I have never shown a lot of love for St Mirren on the blog (and understatement on one or two occasions), but I am really pleased they got through the relegation/promotion playoff against Partick Thistle last night. The way they played football this season was one of the many encouraging aspects to the campaign just finished. No time-wasting (at least, under McLeish), playing football honestly and with an emphasis on passing. It is incredible that their contribution did not result in a higher finish in the table.
Motherwell and Falkirk eclipsed them, but neither of those two won a major trophy, which Saints did, as we remember. The Premiership has never been healthier. More of this, please.
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Quiet tonight
Good to see the saints stay up. Winning a cup and being relegated would have been a sore one.
Taps aff.
Shankland to poundland.
He’ll get a red in a Glasgow derby this year.
Wow!
Premiership has never been poorer. Look at the leagues results in Europe. Look at our coefficient. Look at the worse Celtic team for many years still winning a double.
Don’t be fooled by its competitive nature. It’s only so because we regressed remarkably this season.
To state it has never been healthier is absolutely staggering beyond belief.
Unless of course artificially creating completion between ourselves and the rest of the league is what constitutes health.
Dearie dearie me
* competition not completion
The only unhealthy thing about the premiership is the rabid, pestilence ridden huns , both East and West.
Scotland’s sectarian version of Ebola .
‘One swallow does not a summer make’ and all that.
If (IF) Celtic can assemble a squad and get anywhere close to playing Ange type football then we’ll unfortunately see a return to low-blocks and time waisting.
I’ll also be surprised if Hertz and Motherwell can come close to repeating what they did this season.
We’ll see soon enough.
Equally, Partick wouldn’t have been a bad addition. A good derby with decades of history behind it.
Not to say I’m particularly impressed with the overall quality of the league though.
The ball was screaming in pain last night, terrible football.
If Martin Oneil.has to become the permanent manager this season,fine but with the world cup.starting next month ,he cant do any media work,he has a big building of players leaving and coming to.Celtic.
THE BLOGGER FORMERLY KNOWN AS GM
“One swallow does not make a summer”
Was once the advertising strap line on the now defunct holiday company – Club 18-30
Not sure it had much to do with bird watching.
Anyway your point is well made they played a bit more attack minded because they were confident of beating us.
67ECW
The more teams that play in a way we’ll come up against in Europe the better. A long way from the standard we’ll face but we’ll be facing teams every week who put a premium on possession press high and play confidently through opposition presses – the new normal in football and very different to the low block football that was deemed effective against us (although it wasn’t)
Teams that have a go I like St Mirren and Motherwell can only be good for Celtic.
I wasa but disappointed we didn’t go for Askou, the biggest single problem the team faces is its inability to press and to confidently play through a well drilled team
Paul 67
A more competive SPFL is welcome on one condition.
Celtic win it.
Over the length of my Celtic allegiance, I have experienced every emotion
associated with the Game and watched many great players grace the jersey.
What I have never witnessed is such a disfunctional sequence of events, in a
single season.
Anything that could go wrong, did. I think that the biggest factor single
factor was the amount of weeks of club business was hijacked by Int. Breaks.
Most European Leagues had anomalous beginings with top teams dropping
unexpected points.
Celtic had more of its share of disruptive factors, injuries, transfer letdowns
However, it is to the eternal credit of all concerned, that when the chips were
down,the magic that is Celtic kicked in and Martin was made an offer he
couldn’t and didn’t refuse, twice.
The Club that was rendered apart, came together on the common cause.
No big summit meetings, negotiations or any other levers of reconciliation.
Just a common understanding that we were in trouble and there was only one.
decision to make – Get behind Martin and the Team.
Saraachi has returned to boca juniors saying that much as he enjoyed his time here he wasn’t offered a permanent contract. ….
Daizen away, probably Engels and Johnston as well.
CCV back but Jota quite doubtful.
No business will be done until we get eliminated in the CL qualifiers and then it would be too late yet again.
Hope I’m wrong.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/ckgppvz2z8yo
“I didn’t like it (Manchester) at all.
People are all weird.
You walk around and you don’t know if they’re going to kill you.
The food is disgusting.
The women look like porcelain”
Clearly, Angel Di Maria’s wife is a huge loss to the diplomatic service.
HHH
Mibbees we’ll get him back over?
Saracchi is a good example of the broken nature of recruitment. A loan player on big money, playing back up to KT already on permanent big money.
It was meant to be Inamura who fitted the budget, until the usual deadline days scramble gave us a bit of “ quality “
Know what I’m saying.
Offski?
https://celtsarehere.com/celtic-fc-update-saracchi-future/
St Mirren under Stevie Robinson were all about the physical and athletic aspects of the game. Get the ball forward, get the ball in the box, make some mischief.
They had assembled a squad of payers to do just that and it worked to the extent that they won the League Cup this season. The St Mirren fans consider him to be their best manager of all time.
During the latter part of his tenure his tam’s results dipped, in part related to injuries, in part to good old bad luck. Between the impact for/against of red cards, penalties and own goals, St Mirren lost almost 5 points – ie they would have had 5 points more had luck evened itself out over the course of the season.
By comparison, Hearts were more than 6 points better off, while Celtic were 1.7 points up.
Data courtesy of Celtic By Numbers.
When Robinson left, St Mirren appointed Craig McLeish as interim. McLeish was a youth academy coach with no first team experience. He immediately changed the team’s playing style to a passing game, something that the players were not used to, or indeed particularly suited to.
Results were largely predictable.
When he took over, St Mirren were 10th in the table, 3 points ahead of Kilmarnock and 4 behind Dundee with 9 matches remaining.
