On Friday we spoke about the mental energy deficit Celtic players would have after coming through the previous week’s upsets and triumphs. Neil Lennon picked up on the theme after the Aberdeen game, giving his players due credit for coming through a difficult week in rude shape.
Credit to Aberdeen, who scarcely crossed the halfway line during the opening period, but had the better of the second half at Celtic Park on Saturday. It is easy to point to the missing McGregor, Christie and Rogic, and to a lesser extent, Ntcham, and realise why Celtic were so lacking in creativity, putting things right in the short term is a different challenge.
I am grateful for the return of Nir Bitton after such a lengthy absence, but he is not the player we need or are missing. Changes were required at halftime, but the last thing we should have done was to remove Ewan Henderson, our creative mid, leaving Bitton and Scott Brown playing holding roles. This only served to invite Aberdeen forward.
Neil is still figuring out how to use his forward players. We tried various combinations of Oliver Burke (central then right), James Forrest (right then central), Scott Sinclair and Mikey Johnston, with Odsonne Eduard and Timo Weah making second half appearances. We appeared to be throwing players on to see what would happen. The result was as disjointed as it sounds.
Odsonne Eduard always improves the team when he comes on from the bench, but his impact is not as easy to measure when he is on from kick-off. I expect he will start at Dundee and against Newco.
James Forrest is 27 years old and whatever else you can say about him, he is a winger, not a central defender or a full back, and not a No. 10. We have a solid partnership of Kieran Tierney and Sinclair on the left. Jeremy Toljan, our new right back, should be developing a relationship with Forrest, not Forrest, then Burke, then Weah, or as it transpired, no one at all.
Celtic FC Foundation dementia work
Your Foundation deliver projects in Glasgow and Edinburgh in partnership with Alzheimer Scotland and The Eric Liddell Centre and need to raise fresh funds to ensure the work continues. To this end, the Hail, Hail Trail takes place between 12 April and 25 May. To participate, you are asked to do get sponsorship for walking a total of 130 miles (around 3 miles per day).
I do a lot or reading about running, but the literature continually says that walking is the best thing we can do for ourselves. It has health benefits that are difficult to get any other way.
So if you need an excuse to get off the couch, or if you are already walking a dog and could incorporate a good deed into your routine, sign up here.
Thank you.
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THURSDAY 12TH MARCH 1981
Fr Toner was in tonight, and brought me in some religious magazines.
My weight is 58.75 kgs. They did not take a blood sample because they want to incorporate other tests with it. So the doctor says they’ll do it next week.
Physically I have felt very tired today, between dinner time and later afternoon. I know I’m getting physically weaker. It is only to be expected. But I’m okay. I’m still getting the papers all right, but there’s nothing heartening in them. But again I expect that also and therefore I must depend entirely upon my own heart and resolve, which I will do.
I received three notes from the comrades in Armagh, God bless them again.
I heard of today’s announcement that Frank Hughes will be joining me on hunger-strike on Sunday. I have the greatest respect, admiration and confidence in Frank and I know that I am not alone. How could I ever be with comrades like those around me, in Armagh and outside.
I’ve been thinking of the comrades in Portlaoise, the visiting facilities there are inhuman. No doubt that hell-hole will also eventually explode in due time. I hope not, but Haughey’s compassion for the prisoners down there is no different from that of the Brits towards prisoners in the North and in English gaols.
I have come to understand, and with each passing day I understand increasingly more and in the most sad way, that awful fate and torture endured to the very bitter end by Frank Stagg and Michael Gaughan. Perhaps, — indeed yes! — I am more fortunate because those poor comrades were without comrades or a friendly face. They had not even the final consolation of dying in their own land. Irishmen alone and at the unmerciful ugly hands of a vindictive heartless enemy. Dear God, but I am so lucky in comparison.
I have poems in my mind, mediocre no doubt, poems of hunger strike and MacSwiney, and everything that this hunger-strike has stirred up in my heart and in my mind, but the weariness is slowly creeping in, and my heart is willing but my body wants to be lazy, so I have decided to mass all my energy and thoughts into consolidating my resistance.
