…OK, I suppose we have to mention them.
I did a preview for STV on Monday and was asked what my expectations were for last night but had to admit I had zero expectations. This season I hoped we would get into the Champions League group stage, or at least, the Europa League. We remarkably overshot. My real hope for the latter stages of the tournament was that we would exit without taking a hiding.
Technically, 0-3 at home is a bit of a hiding but it doesn’t feel that way for several reasons. The first half was the best football we have seen from a Celtic team in years; far better than either of the performances against Barcelona, and on a par with anything under the Strachan and O’Neill eras. Unlike Barcelona, this match plan was flawed, but it was an honourable flaw.
The “gamble” to play Efe is one which Neil may consider, in time-honoured Celtic tradition, will be inscribed on his gravestone. When you face Juventus you need to take gambles; if they all worked, clearly, they were not gambles. This one didn’t, we learn and move on. The player put on a brave performance and I’m very proud of his achievements this month.
With an away game at the daunting Juventus Stadium to come, many considered that our best chance of qualification would be to win the home game, and we clearly went about our business with the intention of doing just that. Had we faced Juve in the group stage it is possible we would have left fewer spaces at the back. Any watching Barcelona players must have marvelled at how big Celtic Park looked on TV last night compared to their visit two months ago.
We don’t know how good Juventus would have been if we camped in front of our own penalty box, as they did for long periods, but they were a more-than-effective counter-attacking team.
It is hard to pinpoint what we were missing. Georgios Samaras would have played if fit and would have given us the height-dimension up front we lacked without him. He would also have given Gary Hooper the support he badly missed. Charlie Mulgrew’s status as Best Corner Kick Taker in Europe is at risk if he doesn’t take corner kicks until Kris Commons has innumerable tries.
Juve were prepared for the Celtic threat from corners and behaved illegally throughout the game. One of the referees should have had the strength of character to deal with the problem but they were sadly unable.
There were many positives. Emilio is back to his very best. On one occasion in the second half two Juve players were goal-side with only Forster ahead. Emilio made-up the five yard deficit and stopped the attack. His pace, skill and decision-making were first class.
Kris Commons repeatedly took-on a crowd of Juventus players before releasing a team-mate or making space for a crack at goal. He looked like he enjoyed the occasion but didn’t get the clear-cut chance his play deserved.
Lustig and Matthews are both excellent right-sided defenders with pace and skill. Kelvin Wilson did well, as did Efe for long periods. Fraser had little to do all night but had no chance with any of the goals. Victor Wanyama bossed everyone in his vicinity, and this was some vicinity. Roy Keane played 13 games for Celtic and, after an unfortunate debut, I remember thinking “This is what all the fuss is about”. Victor elicits the same sentiment; more on the consequences of this another day.
On Friday 1 March the Lisbon Lions will be at the Kerrydale Suite providing commentary and answering questions on their magnificent European Cup final win in 1967. This has never happened in 46 years since that game, to say it is a unique opportunity fails to tell the whole story.
The event is part of our 125 4 125 campaign – central to reinvigorating the charitable spirit which is part of the club we love. It will be a family occasions, tickets are available at £10 for adults and £5 for children. The night has been organised by several fans working in conjunction with the people at Celtic Charity, so please do your best to support this great occasion. Individual tickets or tables are available, details here.
[calameo code=000390171980e8545b80a lang=en page=10 hidelinks=1 width=100% height=500]
926 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- ...
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- »
Good morning fellow Celts- happy Admin Day
Saint Craigie Day
———————-
Wee Craigie pondered long and hard
How to be remembered like The Bard;
He considered a lofty statue
But knew that paint would see it marred
He thought about writing opera
Often the Fat Lady would sing;
The chance to ram it down their throats
Would be such a wondrous thing
Finally, he choose to mark the day
The sanctified king of romantic verse;
Celts forever celebrate Saint Valentine
The day he dumped Thems on their Erse
Love Sonnet 1888
Shall I compare thee to a winter’s day?
Thou art more ugly and more extreme:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal winter shall not abate
Nor lose possession of that inclemency thou owest;
And ever shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou wither
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and hastens death to thee.
It was SDM who took full control of the scottish MSM.
