Simunovic, the stats don’t lie

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It was good to see Jozo Simunovic return to the starting line-up on Sunday. He is every inch the player we hoped he would be when he joined from Dimano Zagreb two years ago, but that was in doubt as recently as August last year, when Celtic allowed the player to travel to Italy to secure his exit from the club.

That month he and, then injured, Dedryck Boyata were well out of the picture as Celtic played their most important games of the season. Against Hapoel Be’re Shiva in the Champions League play-off round, we played Toure and O’Connell in central defence at home, with Toure and Lustig in the middle for the crucial game in Israel.

The earlier round against Astana saw O’Connell pair with Lustig in one game and Ambrose in the other. When you consider Saidy Janko started two of those four games, you appreciate how far we’ve come defensively in six months. Would you bet on Celtic to qualify for the Champions League with a defence drawn from that pool? I wouldn’t.

Dundee’s spectacular goal on Sunday (through no fault of Jozo’s) was only the second goal we’ve conceded with the Croat on the field since Dundee last scored against us. The defender aided Celtic to six clean sheets in seven games in that time.

We’ve now conceded once in each of our last three games, if Jozo remains fit, he’ll tidy up that statistic.

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  1. My friends in Celtic,

     

     

    Has a ” Pop up bar ” been seriously discussed for the Celtic Way. Some people i was talking to yesterday reckoned it was a goer.Not me I may add.

     

    The merits for a cafe were also discussed. The train of though was that the award winning cafe at the Emirates which is opened 8 am to 8 pm Monday to Friday with slightly lesser times at the weekend was adequate for our requirements at this current time. Again, not necessarily my own view.

     

     

    HH.

  2. VFR800

     

    Agree on Erik poor positional sense.

     

    He often takes the wrong angle putting himself in a position that he has to recover from.

     

    He is still young and with proper coaching it can be rectified,

     

    Maybe central defender is not a position he is suited to?

  3. The Green Jedi on

    I used to really rate Erik, but someone within him has changed since The Hogmaynay game at the Death star, his awful positioning and distribution from the back was terrible and was responsible for the gaol that day, almost two when he gave the ball away twice in the first minute of the game. A spell on the out of the team to regain his sharpness and rest will do him good.

     

     

    He had a poor enough game against Sevco a few weeks ago, but then again apart from Craig Gordan who didn’t that day. However allowing himself to be rag dolled all over the park by Waghorn & Miller and then making the former look like Usain Bolt just put the tin hat on it . I wasn’t surprised nor disappointed to see him been dropped for the Dundee game last Sunday. I’s imaging by now, BR now knows who his CB partnership is going to be for the Scottish Cup and the qualifiers in July.

  4. Just seen news from Westminster, someone lying on the ground obviously seriously injured, emergency services not yet there at the time. My point is instead of helping the person decided to get his phone out and film it. It wouldn’t be my first thought FFS.

  5. Geordie Munro on

    I can’t recall many comments from last year about the awful side to Eriks game.

     

     

    So has Brendan coached this into him?

     

     

    Or has he just had a couple of bad games and needs rested?

     

     

    Or is he simply this months escaped goat?

     

     

    HH

  6. Geordie Munro on

    Or was there loads of comments last season about him and my memory is just rubbidge? :)

     

     

    HH

  7. !!Bada Bing!! on

    BARNEY67 on 22ND MARCH 2017 4:07 PM

     

    Just seen news from Westminster, someone lying on the ground obviously seriously injured, emergency services not yet there at the time. My point is instead of helping the person decided to get his phone out and film it. It wouldn’t be my first thought FFS.

     

    I said the same after the bin lorry crash in Glasgow mate,more a case of get your phone out instead of get your finger out

  8. !!BADA BING!! on 22ND MARCH 2017 4:28 PM

     

     

    Sadly it’s some people’s first reaction.

  9. Thunder Road on 22nd March 2017 9:36 am

     

     

    Petec

     

     

    It can take a bit of sifting through various threads on many sites to find someone that has had what sounds like the same symptoms as yourself but it can be worth doing to perhaps avoid a hefty bill from a garage.

