A browse at this weekend’s Scottish Cup fixtures tells you all you need to know about Celtic’s league title chances. The other contenders failed to reach this stage: Newco lost at home to Celtic, while Hearts did the same to Falkirk. We might be vulnerable, but we have won more games than anyone else in senior Scottish football. Winning is part of Celtic’s make up and is not an aptitude every club has acquired.
There is a possibility that Martin O’Neill will feel like a rich man as he contemplates his selection for Sunday. A steady drip of players returning to the squad gives him a wealth of options he was denied until recently. What he does in the middle of the park is of most consequence.
Callum McGregor, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Benjamin Nygren, Arne Engels, Reo Hatate and Luke McCowan all saw action last week against St Mirren. It was a perfect opportunity for Martin to see what works, and conversely what didn’t. I do not expect he will start with the same three (Callum, Alex, Ben).
Kelechi Iheanacho might flinch at the sights of St Mirren at Hampden, a re-run of who and where he picked up his injury in December. Managers have to consider the possibility of 120 minutes in cup games. Martin clearly does not think Kelechi fit enough to play more than 30 minutes, would he chance bringing the player on around the hour mark again? It might be safer to start him, give him the first half, then 10 minutes after the break, before asking Tomas Cvancara to see us over the line.
The rise of Gustaf Lagerbielke continues as less than a year after leaving Celtic, he helped Braga to a 2-4 win at Real Betis to secure a place in the Europa League semifinal. The player is now so far out of our reach he may has well have been spotted on the far side of the moon by Artemis II last week. Recruited in 2023, he fell out of favour when the manager secured his signature signing of Nat Phillips during the same transfer window. Criminal vandalism was done to our club.
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Excuse the repost from the last thread. Just a thought in passing, and I’ve touched on it previously…
Peter Lawwell resigned as Chairman recently and that role has been filled in the interim by Brian Wilson.
Burnley78 suggested previously that both Brian Wilson and Tom Allison would be resigning from the board this year. Tom Allison has served as the Senior Non Exec for many years. He resigned yesterday, indicating that B78 is fairly close to it. Let’s assume Brian goes shortly.
That leaves Dermot Desmond, Brian Rose and Sharon Brown as the remaining Non Execs.
Dermot has enjoyed the surreptitious status of ‘shadow executive’, meaning he has made the major decisions without formal executive responsibility.
Who’s to hold Dermot to account now? Who will supervise the executives? Who will act as the Senior Non Exec? Who will chair the various sub committees?
Remember, apart from anything else, this is a c£200 Million listed company. It’s not small beer.
We have a CEO who (sorry Michael) is in the wrong job. We have a vacancy for Head of Football Ops and the entire first team coaching staff are temps. And that’s just what we now.
If we brought in John Harvey Jones to sort it all out, where even would he start?
Leave Kel’s hamstring another week before we test it from the start.
Remember, he didn’t injure it in December. He hadn’t recovered sufficiently from the first tear three months earlier.
Recurrence is the curse of hamstring injuries, each insult adding further scar tissue. It’s a fraught business, judging when it’s completely healed and strengthened.
Emdy?
Paul67
Now appointing Nancy was real vandalism – but let’s leave that for another day.
Paul67
What larks ‘ squad vandalism ‘ to ‘ criminal damage ’? You need to see the big pickle 🥒
For every Lagerbielke there is a daisy chain of Kwons
Ask Martin about Balikwisha and Mvuka 👍
P.s. Brendan is gone – Have we even started looking for a manager?
Not confident Ian Nacho will ever be match fit before his contract runs out.
Aff oot
Tidal pool Cellardyke
Frozen Scotum CSC
Incoming…….
Play Engels from start
Great news about Lagerbielke. Expecting at least £30m for the sell-on when he moves on to Real Madrid. Might even get to spend it on some decent players if we don’t win the league.
reminds me of rubio, hegseth, vance et al….
no shame ?
but probably just click bait
again no shame
Blogger GM.
Re DD and full takeover.
At last share issue(2006 I think) did DD not get a ‘note’ from the stock exchange as his holding took him over the limit that would mean he would have to bid,I think the note allowed exemption.(he did not make a bid for all other shares)
So that option has always been there but is not taken up by DD.
All from hazy memory GM.:-)
Interesting point tho bout goin private.
Hail Hail
C. Ward
S. O’Donnell
S. Welsh
P. McGinn
T. Sparrow
J. McGhee
E. Watt
L. Fadinger
E. Longelo
E. Just
T. Maswanhise
I. Said
“Criminal vandalism was done to our club”
Desmond and his lickspittle cronies continue to do this to Celtic every minute they remain in the building.
Desperate spin, didnt see any big guns going for him when he was in Holland, it is a team game as we are finding out in that you’re only as good as your weakest position, Mjallby didn’t think he was a Celtic CH either, good luck to him in Portugal.
p67 needs to up his propoganda campaign
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/17/vengeance-for-all-how-irans-lego-videos-won-narrative-war-against-trump
Hard for me at least to disagree on this point. Lagerbielke better than Scales and Trusty.