That is most important. Nothing else seems to matter except that lingering constant reminding thought, ‘Never give up’. No matter how bad, how black, how painful, how heart-breaking, ‘Never give up’, ‘Never despair’, ‘Never lose hope’. Let them bastards laugh at you all they want, let them grin and jibe, allow them to persist in their humiliation, brutality, deprivations, vindictiveness, petty harassments, let them laugh now, because all of that is no longer important or worth a response.
I am making my last response to the whole vicious inhuman atrocity they call H-Block. But, unlike their laughs and jibes, our laughter will be the joy of victory and the joy of the people, our revenge will be the liberation of all and the final defeat of the oppressors of our aged nation.
50 Shades…pretty sure he can play anywhere ;-))
H.H.
TheLurkinTim on 11th March 2019 11:57 pm
‘Underlying story?…Brock Radgers leaving when he did is one…seems to me that Celtic Facing Bhlogs are being deliberately drip fed info that assassinates his character…’
####
It’s a well trodden path. Anyone who leaves after falling out with PL gets the same treatment. Bobo, Jackie Mac, NFL etc etc.
That doesn’t mean that occasionally the opprobrium isn’t appropriate.
ERNIE LYNCH on 12TH MARCH 2019 9:43 AM
Forget P.L. , what do the punters think ?
My friends in Celtic,
An Gorta Mor
£20,100, Yes a very significant amount raised and especially when the dedicated Marie Currie volunteers were out in force. Very well done to both.
We have a renewed debate on the 19th March in Glasgow on removing statues for political reasons.
All statues , memorials can be contentious to some. I support the collection on Saturday and I would suggest that it would be hypocritical for me to support one overdue statue but oppose existing historic statues in the city.
This is Glasgow’s history and it’s directly linked to why it’s population expanded.
HH to all.
GREENPINATA on 12TH MARCH 2019 9:47 AM
Well said.
Consideration for others.
Wouldn’t be like the coppers to look the other way would it, especially when it involves an entity playing out of Ibrox , no chance of any investigation into them if carried out by plod here.
Now isn`t this good .
https://www.scotsman.com/news/suspicious-packages-found-in-glasgow-and-london-claim-to-be-sent-by-ira-1-4887686
Morning All – Wee Bit Wet, Wee Bit Blustery in the Chilterns… Lovely Day All The Same…
FOOL TIME WHISTLE @ 11:55 PM,
Well a very interesting piece in Johnjames…
Of course most of the content we either knew or from subsequent decisions ascertained they must have existed.
Think JJ is often not strong in distinguishing between the SFA’s “independent!?” LNS Inquiry, which was before bankrupcy and was constructed by Stewart Regan to make Craig Whyte the scapegoat and to absolve the “real Rangers men”. And give Rangers FC a knuckle wrap..;)
It was also laying the foundations to parachute the rehabilitated Rangers into the SPL.
The LNS Commision was by the SPL after the 5WA and the “great football swindle” (c) CQN was complete and was constructed by Neil Doncaster to ensure no loose ends could come back to bite them* (*all those working hand in glove). And to give Sevco Rangers a knuckle wrap – all in all fortifying the continuity myth;)
Again, if true – all other clubs were duped & some may have a case for financial loss – Celtic?
What did strike me though was that the document only mentions EBT payments – it fails to mention DOS payments at all.
I’m not at all sure Clubs could pursue this, certainly not Celtic. The SPL is for all intents and purposes a trade body and Celtic was a member and represented at Board level, likewise the SFA.
The EBT thing is interesting. There was something of a mystery surrounding the fact that when looking to sanction Rangers for the dodgy application of the 2012 UEFA licence last year, the SFA JPDT referred the issue to CAS… (or made lip service to such). Now as this was outside CW Enduring Acts (the Res12 stuff – before Craig Whyte) it was, for me at least, a bit of a puzzle.
However this paragraph may suggest why the SFA couldn’t act…
…“EBT Payments and Arrangements” means payments made by RFC into an employee benefit trust or trusts and/or payments made by RFC into sub trusts of such trust or trusts and/or payments by such trusts and/or sub trusts and any and all arrangements, agreements and/or undertakings relating to or concerning such payments; and, “Person” includes individuals, firms, partnerships, companies, corporations, associations, organisations, governments, states, foundations, clubs and trusts, in each case whether or not having separate legal personality.