     

     

    Good luck with it.

     

     

    …………………………………………………………………………………….

     

     

    I think nowadays you can be the best Mechanic in the World and get no where.

     

     

    The Terminator.

     

     

    The Sensors dinnae have a clue.

     

     

    Thanks be to you and everyone else for advice in sorting it.

     

     

    Booked in Tomorrow morning.

     

     

    ……………………………………………………………

     

     

    I Wonder what the outcome will be of this attack on Parliament. A final Hegelian DialACTic.

     

     

    Freedom is Tchaikovsky. See ya.

     

     

    HH

  10. !!BADA BING!! on 22ND MARCH 2017 4:28 PM

     

    BARNEY67 on 22ND MARCH 2017 4:07 PM

     

     

    Just seen news from Westminster, someone lying on the ground obviously seriously injured, emergency services not yet there at the time. My point is instead of helping the person decided to get his phone out and film it. It wouldn’t be my first thought FFS.

     

     

    I said the same after the bin lorry crash in Glasgow mate,more a case of get your phone out instead of get your finger out.

     

     

    Agree with above. The whole obsession with mobile phones is simply a symptom of an increasingly OVER THE TOP, WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY, society.

  11. Further to previous post. Nowadays, one is taken aback if on hearing part of a conversation behind you, you turn around and find someone actually talking to another person and not mouthing off into a phone.

  12. Rock Tree Bhoy on

    FrannyB67 @ 4.30 – Yeah agreed, Clint Hill quickest to react to the CG save – quite shocking really.

  13. Paul67

     

     

    I think we’d still sell Jozo, he’s very fragile and used sparingly. With Kolo Toure out of the picture, and on a one year deal we should be looking for a new Centre Back for the qualifiers.

     

     

    IMHO Csc

  14. Fake news indeed

     

     

    Creating False News

     

    March 22, 2017 by danny

     

    Website

     

    On BBC Radio Ulster’s Talkback today (22nd March) a story about Martin McGuinness was repeated, a story aimed at illustrating that Martin McGuinness was callous towards victims and not sincere in his attempts at reconciliation. Stories like this can affect people’s attitudes, and responses, and, arguably, even the decisions they make.

     

    The first time I heard the story was in a report about a meeting in Stormont organised two weeks ago by TUV leader Jim Allister to commemorate ‘European Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Terrorism’.

     

    One of the speakers was David Kelly.

     

    David Kelly was just nine years of age when his father, Patrick Kelly, a private in the Irish Army, was killed by the IRA in Leitrim during an attempt to rescue kidnapped supermarket executive Don Tidey in 1983. Mr Kelly’s widow and her four sons later moved to England, where the family suffered terribly and were deeply unhappy. David moved back to Ireland in 2008, at the age of thirty-four. Another of his brothers joined the Irish Army to honour his father and because of his pride in him.

     

    Mr Kelly told the Stormont meeting that in 2011, when Martin McGuinness was running as a candidate in the Presidential election, he confronted him and asked for help in finding his father’s killers, but was told “to move on”. Then he qualified this remark: “He [McGuinness] told me it was time to move on. He said that to my face. My father was doing his duty, providing for a young family, gave his life for his country.”

     

    There is a huge difference between “move on”, which suggests “get out of my way”, and “time to move on”, as I shall illustrate by the actual contemporaneous reports of Mr Kelly’s confrontation with Mr McGuinness in 2011.

     

    The account of the confrontation can be found in the Irish Times, 11th October, 2011, and can be read here

     

    It reports:

     

    ‘“I don’t know who was responsible for the killing of your father but I fully and absolutely sympathise with you,” Mr McGuinness replied. “I have been at the heart of a very important peace process in the North over the last 20 years which has brought conflict and violence and death to an end and I am going to continue with that work because that’s the work of peace.”

     

    ‘“This is in the past you are heartbroken on account of it and my sympathy is 100 per cent with you and your family,” he added.’

