conditions for Celtic to zing the ball around and get into their natural game. Big performances from James Forrest, Olivier Ntcham and Tom Rogic will be needed.
I see Gordon Strachan dismissed George Peat’s tears over Rangers capitulation in 2008 this morning: “Wasn’t that the season when Rangers had two games against us and they just needed to draw one of them to wrap up the title?
“We had to play them twice in the space of a couple of weeks at home knowing they only needed to take a point away from our place but we managed to beat them twice.
“They had the opportunity to put it to bed with a draw but we won the two games, with big Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink scoring a last minute winner in one of them.”
Those two games against Rangers live rich in the memory. Towels were thrown-in all over CQN after the home defeat to 10-man Motherwell. We were behind in the first Rangers game and level deep into added time before that Vennegoor of Hesselink winner. Credit to Scott McDonald for notable contributions on both occasions, after chastising him for having a go at Celtic for not offering competitive wages.
“They just needed one draw to wrap up the title.” I bet reading that still stings Peat.
167 Comments- Pages:
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- »
COYBIG
@ BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS on 20TH SEPTEMBER 2018 11:10 AM (from previous article)
Thanks for the link. Provided an interesting read.
One thing I look forward to reading in the full accounts is old PL’s remuneration package.
From a quick review of the accounts to June 2017, it appears as if PL was paid £1,167,411 (salary and benefits in kind) and (i believe) an additional payment of £890,000 awarded under a “Long Term Performance Incentive Plan” which vested over the period. That takes earnings for PL to £2,057,411. A staggering amount when our turnover was £90.6m.
It got me thinking how this compares to other football executives plying their trade in the cash rich EPL. From a brief review of Everton and Arsenal’s accounts (for same year), it appears that:
-the top paid director at Everton earned £578,000 (I’m unsure if this is inclusive of bonus, but even if only basic wage, it is under half of PL’s basic wage), with Everton’s revenue being £171,330,000; and
– Gazidis (now of AC Milan) earned £2,598,000 (inclusive of bonus), with Arsenal’s revenue being £344,500,000.
Now, as percentages of CEO earnings to revenue this equates to:
Celtic – 2.27%;
Everton – 0.33%; and
Arsenal – 0.75%.
We cannot pay EPL wages for players but seemingly we can for executives.
P67
Peat – Gordon’s comments are water off a ducks back
@ GENE on 20TH SEPTEMBER 2018 12:14 PM (from previous article)
Well when looking at Celtic’s accounts to 30 June 2016 (RD’s last year), PL earned £999,560 (inclusive of bonus) with Celtic having a turnover of £52m. As a percentage that works out to 1.92%. This in a season where Celtic didn’t qualify for the CL, had half empty stands and lost to Sevco at the first time of asking.
So still outstripping his equivalents in EPL even when, on the face of it, we are not performing well.
@ GREENPINATA on 20TH SEPTEMBER 2018 12:24 PM
Has anyone ever advocated that?
The hands
I refer you to the points previously made :(
and I still think he’s paid to much
Look a Squirrel. ;-)
DILLIGAFBHOY
must be thick or gullible cause I can’t see one
GENE on 20TH SEPTEMBER 2018 12:32 PM
Thats cos your up on that podium.
Paul67
How dare you talk about a Celtic game being played today, on your own Blog
Quite Shocking CSC
Good Afternoon.
This is the true story of how Rangers were screwed over in 2008… https://theclumpany.wordpress.com/2018/09/19/how-rangers-fc-was-shafted-in-2008/
DILLIGAFBHOY on 20TH SEPTEMBER 2018 12:29 PM
Look a Squirrel. ;-)
……………………………….
Yep! Bzzzzzzzzzzz
@ GENE on 20TH SEPTEMBER 2018 12:26 PM
Agreed that EPL clubs have an easier and much larger source of revenue readily available at the beginning of each season.
That being said, Arsenal are in the top 10 football clubs in the world in terms of revenue and club value and even then, PL’s wage compared to Gazidis is greater in relative terms and not too far off in absolute terms either.
Unfortunately I can’t get access to the information, but it would be interesting to see what the CEO of Copenhagen, Ajax, Anderlecht, AEK etc earn.
The hands – thanks for the response butbBetter log off before I increase the squirrel population
Chores to do
Paul67
St Mirren, Rosenborg will play on a. much bigger pitch.
The tactics we need to worry about are how we create and take more chances.
MONEY MONEY MONEY –
Tax year -2016 -2017 .
CEO of Rubentus ( Guiseppe Marotta )— 2.6 million euros – 1.5 million in salary plus 1.1 million euros in bonuses re PI’s etc .
In the same time period guy who owns and Manages the business that is Napoli FC paid himself the best part of 4.5 million euros
Money Money -Horace Andy –
https://youtu.be/uiPJU6UaRr4
surely we will play 4-3-3 and attack from the off , dump the slow build up from the back and attack down the flanks and thru the middle at pace, hunt the ball down in packs and get back to fast flowing football and get our supporters excited and behind the team , not the slow, boring, oh so boring football we are currently watching and having the supporters groaning from the stands and getting on the players back with the continual sideways/backwards passing game going nowhere, then on the other hand BR knows best.