I heard Leckie on some radio prog whining that he wasnt as bad as the others . He said he stopped going to the south of France with the rest of the lapdogs , to be wined and dined and then fed some unexciting exclusive. They were eating out of his hand.
Even now the likes of Chick Young still refuse to say a bad word against Murray.
They were -are all in his pocket.
Happy administration day bhoys
Cold and wet in Manc
A story of tax evasion and some mad guy from Yorkshire:
http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/3746/1360835617166.jpg
I really hope the other journalist is Bill Leckie. met him in Lyon the night before big Bobo handled the baw in the Stade Gerland. Let me tell everyone that he is worse than you would imagine. He is a clown of a man!
LB
Can anyone explain to me how r*****s can go into administration but its the company who are liquidated .
The MSM are all running with stories about them going into administration a year ago today but no mention of the liquidation process that followed .
The company didn’t go into administration according to the zombies and the MSM , it was r***** s
So how can they believe it is not r******s who are being liquidated.
A poem about zombies
In a zombie apocalypse
I slay all who could not
survive
I picture all the faces
in which I hated
I picture them
as dead
To protect those
in the reason of heart
to prevent a fate
of a life empty
and husk
All in which
ignored my place
which sits low
on a food chain
now follow
and obey command
I know what’s best
unbiased, just
and true
We are all the same now
This is the end
Can your ego
with me
Pursue? ?
Justin Tallman
Time defining moments in life:
Where were you when JFK was assasinated?
Where were you at 15:30 on 14th February 2012?
Wish Don McLean would release or rewrite his song, “Govan Pie”.
HH
Happy Administration day- start of the breakdown day.
The MSM are terrified because we know there is years of material about their cosy relationship with Murray to come out. They cover every base with their peepil but we re just not allowed to say it.
Look at some of the people in high places of the MSM, TV stations, radio, papers .
Many had allegiances to the defunct tax dodgers and Minty particularly ..
Tenacity and energy like the Lance Armstrong case is what we need..
Truth will out.
Looking forward to Dundee Utd match .. Hope to see Rogic and Gershon..
Now, off to surf the papers and twitter and see if any Scottish ” journos” mention Jabba..
HH
FourGreenFields
I think Alex Thomson’s blog explains perfectly why the media say the company and not the club died.
Rotten to the core.
LB
estorilbhoy —–
Lots of Vialli interviews in the Italian media…
It doesn’t look like anybody asked for his opinion on the all in wrestling at corners thing . Doesn’t look like he saw fit to mention it . He works in the media , I imagine he understands the importance of pandering to your audience..
He praises Conte for his tactics. Playing deep, drawing Celtic in and then knife through butter..[ pandering to the audience]
Italian media dealt with the wrestling on Tuesday night ——– Some Referees allow it / UEFA don’t do anything about it . There should be a definitive statement.
Italian media are keen on examining the circumstances surrounding the confirmation of the fist goal. They ain’t happy with the official UEFA version..
“
LiviBhoy, 09:57
Sorry to disappoint but it’s not Leckie
Murdochboy@7.11
“most obvious lesson to be learnt from Tuesday’s game is that we need to change our strategy of relying so heavily on corners for goals.”
We scored 2 of our 9 CL group goals from corners (1 of that 7 was from a free kick, 1 from a pen and 5 from open play).
In the CL qualifiers, 1 of our 4 Helsinki goals was from a corner, the other 3 from open play. In the home match with Helsingborg neither of our 2 goals were scored direct from a corner though both were scored within 10 seconds of a corner being taken short. In the away tie 1 of the 2 goals was direct from a corner.
I make that 4 out of 17, less than 25% direct from a corner. There were many headed goals in that 17 but we are a long way from being merely a dead ball specialist team.
How do you define heavy reliance?
Pistorious charged with murder of his girlfriend.
Morning,
One year on and they still cant pay their bills and have a fantasist in charge…
O.G.Rafferty
Must be Keevins then.
LB
http://www.philmacgiollabhain.ie/happy-administration-day/#more-3556
Phil’s up…
Pistorious charged with murder of his girlfriend.
————————————————————
They must have enough evidence to prosecute, bet he does not have a leg to stand on.
Estorilbhoy,
Maybe describing the defending as brilliant was a bit over the top.
They did defend well but we can’t ignore the cheatin.