     

    ‘Mr Kelly continued, “I just want to say to you before there can be any reconciliation in this country there has to be truth”.

     

    ‘Mr McGuinness replied: “Absolutely and we have proposed that there should be an international independent commission on truth.”’

     

    The journalist who witnessed the exchange, Eoghan MacConnell, makes no mention of McGuinness telling David Kelly “to move on” or, even, “it’s time to move on”, or even that anyone in McGuinness’s entourage told him to move on.

     

    But one local journalist, Karen Downey, does quote Mr Kelly as using similar words:

     

    ‘“I asked him to reveal the identity of those killers, those killers directly should go to the guards, do the decent thing, go to the authorities and hand themselves in and then we might have some justice, some truth and then maybe we can think about moving on in this country,” he [Mr Kelly] told the Westmeath Independent.’

     

    Other reports of the confrontation in the Irish Independent, Irish Examiner and on RTE make no reference to the “move on” comments attributed to McGuinness.

     

    In July 2012 when David Kelly accepted the Military Star Medal, awarded posthumously to his father, he makes no such claim about Mr McGuinness.

     

    Again, when speaking before Westminster MPs last November at the launch of a book, Mr Kelly makes no such claim about Martin McGuinness.

     

    So, how did the perception arise that Martin McGuinness used those words which would add great pain and distress to someone who had already lost a loved one at the hands of the IRA?

     

    It was the News Letter on the 13th March which used the ambiguous headline, “Martin McGuinness told me to ‘move on’”. It also reported that when the audience heard the alleged remarks it prompted “a collective gasp of horror.” Clearly, the audience understood the words to mean that McGuinness was cold and heartless towards a son whose father was a victim of the IRA.

     

    But it was on BBC2’s Newsnight, only hours after the death of Martin McGuinness, that the totally false construction on words that McGuinness hadn’t even used was reinforced.

     

    Austin Stack’s father, Brian Stack was the chief prison officer at Portlaoise Prison and was mortally wounded by the IRA in 1983. He told Newsnight:

     

    ‘“My friend David Kelly, whose father private Paddy Kelly was shot by the IRA… David approached Martin McGuinness asking him for answers in 2011 and Martin McGuinness shunted him away with the words ‘just move on, you’.”’

     

    Hundreds of thousands of viewers received that news as fact, last night, and, again, on Talkback this afternoon. People in the South, people in the North. These include unionist voters whose support for power-sharing, reconciliation and the resolution of legacy issues is crucial, but who are as vulnerable as we all are to crude propaganda, often which it is impossible to discern.

     

    The anger, passion, loss and sense of injustice felt by victims of the IRA towards republicans is completely understandable.

     

    But what Austin Stack is saying about Martin McGuinness is not only unfounded but is patently untrue. His reasons for saying it might be understandable – to paint Martin McGuinness in as bad a light as possible.

     

    But it is also understandable that those who admire and revere Martin McGuinness and his memory will call out a lie about him, especially when such a lie may well influence people and can affect judgements about the peace process and its future.

     

     

    Tags:

  15. Through A Green Glass Brightly on

    PETEC – 4:56 PM

     

     

     

    “I Wonder what the outcome will be of this attack on Parliament. A final Hegelian DialACTic.

     

     

    Freedom is Tchaikovsky. See ya.”

     

     

     

    Tried putting this through Google translate but no joy, anyone any idea?

     

     

     

    HH

  16. Ps

     

    Sorry for the length of article but worth a read.

     

    What depths will they plumb to demonise the dead

     

    HH

  17. mild mannered Pedro delgado on

    Well said geordie Munro

     

     

    Erik was my first defensive pick last season

     

     

    But

     

     

    I’ve got to say he made mistakes against the team the Huns supporti at the game at ibrox

     

     

    And he looked racked with nerves against them at paradise for some reason(sic count Arthur strong)

  18. It should also be recognised that mobile footage is invaluable for all sorts of reasons nowadays.

     

     

    Does not make it right though.

