Is it any compensation that POAK, who finished second to AEK last season, drew 1-1 against Benfica in Lisbon, in the Champions League playoff first leg last night? Not really, but it is a marker of the standard required to beat the Greek champions. POAK eliminated Basel 5-1 on aggregate two rounds ago. Greece are likely to have two teams in the group stage.
What might have been is irrelevant, it is more important to perform to the level required in Lithuania tomorrow evening. Celtic are far stronger than Suduva, but you and I have seen what happens when a Celtic team let standards drop away in Europe, even for a short period of a game.
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DAVID17-cheers mate?
MIT-Thanks mate you’ve got me champin at the bit now,one more day at work,or two more sleeps ?
Pog
Alexander Pope will be green with envy .
JJ
Where did that first one come from ???
CQN Meltdown……. Boyata no playing
CQN Meltdown………Boyata is playng
CQN Meltdown ……. Boyata no playing
So, are we pleased with the AEK result as it suggests they are a decent side or are we angry that that could have been us?
Goodnight all.
JJ
Anyone that is surprised at the antics of this transfer window might want to look back in time to the windows of 2004/05 and 2008/09 – both years in which we had guaranteed access to CL funds via direct entry.
Who did we sign then? Henri Camara on loan and Juninho on a Bosman to replenish an ageing team that had just lost Henrik Larsson. (2004/05)
And a championship defender (loovens), a player returning with his tail between his legs (maloney), a project that didn’t work out (crosas) and a loanee made permanent (samaras) in 2008/09. For the guts of £5-6m while the Huns, without CL football, were spending over 3 times that on EPL players and others besides.
They might want to look at the 2003/04 window where Michael gray on loan was the solitary addition to the Seville squad.
Or the 2011/12 season where we waited until the day before the crucial Europa league qualifier against sion before resigning Fraser Forster as goalkeeper. Thank god for sion’s uefa dispute.
Or maybe 2012/13 where we didn’t move a muscle in the transfer market until CL qualification had been confirmed, securing ambrose, miku and lassad – all clearly giants of football that were so swimming in offers from elite clubs and leagues that they would only countenance joining Celtic if CL football was guaranteed.
Or what about the farce of 2014/15 where assorted projects and rejects swanned in on loan at various points throughout the window – tonev, Wakaso , berget, denayer and one was signed so late he missed the European competition deadline (guidetti).
This window seems familiar and in keeping with many others in a time horizon that has straddled 5 different managers – O’Neill, strachan, Lennon, deila and Rodgers.
Let’s not get all excited by benfica failing to beat paok. It’s not relevant to considering why Celtic fc are not the best that they could be, and why they haven’t been for many years in the so called “generation of domination”.
Fine Boyata before we get rid….
By the way if I want to opine on the standard of Greek football I could just as easily reflect on hibs beating astoris tripolis
DOC. thanks for your kind wishes.hh.
HOT SMOKED on 22ND AUGUST 2018 10:10 PM
Where did that first one come from ???
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JJ, there is a disturbance in the Force ?
FRANNYB67. apologies just seen your post about Annette. she will never walk alone.hh.
POGMATHONYAHUN AKA LAIRD OF THE SMILES on 22ND AUGUST 2018 10:04 PM
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Plays for us tomorrow he’s cup tied. Sevilla interest seems to be the best chance to get rid of him.
HOT SMOKED on 22ND AUGUST 2018 10:13 PM
I’m somewhat in the pissed-off camp as I think we could have beaten Videoton in Hungary and certainly have taken a few off them at CP. AEK are not great up front despite a us shipping 3 totally preventable goals against them.
DAVID17 on 22ND AUGUST 2018 10:25 PM
Anything North of what we paid for him is a bonus. We won’t get the fabled £9 million. Anyhoos it will go straight into the biscuit tin the way things are panning out.
@ THE GLORIOUS BALANCE SHEET on 22ND AUGUST 2018 10:13 PM
A clear common denominator running throughout the time period you mention and yet there is a reticence amongst some to even acknowledge that there is any issue.
What i cannot understand is why the management of the club take this approach? It’s detrimental to both the football team and the balance sheet. Similarly, they should surely realise by now that the balance sheet can only thrive in the presence of a strong football team.
Just reading Steven Naismith is now a BBC Sportsound pundit, joining Charlie Adam and Boyd. Laughable.
DD’s purchase of Celtic shares is/was no different from his purchase of London City Airport … which he bought for 35 million and sold 11 years later for close to a billion ….
just taken longer for Celtic to escape the SPL (so the share value would appreciate sufficiently for it to make it worth his time selling) …..
and, since DD clearly sees Celtic as most valuable as a part of the Old Firm, PL”s job has been to ensure that they were kept around …. as long as he does that, and does’t make any catastrophic errors (llike actually seeing that laws and rules are enforced against Rangers), DD will make sure the PL is in place.
How much would DD’s shares be worth, if Celtic Park was empty ?
More to the point, who are the real gullibilly’s ?
Aye.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
See either Moussa or Olivier are reading Amadou Hampate Ba.
MIT-so Celtic do just enough to stay in front,but not to far that it’s not seen to be competitive ?
kevzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ,the irony zzzzzzzzzzzzz
THE GLORIOUS BALANCE SHEET
Nice to see your moniker again
while the Huns, without CL football, were spending over 3 times that on EPL players and others besides.
Was that not because Rangers were spending somebody elses money that it amounted to three times what we splashed out via Celtic supporters hard earned cash?
You paint a bleak transfer scenario but to compare it with a club that was liquidated for unpaid debt including dozens of transfers not to mention their wee ‘sporting advantage’ for ‘players they couldn’t otherwise have afforded ‘ © David Murray, kind of weakens your grim scenario, on our humble but legitimate efforts to recruit players?
