Don’t give me any semi-final chat for now, we have a league game ahead, the biggest threat to which is to take your eye of what’s in front of us. For the next six days, the season is one game long.
St Mirren did their homework before coming to Celtic Park yesterday. The Paisley club are five points adrift at the foot of the Championship but for almost an hour were as compact and competitive as any Premiership club against Celtic this season.
There was nothing particularly innovative about their strategy; two banks of four, which seldom had more than five yards between them, with a couple of runners trying to occupy Celtic’s back line, but it wasn’t until the introduction of Patrick Roberts, and, crucially, Leigh Griffiths, that Celtic’s shape was up to the task.
Moussa Dembele and Scott Sinclair were double-marked throughout as St Mirren sacrificed control down their left. We are at the stage of the season that there can be few surprises from any team, and certainly not from these two. The challenge for Celtic is to exploit other areas of the field.
While Brendan Rodgers was right to give credit to St Mirren for their performance, from what I gather there was a bit of an inquest behind closed doors. We lost a goal to a straightforward set-piece, could easily have been two down early in the second half, and created very little before the opening goal.
Much of the afternoon took on a familiar ‘Celtic treble upset’ look. You and I have been here before. Many times. We got away with it this time, partly because we were playing a team at home who have won only four of 25 Championship games this season, but mostly because we have so much in the tank this season we can raise our game.
St Mirren have marked a few cards; no game can be taken for granted.
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Me?
Hooray!
And on Olivia’s birthday too!
Ok, ye kin com oan noo!
Och am away!
6?
7?
It’s an omen I tell ye!!
C’MON THE CELTS!!!!!!!
Hello…….hello……..
Is this Philbhoy Quick News?
Mair like Philbhoy nae news!
Non olivia happy birthday podium :-)
Am I on a parallel Blog?
AN TEARMANN
Thanks for your good wishes!
Hope you are well!
PHILBHOY
Happy 17th to Olivia.
MWD
starry plough on 6th March 2017 11:36 am
GMS’s main problem is his position is played by Scott Sinclair
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Spot on!
GMS and Forrest both play best on their “outside” sides. Sinclair and Roberts better coming inside.
I think it’s best when there is one on each side. With Forrest out it would be a good time to give Gary a go on the left.
Maybe give SS a wee break for a game or two after next week.
Paul, the only part of your article I would disagree with is that we didn’t create before Roberts and Griffiths came on.
IMHO we created at least 3 opportunities we should have converted; GMS and Moussa Dembele both had excellent chances which on another day they would have scored.
As MWD said in the last article, we should have been 2 or 3 to the good at half-time. I doubt we will play a 45 minutes as ineffectually for the rest of this season.
KTF
MWD
Cheers pal!
Hope you are well!
Keep in touch.
If I may be permitted to interrupt Philbhoy’s self-congratulatory conversation with himself …
VFR800
Forgive me if I’ve picked you up wrongly, but since you seem to have a knowledge of social housing, I’m interested in what ways you think council housing is better for tenants than that provided by housing associations (for info: I can see advantages in each) …
VIP
Yes that game was a nervous watch for a long time. But the job got down and hopefully lessons will be learned.
Here is a new piece about the abysmal Sky Sports coverage of the quarter-finals… https://theclumpany.wordpress.com/2017/03/05/the-perfect-sky-sports-panel/
As far as GMS is concerned yesterday, he was no better or no worse than most in the first half. In fact his effort was higher than most.
He was sacrificed because we had an exceptional player in his position who could be used from the bench.
KTF
Philbhoy
Hope it all goes well.tickin over grand mate..enjoyed yesterday.agree with Brendan saints are beat so far.lovin his subs and tactical chanes.
HH
Changes grrrr
HH
Jungle VIP on 6th March 2017 12:12 pm
Short answer because I’m about to go into a planning session.
Simply, they should complement each other. Housing Associations for niche, specialist housing (geography, social needs etc.); and Local Authority to provide a city wide social housing stock that provides the opportunity for tenants to move between areas and keep all rights etc.; it is also easier to provide houses for young, single people from that larger housing stock. Economies of scale and management come into play as well.
