It would be easy for Celtic to take their eye of the ball. A huge Scottish Cup game at Tannadice last week, which was more difficult than the score-line suggests, before Neil Lennon had what will have been a few traumatic days. The tension in the west of Scotland ahead of next weekend’s game at Ibrox is already tangible; in truth, we could do with some quiet preparation time ahead of tomorrow’s Scottish Communities League Cup Final against Kilmarnock.
Kilmarnock have no such worries. The Cup Final tomorrow is their season. Out of the Scottish Cup and certain to finish in the bottom six of the SPL, their focus will be absolute tomorrow. Kenny Shiels’ team have won only four league games since October but you will not need me to tell you two of those victories were against Rangers.
Two home wins within six days against Rangers and Aberdeen, the latter on 3 December, suggested Killie were certain to challenge for a European place this season, but things have moved south since then. They beat St Mirren on 2 January at Rugby Park before that impressive performance dumped Rangers on their bums at Ibrox last month.
Kenny Shiels made it onto Radio Scotland during the week to tell the nation that Celtic were so good it would be a travesty if they didn’t win the treble. I totally agree (and I’m warming to this guy) but Kenny knows exactly what he is doing. He intends to win the cup tomorrow and will know every potential weakness in the Celtic team.
History suggests he has a decent chance. Since winning five consecutive finals (until 1969), Celtic competed in 20 finals, winning only seven. We have some form to make up in this tournament.
Issue 7 of CQN Magazien is out now! Go to the dedicated magazine site here to read it properly (which you’ll not be able to do below).
We are now shipping hard copies of the magazine from the UK – and sold out last month (unlike Rangers tickets last week). Order your copy by clicking on the link below. If you want a copy shipped overseas (note, seas, not sees) email me, celticquicknews@gmail.com (for Britain and Ireland please use the link below).
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Ahhh Feel the Serenity..
St Sammi’s Day is Here..
Sammi The KillieSkelper to Win the Cup for Celtic..
First Scottish Cup Final Hat-Trick..since Who..?
Summa of Samaras
Great St Pats night at the Glencairn Venue in Rutherglen tonight, Clann Eireann and the great irish dancers made it a memorable doo in the Royal burgh lets hope the tic continue the celebrations.
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Courtesy The Scotsman..
Neil Lennon: My Bhoys could hold their own in England
NEIL Lennon is confident his Celtic team could hold their own in England, and believes the Premiership is not as far ahead of the Scottish game as it is often claimed.
And he is convinced some of his most promising young players will reach the very top.
Asked if he thought 20-year-old Kenyan midfielder Victor Wanyama could go all the way to the highest level in the game, he replied: “I think so. I think James Forrest (pictured) definitely could. He could go now. I think Wanyama could go now. Adam Matthews could go and play at a higher level. I think Thomas Rogne has got a bit of work to do to get there, but he is in a really good place at the minute.
“Charlie Mulgrew could play Premier League, Joe Ledley, Gary Hooper, Anthony Stokes, Georgios Samaras. The majority of them could play Premier League.
“It would be wrong for me to single any of them out, because you just don’t know where they are going to be in four or five years but, at the minute, I would have no problem taking this team to the Premier League and playing.”
The prospect of the Old Firm competing in the English top flight arises from time to time but Lennon insisted he was not trying to revive that debate and had “no idea” if it was still a possibility. “All I know is that people keep saying the English League is so far ahead of the Scottish one, and in some respects it is but this team could play in the English Premier League from what I have seen.
“They would do all right. I don’t know where we would be, but I don’t think we would get relegated.”
“Not just the quality but the prestige, the name, the support, the tradition, the history,” he continued when asked what he thought Celtic could add to the Premier League.
Lennon had a traumatic start to last week, when he was a pallbearer at the funeral of his friend Paul McBride QC on Monday then gave evidence in the trial of two men who are accused of attempting to murder him. He insisted, however, that his team’s preparation for today’s League Cup final against Kilmarnock has not suffered.
“The start of the week was very difficult, but preparations really don’t start until two or three days before a game. There’s not a lot you can talk about on a Monday or Tuesday. On a personal level, yes, it was a tough couple of days, but it is over and done with and I have got something to really get my teeth into. I have lost a good friend and I will deal with that in my own way but, as regards my job, it won’t affect that one bit.”
Summa
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Courtesy The Scotsman..