Although it doesn’t mention the DOS scheme it is a pretty comprehensive list and does NOT have a timeline. Therefore, and my usual caveat applies here – that I’m open to correction by wiser fholk than I, it will cover ALL such schemes from any Rangers Era… certainly DOS and the previous schemes Hugh Adams alluded to an awe…
Hail Hail
MACJAY1 @ 10:30 AM
Pretty tragic really – it sounds like the UK security forces have started the ball rolling on the old divide & rule again…
400 Hundred years of it… If they start “The Troubles” again it will be (another) unforgivable act by the British Government:(((
Hail Hail
CHAIRBHOY on 12TH MARCH 2019 10:46 AM
Actually , I was thinking about Celtic.
MACJAY1 @ 10:55 AM,
Ah! So this would up the anti vis~a~vive The Celtic song book!?
Well it could certainly have that affect…
Of course it will be primarily designed to Heighten tensions within the Unionist populace of Norn Iron and those whose Loyalty might wane post Brexit…
Hail Hail
Macjay 10.30
Wow!,The IRA,signatories and participants in the Good Friday Agreement,vouched for in UK parliament,in Dail Eireann,garunteed by EU and United Nations as an international treaty
Chuck it after years o peace
To send 4 letter bombs.
Macjay. Bile yir heid.
:-)
HH
Former Real Madrid and Portugal manager Queiroz has made it clear he’s a big fan of Morelos after including him ahead of £30 million Villarreal striker Carlos Bacca, who has 52 caps.
Well, well,well ….could be another new contract coming, not seen one sinc,e well last week.
Chairbhoy,
Johnjames stuff is not new(s) at all. Readers here and on TSFM will have seen this fully 6 years ago. None of the versions I’ve seen have been originals. and the MSM claimed they were “stolen” and therefore unadmissable. Craig White court case allowed them as evidence and proved there was a scam on. Regan’s position untenable following these revelations in court.
An Tearmann,
As you say, the Anglo Irish Agreement is a full blown Treaty, with legally binding rights and obligations on each signatory. What the UK seems to forget is that countries around the world may take the view that UK cannot be trusted in a trade deal if it flouts a treaty with its nearest neighbours. Perfide Albion, right enough.
AN TEARMANN on 12TH MARCH 2019 11:05 AM
CHAIRBHOY on 12TH MARCH 2019 11:02 AM
Actually , I was thinking about Celtic.
Ger57
Their treatment too of those who wish to deem themselves irish is ignored in this whole issue
They’re no listenin
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/irish-times-poll-northern-ireland-voters-do-not-want-dup-tory-brexit-1.3818264%3fmode=amp
HH
AN TEARMANN on 12TH MARCH 2019 12:07 PM
Voters in Northern Ireland overwhelmingly reject a hard Brexit, would vote to remain in the European Union in a second referendum and would prefer checks on goods travelling between Great Britain and the North rather than checks on the Irish Border, according to a special Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll in Northern Ireland.
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Yes.
As I`ve been saying for two and a half years.
This is the opportunity.
So when is your govt. going to start wooing them ?
5 of the first team squad ,make the Scottish squad, plus Morgan at Sunderland……
Macjay
Who in their right mind would want to woo the DUP.?
Anyway the easy answer to finding a Celtic boozer on the Twittering or Facing Book.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/846581628774547/permalink/2105382469561117/
GREENPINATA on 12TH MARCH 2019 12:31 PM
Not the DUP.
This mob.
Voters in Northern Ireland overwhelmingly reject a hard Brexit, would vote to remain in the European Union in a second referendum and would prefer checks on goods travelling between Great Britain and the North rather than checks on the Irish Border, according to a special Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll in Northern Ireland.
Seek an accommodation .
You`ve already got 48 or so percent onside.
MacJay, What Kevin Rudd said.
New article posted.
Steeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevie G has 3 Centre forwards on now and 2 midfielders.
Who all remembers playing Outside left, inside left, centre forward, Inside right, outside right.
D :)