The Hands that Can’t see 1031-
I honestly think qualifying for the CL is seen by some in the boardroom as a double edged sword.
Sure the money is good but it raises expectations and the wage bill through bonuses, inflated new contracts secured on the back of CL qualification etc
It opens up the prospect of complete and utter drubbings if we encounter one of the big hitters on their A game.
Much better to be in a tight contest for domestic honours with the Ibrox entity even if both sides are now irrelevant in a European context a la partizan and Red Star Belgrade.
After all for the first 12 months after the Huns were liquidated Peter Lawwell kept bemoaning how much money their demise was costing Celtic.
Then res 12 hit and the party lined changed to we are a well run club that doesn’t depend on others, here’s a cheeky wee Rory bremner joke, Glasgow derby this, Glasgow derby that etc
While the de facto owner who calls the shots is grieving about missing the rivalry with rangers , the “great club with great fans” as he calls them
We are content with CL qualification 2 years out of 5 and to be marginally ahead of the Huns. That, and hosting irrelevant crap like the commonwealth games, egg chasing flying kites about hotels, and selling the occasional player to Southampton is the sum total of our board’s ambitions
And picking up dividends and bonuses too of course
DD’s shares? £49.
If Boyata plays he is then cup tied for the rest of the Europas. Is the two teams or at least one of them interested in signing him not still in this competition. I think this the reason for his no show. Get this pussy punted and quick, he’s crap anyway.
The Glorious Balance Sheet
“Let’s not get all excited by benfica failing to beat paok.”
Absolutely. Especially as I read that AEK were only champions due to the PAOK chairman entering the field of play tooled up like John Wayne!
I really hope PL is lurking on here this week.if he doesn’t then I sincerely hope P67 is appraising him of the views of the majority on here who believe that the club simply aren’t doing enough in the transfer window – YET AGAIN!
I’ve paid for my ST and 3 CL matches so far. Unless rabbits are pulled out of hats I won’t be spending another “thin dime” this season. And NONE of the names being floated around so far are floating my boat.
So what went wrong?
bsr
What have our custodians did about the Huns cheating which included, but was not limited to, spending money they didn’t have?
Nothing. Despite our CEO being on the SPFL and SFA boards and so being in a position to at least push for sanctions. Instead he let conflicted ogilvie be re-elected unopposed
If you don’t push for justice when someone is caught cheating and you are handed the evidence of this on a plate then you can’t complain about the fact that they cheated. Or that they’re doing it again.
Watched Ajax v Dynamo Kiev tonight…great game Ajax looked very good unfortunately.Gutted not to be involved in the CL play off.
Brendan’s Presser
SID
“Is that all you’ve got, after the split Aberdeen collapsed, barely picking up another point.”
Sounds like it was enough as you acknowledge that your original point, that Aberdeen ran us close, was false.
As for the realisations I may be coming to, I prefer to articulate them for myself. I don’t need an interpreter.
Fair hill
S
Really good thought-provoking programme on RTÉ tonight presented by former president Mary McAleese in light of the pope’s imminent visit to Ireland.
Can’t do a link but it is called
Modern Family and was broadcast at 9.35pm tonight.
Oops … typing and walking
Fairhill .. I think you are right. And that is what separates us from them; our Board loves money so would do nothing that might separate us from them by too much or for too long. They, on the other hand, hate us, and would kill us off if they had the chance
Billybhoy
The irony is that the decision that so incensed the PAOK chairman (a wrongly disallowed goal) was overturned following a review after the game.
Incidentally the PAOK Director of Football followed the chairman onto the field of play, made a beeline for the referee and told him that he would personally ensure that the referee would never get to officiate another top class game of football.
Who was that director of football? A certain Lubos Michel,the Slovak referee who was in charge of the 2003 UEFA Cup final and let Porto away with murder.
But back to the point…
I’ve lurked and posted on this site since 2005.
I’ve seen numerous attempts on this site to try and mask our failures by bumming up mediocre teams that beat us in abysmal circumstances.
Artmedia in 2005. I remember their progress in the group being hailed as some sort of vindication. Can’t remember that team doing anything after that year.
Braga in 2010 were another,hyped up way beyond reality.
Hell I even heard people saying Malmo in 2015 were a good team though I heard less of that after they were pumped 8-0 by Real Madrid in the group stages.
I knew the minute the PAOK game finished last night there’d be an attempt on this site to reframe our result v AEK in a new positive light that suggested the Greeks are a rising power.
That pays no regard to the mediocrity of their national team.
Or the fact that Hibs eliminated asteras.
Whatever gets you through the night I guess.
So the Orange Order have refused requests from GCC and Police Scotland to re-route their postponed march away from St Alphonsus this Saturday. GCC have called an emergency meeting tomorrow at 10:00 to seek to impose a re-route upon them. Expect court action between now and Saturday!
KTF
BSR
A very considered, balanced but quietly-delivered damning description by BR of boyatta’s attitude. Imho
HH jg
THE GLORIOUS BALANCE SHEET
Celtic were let down by Scottish Football and its authorities, we were marginalised to the point of total isolation.
To have gone public would have made it a Celtic v Rangers fixture, ‘the authorities’, SMSM and Scotland in general as a nation, would have viewed it as such. I believe Celtic would come out second best against that line up, it terms of any sanctions, but I reckon its not over yet re ‘Sevco’, and Celtic won’t remain silent forever.
Scottish Football was let down by ‘itself’ and authority, but I don’t personally need our club to come out and say Rangers aren’t Rangers, there is no new incarnation. Rangers football club died, I don’t care particularly who their fans support now.
It’s not Rangers.