Ear we go: Georgios Samaras was the target of fans ire earlier in the season but has played a major part as Celtic bid for a treble.
By ANDREW SMITH
GEORGIOS Samaras talks with conviction of his love for Celtic. Reciprocation has been a painful process. Not so very long ago the Greek was the go-to man for the club’s support – and the country’s media – whenever a blame figure was sought for on-field failings.
Prospects for a Celtic treble seemed scarcely believable after they lost three of their opening nine league games this season. A clean sweep would have been declared unthinkable, though, were it said then that six months on Samaras would be as influential a figure at Celtic as at any time in his four-and-a-bit years in Glasgow.
The striker has already completed his own personal set of Scottish medals but is looking to add to the collection with a win over Kilmarnock in today’s Scottish Communities League Cup final. One of only three current Celtic players to have earned a league winner’s medal at the club (Scott Brown and Mark Wilson are the others), Samaras was on loan from Manchester City when the SPL was clinched in 2007-08. But personal records don’t seem to matter to the seemingly insouciant attacker. To the detractors who misunderstand his mien and mood, not enough does. It is an accusation he is quick to slap down. “If I didn’t care about the club, I would have exited,” the 27-year-old says. “I have proved I care about the club, and love the club, that is why I am here after so many years.”
Samaras has survived different eras, and errors, because Celtic has got under his skin in more satisfying ways than he has got under that of others. It is testament to his mental fortitude, never mind his faithfulness, that that is the case. The stadium jeers and the jibes in print and phone-ins to which he has been subjected would have made most players bolt at the first opportunity. Instead, he has stuck it out, and been rewarded. He reportedly turned down offers from St Etienne and Rennes in the summer, having agreed a new three-year deal months earlier.
“I had thoughts to go, but not really to say ‘OK, that’s it, let’s find a team and move on’. I had bad times and I was thinking to go, but at the end something was calling me back,” he says. “What changed my mind? Just the people working at the club and the manager, the team. I said to myself that I couldn’t find better than what I have here. Playing good football, when we can, winning games, winning trophies, playing in Europe, I was always saying to myself I had something to prove.”
His turnaround in fortunes not only suggests his own judgment but that of his manager Lennon was pretty sound. The Irishman admitted at the club’s AGM that Samaras was the sort of player who could get him the sack. Now, with the league essentially won, he has proven to be one of the players to have taken his side to within three cup games of the club’s second treble in 43 years, and the fourth in their storied history. It isn’t difficult to see why the player should appeal to those in charge. He possesses the full package: physicality deriving from his 6ft 4in frame, pace, aerial presence – which brought him a rare headed goal in the 4-0 Scottish Cup quarter-final win over Dundee United last weekend – and vision. He just doesn’t always put these together tellingly, though he has profited from a wide left role that has relieved him of the requirement to score regularly. That prowess has deserted him in the past two years, but those entrusted with picking Celtic teams since 2008 have tended to retain faith in his ability to make some sort of contribution.
“I never had a problem with the managers at this club, not with Gordon [Strachan], not with Tony Mowbray, or Lenny now,” he says. “They always believed in me. It was just time to have a run of games and that is what I have done this year where I wasn’t in and out of the team. I was in every week, and trying my best to help. I don’t know exactly where the turning point was, I just try to look to the future.”
And the immediate future at that. The club’s run of 26 domestic games unbeaten doesn’t have a relevance to what could ensue this afternoon for Samaras, whose team are the shortest of odds to win the season’s first piece of silverware. “There are no such thing as favourites in a final. Ever. When the game starts it is 50-50,” he says. “Because it is a final we need to be more focused than an SPL game. It is one game, and then it is finished. In the SPL, you have time to recover in the next games. When it is just one game, 90 minutes, 120 minutes, and penalties, you just need to focus at the top level for anything that is going to show up in the game.
“It is not about priorities. We are Celtic and we want to go and win games and win trophies. We want that for sure. If we are not 100 per cent we are not going to win it. It is a nice feeling, going to win trophies. You feel good for yourself and we want to finish this competition in the best way. You don’t think about records, we don’t look about what we did in the past. We are looking at every game separately. We want to go on the pitch to enjoy our game and of course to win. But first of all enjoy because my team-mates and all the guys in the dressing room love football. We want to go on the pitch and express ourselves.”