Get the Griff back in the starting 11…..
I would prefer Griffiths to start with Forrest Rogic and McGregor behind. These are the most experienced options. Edouard, Johnston and Christie are inexperienced. Sinclair is experienced and is an option but I opt for McGregor
Get that Peter Lawell guy upfront.
£2m a year, he must be special.
What happened to the traditional – they’ve got a dodgy keeper who cant handle crosses story??? Especially on a wet night in Glasgow….
@ SAINT STIVS on 20TH SEPTEMBER 2018 1:18 PM
Agreed!
I’m hoping for a Celtic like performance.
Dubai
Craig Gordon is playing.
Post back tomorrow with the biggest crowd
Thursday Night Football
24 Europa League Games
Arsenal vs Vorskla
Celtic vs Rosenborg
PAOK vs Chelsea
Dudelange vs Milan
Ludogorets vs Leverkusen
Sevilla vs Standard Liege
Lazio vs Apollon
Marseille vs Frankfurt
Remuneration Committee
The Remuneration Committee is chaired by Tom Allison. The other members are Brian Wilson and Ian Bankier.
The Remuneration Committee determines the terms of engagement and remuneration of the Company’s executive Directors, Company Secretary and certain senior executives, on behalf of the Board. The Committee also monitors the Company’s executive share option scheme and implementation of other executive and employee incentive schemes. A detailed report is included within the Annual Report.
68,67 65. thats their ages
Squirrels? Let me tell you about bleedin squirrels….
**********************************************
Hibs? Hibernian football club? The HI-BEES? If you know the Hibstory?
They shouldn’t have been there. They were really starting to get on my tit. We weren’t even playing them, but there they were, that bleeding support proclaiming an identity born of sympathy and the eponymous local band of chanters getting so stoned that they confused a light above the brothel on Easter Road with the sun shining on Leith.
Ach but that was so the season before last.
It wouldn’t happen again. No matter just how windy the city got…..no siree!
What?
Anyway, Johnstone got the ball, went inside, outside, over, under and apparently through each and every one of about twenty opposition full backs, avoided a lowflying GBH-intentioned combine harvester and seven or eight incoming smart, but not smart enough, heat and ginger-head seeking missiles, before he did that unique VTOL training ground trick, leaping like a man in an oar-less flying rowing boat and passing the ball inside to magically intercept the defence splitting run of the ever eagle eyed …..naw surely not….where did she come frae?….“Mrs Duffy”!
“Missus feckin Duffy ? Who would have credited that? Mrs Duffy? I mean Mrs Duffy was good, but her right foot always let her down, she would never have got into this team!”
The ref seemed non-plussed as well and blew shrilly on his oboe, filling the air with the plaintive melody of Acker Bilk’s ‘Stranger on the shore’.
Time and common-sense suddenly came to a halt all apart from the ‘time and commonsense defiant’ clock, unrepentantly tic(k)ing, its pendant electric cable sparking but still holding it a little tenuously onto the main stand.
And then through the rubicon of midnight, the first second of a new day arrived, the first moments of a new Sunday, and the birth of a new football year!(for some anyway).
Throughout the land cheers reverberated, but just as normality was on the verge of regaining control and Mrs Duffy steeled herself to crash through her frozen flight and nod the ball into the gaping net, a cry of utter terror suddenly went up in the North Stand and eyes that had been fixed on the clock gaped towards what they expected to be a scene of utter distress.
But there was nothing to see, all was an empty void, the crowd apparently having taken the opportunity of the hole in the space time continuum to head for the pie stall and the special offer of the new super meal deal, with which they could feed a family of four for no more than the Gross Domestic Product of post-brexit London.
The audience waited. To be fair, they didn’t really have much of an option, being frozen in time an’ a’ that!
Their senses seemed out of synch. Confronted by the vacuum in the universal laws of physics, even the most discerning of eyes found that they could only see silence and hear the mystical imprint of a colourless echo on the wafting midnight haar.
Then as the clock continued its march from the past into the present, the mist dissolved and as if they had trained for this very moment, a performing troop of St Andrew’s ambulance stretcher bearers rushed from the players tunnel and belted across the park, leapt over the Jungle wall and gathered round a seated, upright but motionless figure, possibly in the early stages of rigor, sitting in Block 104 Row P Seat 17.
“There’s only one question you need to answer” mumbled the cadaver.
“What’s that?” responded wee Eddie Duffy as if he found nothing unusual in being spoken to by a not so ‘silent witness’, and as an aside to the animatedly suspended players on the pitch he added
“Why should I be surprised? After all, I originally came along to watch Mrs Duffy making her debut for the Hoops, but as usual here I am in a situation that I could never have anticipated or bargained for. How in all my sixty years as a bookie’s runner and Phil Cole’s glass collector can I be even remotely qualified to deal with this, although to be honest there was the tale of me, Tibet and the Dalai Lama….”