The larger LA hosing can also provide a far better and more structured approach to homelessness and anti-social tenancies.
Willing to expand at length if you want.
KTF
Vfr
I don’t think hosing anyone would be a good idea, especially at this time of the year!
:-)
AN TEARMANN
O had her party at home on Saturday.
No damage done!
Philbhoy on 6th March 2017 12:31 pm
Good spot!
I also noticed a few people commented that the state of the pitch can’t be considered too much because “it was the same pitch in the second half”; technically correct but not quite accurate.
Overall the pitch is poor but the end we were attacking in the second half is a bit better than the end we attacked in the fist half, particularly on what was our right wing. Paddy Roberts had the best of it and GMS had the worst of it.
That does come into play for close control ball players. However, I’m pretty certain Brendan will get us a new pitch for next season!
KTF
Just watched whole game again on DC sports. The difference between the two half’s was stark.
GMS started the game well and had some good touches and a good chance when put through by Armstrong on 8 mins, he couldn’t control it and lost the ball. After they scored his head seemed to go down maybe he felt he should have cut out the cross,it wasn’t his fault, everyone thought they were playing the diagonal but St Mirren slid it down our right which took everyone by surprise.
Gms did some good work after that and wasn’t afraid to get stuck in with the tackles. The problem came in or around the last third, when bearing down on goal he seemed to either panic or rush it.
He wasn’t alone btw, some slack passing from nearly all the side in that 1st half.
Some were blaming the pitch, it didn’t help, but it was the same pitch in the 2nd half. In which we were excellent.
BR did the right thing, we could all see it, and hooked him at half time.
This is not a witch-hunt or scapegoating, the lad was just having a bad day maybe even trying too hard.
I noticed the players were slow in putting out their post match Tweets, so I assumed a post mortem was under way. Not surprising.
Good Afternoon,
Good article Paul.
St Mirren’s tactics in letting Dedrick have the ball was the kind of tactic that is not going to win you games but certainly nullified the threat on the field for an hour or so.
Any team can squeeze out an unlikely goal if the Gods smile upon them and that is precisely what St Mirren achieved yesterday and then sat back and frustrated. Not appealing to watch perhaps, but effective nevertheless.
A concern for me yesterday was how it appeared that big John Sutton outmuscled Erik the Viking.
I am a big fan of Erik’s timing and power, but yesterday he had a bit of a torrid time when the ball was thrown up against him, and had St Mirren been a better team with more attacking flair then there could have been repeated balls being knocked on into channels and to people who presented a scoring threat.
Anyway, to other thoughts.
The events of last week saw many a fine word written about both Tommy Gemmell and Jim Devine (EDB).
It has always struck me as odd that fine words and tributes are often paid to people once they have passed away. People rarely get to hear such eulogies when they are living and I think that is just plain wrong.
So, let me tell a brief tale.
On Saturday I wandered down to the Eden Mill brewery in St Andrews and was met by Burnley 78 with whom I was at school many years ago. We are not in regular touch and were not particularly close in our primary days, but we obviously know one another.
Well, myself and Ruth were given a personal guided tour of the distillery and were provided with detailed explanations of what is going on at Eden Mill, its history, planned future developments, and various other aspects of the place, its personnel and its products.
In the course of the chat it became clear that our host was on site to help prepare the place for his sons 21st Birthday party later that night, yet he took the time to take himself away from that work to spend a considerable amount of time to come and show us around, provide us with a sample or two and generally make sure we had a nice experience when visiting Eden Mill.
Paul’s enthusiasm, passion and overall warm personality shone through in his explanations and descriptions and left me full of praise for what he has achieved with the business and wishing him and his colleagues every success in the future.
There was absoluteley no need for such consideration and kindness but it was greatly appreciated and welcomed.
Later on in the day, I found myself having tea with Taggsybhoy in the family Deli in Aberdour where I know many of you have been. Many will have seen his facebook post proclaiming that the Deli won a prestigious award at the weekend for the taste of their food and overall excellent offering at the Deli.