  19. Through A Green Glass Brightly on 22nd March 2017 5:56 pm

     

     

    PETEC – 4:56 PM

     

     

    “I Wonder what the outcome will be of this attack on Parliament. A final Hegelian DialACTic.

     

     

    Freedom is Tchaikovsky. See ya.”

     

     

    Tried putting this through Google translate but no joy, anyone any idea?

     

     

    HH

     

    …………………………………………………………………………………………………….

     

     

    Leave it Yeah.

     

     

    From the Great to the Absurd.

     

     

    5:54 & 5:56

  20. AuroraBorealis79 on

    GEORDIE MUNRO on 22ND MARCH 2017 4:10 PM

     

    Or was there loads of comments last season about him and my memory is just rubbidge? :)

     

    ____________

     

    There were a lot of comments about him last season for sure. Altho they seemed to go along the line of future captain.

     

     

    I think the game against the huns in last years Scottish Cup Semi he came on as an early & tightened up what was a faltering defence. I stand to be corrected.

     

     

    Maybe he the opposition have just discovered his weaknesses altho, from my point of view there always was a question mark over his speed & height.

     

     

    UsuallyWrongCSC

  21. VFR800 is now a Monster 821 on

    FAN-A-TIC on 22ND MARCH 2017 3:58 PM

     

     

    Yep he looked out best CB last season but that’s, IMHO, because of the competition last season.

     

     

    Simunovic and Boyata are playing much better and as a result Erik’s shortcomings are being highlighted.

     

     

     

    KTF

  22. Who wants it, Who wants a Rewind?

     

     

    ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

     

     

    starry plough on 22nd March 2017 6:25 pm

     

     

    Mobile phoned Marxists and a new escape goat, International week is starting to pick up pace:))

     

     

    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

     

     

    That Goat isnae a Sheep

     

     

    I witnessed a Loyalist Mural in Belfast that had 6 Fingers. That is straight up Worship of the Fallen Angels. I really hope that that Mural was just a Clueless artist. Somehow, I doubt it.

     

     

    God Bless EVERY Belfast Celt and Belfast Celtic.

  23. Mon The Hoops! on

    Did Sviatchenko and Anne Rudmose not have a baby about a year ago?

     

    Maybe he just needs more sleep…

  24. AuroraBorealis79 on

    !!BADA BING!! on 22ND MARCH 2017 4:28 PM

     

    BARNEY67 on 22ND MARCH 2017 4:07 PM

     

     

    Just seen news from Westminster, someone lying on the ground obviously seriously injured, emergency services not yet there at the time. My point is instead of helping the person decided to get his phone out and film it. It wouldn’t be my first thought FFS.

     

     

    I said the same after the bin lorry crash in Glasgow mate,more a case of get your phone out instead of get your finger out

     

    _______________________

     

    Too many Egomaniacs that wanna be the first to get it up first on their facebook page.

     

     

    Today’s world eh.

     

     

     

    I just can’t help but think back to the recent threats made by another Egomaniac, Erdogan of Turkey.

     

     

    “You will pay for this” after his recent failure to bully the Dutch & Germans into allowing his cronies to host election rallies in said countries.

     

     

    So often he or Netenyahu don’t get what they want from Europe & Jihadi terrorism follows.

  25. BABASONICOS71 on

    STARRY…

     

    You get a pass mhate,it’s your job.The amateur permafilmers though,to quote Garth,”Live in the NOW!” ;))

     

     

    TIMENPLACEcsc

  26. PETEC

     

     

    So what?

     

     

    People worship what ever they want, you worship Jesus millions don’t, people worship football player millions don’t, it makes no earthly difference who or what people worship.

     

     

    The idea that there is only one true way is the greatest divider on the planet.

     

     

    People learn to get on or everyone dies it’s that simple..

     

     

    HH

  27. Stuart is going to be a Tremendous Capitano. When Broonster leaves the Arena.

     

     

    Scottie wullnae be playing anything near the games he has played this Season, next Season.