It may chime with the popular perception of Samaras as a man impossible to read that he claims never to be afflicted by nerves before games. “I don’t know how many games I have played in my career but maybe only once or twice have I felt nervous before I went out,” he says. “Normally my mind is just focused and ready to go out. The one game I remember was with the national team. It was against Ukraine. We played 0-0 at home for the play-offs then we went out to Ukraine and had to go there and win to get to the World Cup [in 2010]. We won 1-0 but before the game I was feeling something.”
It is not only the grounding he has received in the game across 57 appearances for a country he will represent in the Euro 2012 finals in Poland and Ukraine that has allowed him to develop a sense of detachment. “It is what I have gained with Celtic as well, when we play Champions League or Europa League; it is experience,” Samaras says. “For me, what I have learned at Celtic over these years, is that I have started to read the game more. I have learned more, I still will learn even more in the game, but for me at 27 I realise and I see things better than I used to in previous years.” Others are beginning to see him in a better light as a result.
Summa of Samaras
Just back from a fine St Patrick’s celebration at Dundee Utd Supporters Club. They hate the huns as much of the rest of us.
As fine a day it was, the highlight may well have been the start.
Passing approx 15 hun buses on the motorway. Most of them empty. And with the odd hun with heid in hands.
Heh heh, stupid huns. Back to where they belong.
Days like Today make me hate working Abroad.
What I would give to be surrounded by Tims going to the game.
The songs playing all morning,
The atmosphere in the pubs & walking to the stadium,
The huddle,
The goals,
Broonie lifting the cup,
The joy on Lenny’s face,
The celebrations,
Have a good day Bhoys & Ghirls. Mon the Hoops!
Margaret McGill
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Over the years, I have agreed with the majority of your, excellent posts and, all of your other Celtic stuff.
What I would like to do now is, shed the light on a, possible episode of two-faced conception that, yet, no one on here has identified!
That is, PL has made public ‘utterances’ along the lines of, “We don’t need Rankers etc…”
Yet, PL, who is charged with the day-day running of, ‘our’ football club, has signed the, 4 year contract with SKY TV that stipulates, that there must be 4 o## f### games therefore, indicating that, Celtic FC, vote for newco to be in the SPL ???mmmm
I desperately hope that some fellow Tim can put me straight on this subject :¬)))
Hail! Hail!
Fortunes Favour Mibbes on 18 March, 2012 at 05:23 said:
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Thats a GREAT post m8! IMO!
P.S. I always felt that, the ‘new-firm’ supporters could see the case that, the Celtic support was trying to present :¬)
Hope your keeping GHOOD my amigo.
Hail! Hail!
KEVJUNGLE,
My reading of it is that the contract allows for all Celtic v Rangers games in the SPL to be shown on SKY ,and not on ESPN.
In much the same way that it stipulates how many games in total are shown by either broadcaster.
HAPPY LEAGUE CUP FINAL DAY BHOYS N GHIRLS
BHOYS & GHIRLS
CAN WE IGNORE THE SHAME TODAY?
MAKE THIS A CELTIC DAY ON CQN.
KEEP CQN CELTIC
MWD
Well, I’ve got half a shift to put in before the game.
Today is one of those special days – Mother’s Day – God Bless Julia…
But it’s also a Celtic day. Solely Celtic.
I greatly respect Kilmarnock and Kenny Shiels, But I trully hope I’m back on here after the game a jubilant Celtic supporter.
To every one on here, at home or at home far away or indeed our magnificent travelling support – God Bless, enjoy the day and be safe as always…
U McGhee Esq.
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS on 18 March, 2012 at 06:32 said:
//////////////////
With the greatest respect
I think you have the wrong
end of the stick!
I think, the levels of duplicity that, the Celtic hierarchy are capable of engaging in are, to be laid bare over the last 4 seasons at least! IMO!
I mean, to come out in one hand and say “we don’t need Rankers…” and then, behind the scenes, sign a deal, on ‘our’ behalf, to have 4 games v’s them in a NEW TV contract, smack’s of the highest levels of, duplicity!
On one hand, the Celtic hierarchy are telling us that – we don’t need the huns.
Yet, on the other, more private hand, the Celtic hierarchy have signed the deal that keeps the huns IN the SPL!!!
I have been one of the Celtic hierarchie’s most, stern critics because, I don’t trust them!