The thing is do they use a code to let the players know what thy can get away with.
I can’t believe the Manager walks into the dressing room and says “look I’ve had a word with the ref, man handle in the box as much as you want they won’t get a penalty today.”
R@ngers players always seemed to know how far they could push it and what they’d get away with.
Hail! Hail!
O.G.
Yesterday was worth waiting for…I’m sure today’s news will be too
Thanks for sharing
HH
Where’s the important LNS decision…???
Is there a new OG revelation coming today then ?
cavansam \o/
Vydra ?
For what it’s worth – Udinese sources have claimed that Spurs have registered an interest in Vydra .
The man who owns Udinese [ Pozzo ] owns Watford . He also owns Granada FC.
tigertim
10:23 on
14 February, 2013
Pistorious charged with murder of his girlfriend.
————————————————————
They must have enough evidence to prosecute, bet he does not have a leg to stand on.
————–
Think your on the wrong blog with that type of crap. Lazy, poor and plain wrong.
SoT,
Italian media dealt with the wrestling on Tuesday night ——– Some Referees allow it / UEFA don’t do anything about it . There should be a definitive statement.
—
Here’s a definitive statement, it’s cheating, where’s the ambiguity?
Hail! Hail!
tigertim
10:23 on 14 February, 2013
TOTALLY INAPPROPRIATE
Roses are red
T’rankers are too
You got what you deserved
So f**k you!
Admin please remove my offensive post @ 10:23, apologies to all.
Rangers spin can’t take away the disgrace
By TOM ENGLISH
Published on Thursday 14 February 2013 00:00
Not that anybody needs to look at a calendar to check, but today marks the first anniversary of Rangers entering administration.
To mark the event, there have been various retellings of this grim story in the media this week, Rangers getting in on the act themselves with a documentary – The Rising – airing tonight.
The in-house version of events might be worth a look if only to figure out how they managed to dress up the humiliation of their recent past and turn it into a positive. The Rising? It’s a little too early to say, don’t you think?
While we’re in reflective mood, this is my take on one aspect of what has happened at Rangers. Some wish to call them Sevco, but I don’t. They play in blue, they play at Ibrox, they draw massive crowds, they are the source of the same kind of obsession from across the city as they always have been, so they are Rangers. If they were a new club, then Celtic people would ignore them, but they don’t and they can’t and they never will.
But here’s the thing about acknowledging them as Rangers. Same club, same history, but same unpaid debt and, therefore, same disgrace. That hasn’t gone away. That stays. Charles Green takes the good stuff and torches the bad, he walks away from millions of pounds worth of debt (newco when it suits him) and then acclaims Rangers’ supposed newfound wealth.
One year has passed since they went into administration and nobody should forget why it happened. It happened because Rangers brazenly refused to pay a bill to the taxman of upwards of £15 million and there is no amount of Green bluster that will wipe that from the record.
estorilbhoy .
I have no ambiguity — I think it is foul play and should be treated as such .
I watched all of both of last night’s CL ties . My eyes saw 7 examples of a defender using his arms and hands to impede the movement of an attacker.[ in the penalty area ] The Referee did nothing
Should’ve read zombies for roses! D’oh.
Happy Administration Day All. RE The Game, Yes Juve defended well and both they and the Italian Press are chuffed by what they consider an excellent performance even by their standards. Yet apart from the myriad of corners which should have yielded us a couple of penaltys, we also created 4 or 5 chances which we did not take. Kris had a great chance in 1st half which he failed to properly connect with and was very unlucky with overhead kick plus we had 2 open headers from straight in front of goal, both of which should have been buried. If any of them had gone in, it would have been a different game and a different result entirely. I’m proud of the team and their display, I accept the tie is lost and we will not make the quarters but look forward with great anticipation to having another go at Juve on the 6th March.
125
livibhoy
10:08 on
14 February, 2013
Agreed mate , that explains why the MSM are covering it up but there must be a legal definition which covers this situation .
Steve Martin is a father for the first time – at 67!
Just wondering like…
If it was only the ‘holding company’ that went into Administration (then Liquidation), how come all the RFCia-il followers were bubbling like wains one year ago today?
Just wondering like….
See bill mcmurdo has taken away the comments option on his blog. :-)
They really can’t take it, can they!