The award is no more than John and Lis deserve as they had the courage to start the business and have worked really hard at getting it to a level where it is worthy of great praise.
I love to see and hear of really good, nice and decent people making a success of things and to hear that things are going well for them and their families. People like Paul and John are inspiring, not because of their business prowess, but just how they conduct themselves, their friendliness and warmth, their willingness to take time out their day, share a cup of tea or see you round a distillery.
These are lovely people and being a lovely person and good company should always be celebrated and cherished.
In times of trouble you will walk a million miles for people like that, and in times of celebration you will walk two million.
By the way, Taggsy would not allow me to get away with this we piece if I don’t mention the fact that he receives great help from his two “wee” helpers from here — Ronny and Kevin — both of whom are gems in themselves.
There are many many good and kind people who share this blog and it has been my privilege to meet and enjoy the company of CQN’ers who are a credit to themselves and their families — and that should not only be proclaimed in times of sorrow and mourning when someone has passed.
Lastly, re the Lisbon dinner etc — I am receiving more and more e-mails from people saying that they want to come. Mouldy’s cyclists will take up around 80 places and so I have presumed that everyone on any of the big lists I have produced is coming unless they have specifically told me they will not make it.
I hope to be able to confirm all the details, take reservations and start preparing the whole night in ernest in the next couple of weeks.
If anyone else is interested in Lisbon at all then e-mail me at jjoe88@hotmail.co.uk
HH and here is to the good guys (and gals).
BRTH
BROGANROGANTREVINO&HOGAN
Best put me and my Dad in the mix too,please.
What the hell we’re gonna do to kill time and turn up sober is anyone’s guess.
I might forget to set the alarm…
Oh one other thing, Kouassi looks a handful, don’t think he’ll be coming off 2nd best in any physical contests or 50/50s.
there’ll be a concerted campaign lead by Sky and ably supported by the SMSM to highlight Kouassi’s “aggression”
i nearly spat out my tea, watching the rerun on tv to find that A Wa*ker (*insert consonant of choice) found nothing in it, Sportscene didnt pick up on it either but some SMSM wannabe website tried the “Talksport” method of engagement by highlighting something they thought they saw.
Boyata has been outstanding since coming back in to the team, some need to stop micro managing every ball, to try and prove he is ‘a bomb scare’, so they can prove a point.Support the guys in the hoops.
BARNEY67
Years ago,down in South Shields,I had to find some new mates. As you do when you move to a new area.
Didnae take long.
One of them was always called Second. Obviously I had to ask why.
Turns out he couldnae handle the bevvying and the associated piss-taking as a session went on and would frequently resort to violence.
Except he wisnae very good at it!
I reckon our new signing has no problems in that regard.
I still wish someone could clone Bertie Auld or Davie Hay though.
When Davie was on here doing a Q&A a while back,I asked him who won the tackles between him and Bertie in training. And did everyone else just shut their eyes.
He replied that they didn’t tackle each other.
No surprise,really!
Agree re: Jules Christ Kouassi Eboue – non nonsense, simple balls most of the time.
Got outstripped for pace a couple of times by their wee no 11 (I think it was 11 – rapid wee chap), as did a few others – big Mikael and Nir too.
Also made a couple of passes to the wrong team, but only a couple – almost everything else was calm and simple, and straight to a fellow Celtic player. And that tackle on the shy-line – a belter !!
Generally a very promising debut – definitely liked the look of him.
Wee BGFC likes him, so that’s good enough for me.
Still not sure what’s best to call him though – JC maybe?
HH
BGFC
1992 – Skynet becomes self-aware and it’s up to Jon Connor and Arnie to save the world.
2017 – Hun self-awareness begins but who’s going to save them? :
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MoodyBlue1872
MoodyBlue1872 is online now Five Star Poster
Join Date 04-03-2014 Posts 7,730
War chest. I’ll be honest – I’m not sure there is one.
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;))
Bmcuwp his answer was v diplomatic. I’d like to see Garner try an boot kouassi the way he booted Imrie. Don’t think he would be getting many hat tricks after that encounter.
Guinness time HH