“FFS” the corpse-elect interrupted him “Jist focus on the one question. ‘Am I saveable? Does my apparently lifeless corpse contain even one dulled but still warm ember of life? Can you provide the magic of resurrection?’ Concentrate!”
“That’s three questions” said wee Eddy “So my instinct tells me that this existential miasma may be a metaphor for God and the consubstantial dogma…three persons in one God….three questions all part of one giant poser…. a tantalisingly and inexplicably tripodal metaphysical conundrum! Let me think for a moment….’Yes Yes Yes!’ The answer to your Trinitarian enquiry is ‘yes’ …but I must make some urgent intervention!”
He briefly paused to check that Mrs Duffy was still suspended in mid-air, her seamed demob stockings now erotically wrinkled and intriguing, bit his bottom lip and then with a pleasant shiver, continued,
“And never fear, although my medical qualifications are few it is fair to say that having spent my leisure time holding on to Mrs Duffy’s ankles to prevent her overbalancing and crashing three storeys while perfecting her technique of ‘Windae hingin’ you can be sure that if you are to be saved, I am your man!”
“But just before I start, I must don my protective gear.”
And with that, he pulled out a full anti-blast body suit and quickly transformed himself from ‘meek and mild St Andrews stretcher bearer, bookie’s runner and glass collecter’ into.. “Duffyman”-No bomb too large, no explosion too powerful!
“Why, you are Duffyman” the soon to be stiff exclaimed! “Why do we need you?”
“Aha” retorted our super hero in a voice that Jeremy Renner had plagiarised for his role in the Hurt Locker….“You’ll see”, and with that he turned and faced the North Curve and roared …..
“Constable!”
It took a few seconds to sink in, but a surprised and increasingly discomfited nearby Police Scotland fans’ liaison officer looked up and not seeing anyone else who fitted the description ‘Constable’, stopped his tricky attempt of removing an unexploded compression flare that some GB wag had rammed up his sphincter and sidled gingerly around the now not so safe standing area towards Duffyman!
“Give me your Taser!” the man of the moment demanded, and then with a booming “Stand back!” he targeted a mega voltage through the half eaten pizza meal deal, defibrillating the almost departed’s soul, causing him to perform an impromptu break dance along row P and back while also reheating the pepperoni and salami meat feast filling to its Lawwell specified succulent tasty temperature.
But the smell of the melted cheese and spicy ground beef proved too much for our bold boy in blue! As the sudden need to break wind became uncontrollable he screamed his final words “Naw……” and an involuntary onset of peristalsis caused the flare to self prime, a warning signal blaring out ‘evacuate…evacuate…..’beep’….’beep’…’be….”
Duffyman, dressed appropriately and with everyone now exchanging knowing nods, threw himself in front of the revived season ticket holder. At that very second the alimentary ripples triggered the pressure sensitive flare and the detonation burst and perforated eardrums for miles around.
For just a brief moment all went deathly quiet as the deadly mixture of gunpowder and methane enriched excretia mushroomed from the now rocket propelled officer’s erse as he headed ballistically towards Bridgeton’s iconic orange hall.
As the mayhem receded the occupant of P17 struggled to push the weight of the padded hero off himself.
But his relief was short lived. As sound and sense returned he heard a familiar and worrying instantaneous replay………..
“..ep’….’beep’….’beep’……and then another explosion ..as a massed choir of one hundred thousand squirrels gave a 100 decibels rendition of “Hail Hail”.
“But what about Mrs Duffy….did she score?”
The squirrels ignored him and in unison and started fighting over the nuts that the had fallen from the constable’s pocket.
*************************************************
Time for a pint I think.
Hail Hail
Matt
BOURNESOUPRECIPE @ 1 28 .
TV 8 -way down south have been heavily advertising tonight’s F91 Dudelange -v AC Milan .
To quote a grumpy old codger – drinking a glass of vino collapso with added grappa in a bar in Sciacca ( not me ) — ” You’d need to be a life long confirmed bachelor with no family lying in an intensive care bed before you’d be sad enough to watch that “
6 hours to we see the famous Glasgow Celtic again.
Cannot wait, but have to ….
Bring on the Norwegian bergs
Up the tempo tonight and be a bit more direct please Celtic
COYBIG
D. :)
SOT
That’s made me go and look them up :-)
PAUL 67.
you were he first person to come out and say” WE CAN STILL WIN THIS”.
get a front 3 , SS – LG – MJ , we play with far to many midfielders who get in each others way with overcrowding, play a midfield 3 of CMcG – SB – TR and a back 4 of KT – FB – DB – ML.
sorted.
Paul67 et al
Haven’t played too bad at home in the European games, scored three three times and the draw against AEK which we could have and should have won. As agreed group stage matches are different, but we just might top ours with a win tonight. Here’s hoping!
Matt Stewart,
Well done! A true story?
I’d like to see Lewis Morgan and Mikey Johnston get game time tonight. Time to shake things up a little. LM could be the creative player we’ve been missing recently he’s direct and likes to go forward.
Team sheet latest……………James Forrest
ON or SB in the middle , one or the other but don’t play the two at same time.