They finished 11th, 6 points behind Kilmarnock and 8 behind Dundee.
To say “The way they played football this season was one of the many encouraging aspects to the campaign just finished” is true only for fans of Kilmarnock and Dundee.
They were guff.
AIPPLE fromearlier
Shankland should have had a red card against us last week
kinglubo
The Battered Bunnett
The man St. Mirren’s fans consider their greatest manager ever apparently told his players that they didn’t have the necessary technical skills to play any system apart from the one you outlined above.
St. Mirren’s form started to nosedive shortly afterwards.
TOSB – so I heard 😂
Timbhoy163 on 26th May 2026 1:34 pm
If Martin Oneil.has to become the permanent manager this season,fine but with the world cup.starting next month ,he cant do any media work,he has a big building of players leaving and coming to.Celtic.
*when he took over the disastrous KD/JB reign he then took off to work on the Euros and came back with Joos who the huns had targeted.
Patrick Thistle Nil
One other thing about St Mirren that I’ve just noticed…
In the five matches after the split, they won just 4 points; the worst of all the clubs in the bottom six.
Even the basket case that was Livingston – who sacked their second manager 3 matches before the season ended – won more points than them.
To be fair though, they did win more points than R2ngers 😂
Wilfried Nancy has claimed his Celtic players struggled to break free from their comfort zone under his management, and that his widely-criticised style went “beyond winning.” Yet the Frenchman maintains his ill-fated 33-day spell at Parkhead was a “beautiful experience” that perhaps arrived at the wrong moment.
The former Columbus Crew boss took charge following Brendan Rodgers’ departure, after Martin O’Neill had stepped in on a temporary basis. However, two wins and four defeats in six Premiership matches, coupled with a Premier Sports Cup final loss to St Mirren, prompted the Hoops board to pull the plug and send a second SOS to O’Neill.
Nancy believes his players were unwilling to buy into his approach. “When I was at Celtic, I had discussions with many players. They wanted to know when I have the ball,” he told Training Ground Guru.
“So let’s say my number six has the ball, they want to know if we play with a 4-3-3, I want to know that the name of my number eight should be there and my number 10 in this position.
“And I said okay, this gives you safety. But I don’t mind about the name. I mind about how you are going to connect with the players around you. And this could be difficult with people who don’t want to get out of their comfort zone. They’re struggling a bit with that.
Ahem CSC
frenchy phyco babble,
descarts he is not.
The Premiership has never been healthier. More of this, please..
—————–
Utter guff.
We got worse for some time, sold our goalscorers, never replaced them, then made bad decision after bad decision. Letting go of a multiple award winning manager whos team scored many many goals under the guise of “but horseshoe football” is boring, with the BEST GOAL DIFFERENCE EVER ACHIEVED OF +86.
Some teams played a better , more watchable style of football, notably Motherwell and Falkirk, and a season long endevour led to top 6 finish, but and I maintain this, Well manager is an idealist, he will not replicate hisd style in France.
Hearts, again my opinion, a one season wonder, their football wasnt any different, they got some purple patches for some players, but, they coudnt maintain it, other teams pishness (us and Rangers) let them compete to the end, I doubt it happens again. They are letting go their goalscorer captain , a talisman (iif talisman means a coneheaded loser).
Whisper this, bewcause the MSM wont tell you, the Rangers in 3rd place actually got worse, not better. For 4 seasons in a row –
they finished with leass points.
scored less goals
conceded more goals
spent more money
qualified for lesser european competitions
by any measure they are going backwards, that might let hearts or a.n.other in for a 2nd place again.
but the league being good, it isnt, do not confuse competative with best ever.
all the teams, including us as it stands, will get pumped in europe.
Worst quality top league i can remember…..
Businesses often compare their last 5 years as a method for contextualizing actual performance,
looking back 5 years to give some sort benchmark against where you are.
Saint Stivs on 26th May 2026 4:40 pm
The Premiership has never been healthier. More of this, please..
—————–
Utter guff. We got worse for some time, sold our goalscorers, never replaced them, then made bad decision after bad decision. Letting go of a multiple award winning manager who’s team scored many many goals under the guise of “but horseshoe football” is boring, with the BEST GOAL DIFFERENCE EVER ACHIEVED OF +86.
*we didnae let go of the manager, he widnae extend his contract which our de facto owner had seen as the potential for improvement in Europe, so instead of throwing MORE money at him for the rest of it which included getting pumped out of Europe by now he was allowed to leave.
I think there are a lot of parallels between Celtic and West Ham this season.
Our emergency mission was to win the league whereas theirs was survival – we were succesfull and they were not.
However, I would hope that the dysfunctionality at Celtic and the subsequent disunity is recognized and steps taken to resolve.
Personally, I would think that the amount of change needed to playing staff will result in another ‘competitive’ league next season, regardless of the amount of money we chuck at it.
89, 93, 85, 75, 72. – points won – the trend is worsening performance.
80, 93, 87, 80, 75 – goals scored – the trend is a worsening performance.
31, 37, 32, 41, 43 – goals conceded – guess what the trend is for the last 3 seasons ?
2, 2, 2, 2, 3 – och you know where i am going.
Hows that 49ers group takeover getting on ?
they might be looking for an exit strategy soon as they go out of europe,
“Our policy, our commitment is that every penny that comes into the club will be reinvested, it will go back into the club.”
2014
Login 3rd time today
HH
Agree that the league is poor.
Also believe if we had a comfortable lead in the league Hearts would have finished third.
That second place has been up for grabs a couple of time