I hope I’m wrong but…
Hail! Hail!
Paul 67
I apologise if I have broken the blog!
Hail! Hail!
“You can’t handle the TRUTH!” CSC
Good morning Celts, today is the first day of NL’s life, will he be able to motivate his players sufficiently? Will their hunger for success be the deciding factor? Is this the day that defines our manager?
So many questions and Neil Lennon will be considering them all. Killie have nowt to lose today, we have it all to win.
Mines a treble!
V
KEVJUNGLE
Why ask a question if you intend to ignore the answer?
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS on 18 March, 2012 at 07:06 said:
Why ask a question if you intend to ignore the answer?
//////////////////
Do I detect a, board-coasierupper ?
Hail! Hail!
Good morning Celts, today is the first day of NL’s life, will he be able to motivate his players sufficiently? Will their hunger for success be the deciding factor? Is this the day that defines our manager?
So many questions and Neil Lennon will be considering them all. Killie have nowt to lose today, we have it all to win.
Mines a treble!
V
heard yeh the first time Vinny..
you got a guinness heid today?
NAW,YOU DETECT SOMEONE WITHOUT AN AXE TO GRIND.
Someone who reads the facts with an open mind,no matter how it might clash with previous opinions.
Try it sometime.
Just read Ogilvies mea culpa interview in the Herald, before going to Hampden today it will be another complaint to the BBC about Chico, Chico stated on radio that Ogilvie had no EBT, then he altered that to not enough paid via EBT to Ogilvie for a good night out, 100 grand Ogilvie received! some night out, now we all know the BBC pay out fantastic salaries, clearly Chick is being paid far to much for telling lies, him and Jabba break the BBC charter of standards on Journalism far to regularly, i hope Lenny and Celtic maintain their dignified silence in regards to BBC Scotland’s footballing department as it is not worthy of its licence fee.
vham supporting lenny! @7:11
////
Write-off Kenny Sheils at your peril! :¬)
Hail! Hail!
lionroars67 on 18 March, 2012 at 07:16 said:
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Just switch-off the BBC.
Unnecassary brain-damage ! IMO!
Hail! Hail!
KevJungle
Surely, today of all days you could shut it and just enjoy being a TIM.
GEE US AWE PEACE. JUST FOR ONE F… DAY
MWD
Morning all from gay Paree: pleasant enough morning with a cup final to come!
How about this for a good omen?
On this day 18th March in 2001, Henrik Larsson scored a hat-trick to beat Kilmarnock 3-0 to lift the League Cup.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbjIWCS_bko
Will big Sammy do likewise today?
We are living the best of times, fellow Celts, enjoy the game!
KevJungle
That was meant in the nicest possible way of course.
:-)))))
MWD TAL
morning bhoys
today’s for lennie
I hope people on here do not think I am related to KevJungle!
Jungle Jim
jackiemac
you got a oub for today, i left a message on Friday night..
jackiemac
you got a pub for today, i left a message on Friday night..
JJ
We know you are his dad.
No hiding place.
How was your day in Glasgow yesterday?
MWD
.
VHman..
Get on Sammi to Score.. I very Rarely Tip him to Score these Days..
When l do.. He Normally Scores..(Because I’m off the Punt) and I’m Tipping More than 1 Goal..
He thrives Against Killie..Wasn’t even on the Bench in the 3-3 Game.. Got recalled the Following Week.. The Rest of Course is History..
Summa of Samaras
Moonbeams WD. Kano 1000 \o/ Supporting Neil Lennon 100%. Eating Jelly & Ice Cream. Awe Naw… on 18 March, 2012 at 07:22 said:
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Taken in a true, Celtic Supporting Way!
God Bless.
Hail! Hail!
Morning All from a sun kissed KA7, love it when the sun shines on a cup final day!
Big question for today is do we go with a front three of Samaras and Forrest wide of Hooper/Stokes OR a front two of Hooper & Stokes!!
Mac
MWD 0721
You put it so much better than I ever could…..
Summa
Sammi for a perfect hatrick. :-)))
What’s the news on the Bolton player?
MWD
Things to do.
People to see.
May God Bless ‘Every’ Celtic Fan.
Hail! Hail!
laters….
KevJungle
You can have your unlit candle back tomorrow. For 6 days then it’s being confiscated next Sunday too.
Hail! Hail!
MWD