Forgive that premature e̶j̶a̶c̶u̶ submission, my phone browser shifted the screen suddenly causing me to hit the Post button unintentionally.
What I was going to say was that if the MSM are to be believed, our first team line up next season will be as below…
C. Ward
S. O’Donnell
S. Welsh
P. McGinn
T. Sparrow
E. Watt
C. McGregor
E. Longelo
E. Just
T. Maswanhise
I. Said
Manager: Robbie Keane (though evidently he’s not!)
(Though maybe not at the same time)
I seem to rememeber being asked to agree DD did not have to buy all the shares, when he went over a certain level 38% rings a bell maybe less, this was one of the issues the City regulators had with King who just did what he liked.
the award for the biggest arse-kisser in history goes to
https://substack.com/@palestinewillbefree/note/c-244715112?r=bc5xc&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
As a bonus for the Celtic board, the aforementioned line up can probably be acquired for less than we’ll bring in for the sales of Engels and Nygren, with the wages saved by not retaining Iheanachu & Ox covering the cumulative weekly pay for the nine new incomings. 🤔
The dogs on the streets could have told you 4 months ago that Allison and Wilson were for the high road.
The Hooch salesman was merely pre-empting the news to take the sting out of it when it finally did arrive.
Ray Charles could have seen that coming, and he’s blind, and dead since 2004.
It’s a cup game and St Mirren will likely come at us in a way they wouldn’t in the league.
Leaving aside the concerns that brings defensively ( esp as we don’t seem to have a defensive midfielder on our books. – I’d start Engels ahead of the Ox for a bit more dig.), we should have more space up front for Maeda and Cvancara to run into and stretch their defence.
I don’t think Iheanacho should start – he isn’t one for big runs into space. If we don’t then score then Iheanacho for the last half hour or so to do so when , hopefully , St Mirren would tire and fall back.
It might be more likely, if Iheanacho does start and we need subs , that Tounekti comes on and Maeda goes CF.
Heaven help us if we start Iheanacho and he either gets injured again or tires without us scoring and we then bring on Cvancara. I have almost no faith that he’ll score in any game.
The CQN lead shows a certain lack of awareness…
If there is criminal vandalism in player trading at Celtic PLC, it most certainly wasn’t with Gustaf, who like Oh or Holm or Palma or many other guys, seemed to be promised first team football and a nice platform to spring their career into a proper football league.
Kelechi Iheanacho also shows more recruitment vandalism than Gustaf…
Remember, he came from a member of staffs little black book after the transfer window closed as he was a free agent, because the Board had decimated the forward line, sold our two centre forwards of repute and hadn’t made even one replacement.
Also when Celtic played Braga – Kelechi Iheanacho brushed Gustaf aside to score a perfectly good goal – VAR made an error of Dallas proportions and chalked the perfectly good goal off.
Celtic should have won, or at least drawn that match…
What is criminal is that it is Braga that is in the semi-finals, when with a bit of decent Executive leadership and investment, it would have been Celtic…
Hail Hail
The MSM would also have lots of ammo there for some punny headlines…
I Said E Just scored a last gasp winner.
E Watt?!
If we brought in John Harvey Jones to sort it all out, where even would he start?
—————-
hhhmmm. longish post, but that got my interest.
When I went to business school, JHJ was used often by lecturers along those lines, when doing case studies and exercises they would say “ask yourselves, what would Harvey Jones do ?”
I am sure there were many a person like me, working in a corporate but surrounded by executives who had got jobs by longevity, precence and the Peter principle, and you thought to yourself, seriously he wants me to do what ?
So watching JHJ on Troubleshooter was a guilty pleasure, a feeling of you shouldnt like this guy, he is the ultimate capitalist, but by having the power to state the bleedin obvious he could cut through the self interest, and indeed return a business to profitability, because for him, that was what it was all about.
Now, I cant remember everything but I am sure his core “fixes” were kind of all the same, make decisions quickly, remove the people who can say no (think our board and owner). flatten organisations, and get the workforce onside that changes were in their own self interest.
ICI were he made his successes, was also often used for case studies, as he reduced the work force massively, and I am near sure made the biggest profit ever recorded to that time.
Did he close plants in ayrshire as part of this ?
Anyways, what is the point of this ramble well, the fundamental of the Troubleshooter was that “the business” had to be “in crisis”.
I will get flack here, but quite plausible for a business analyst, without emotional attachment, to look at Celtic plc and say , in numbers terms, in finances, well, where is the crisis ?
What is the problem ? you dont like the owners, well so what, it is a plc, that effectively can act as a private company, in the hands of 3 families, they can act in self-interest all the time. NO DIVIDENDS TO PAY, and able to turn a profit, by selling assetts when it suits the business, so just because revenues are down, it does not mean the business has to fail. Just sell something.
so back to the JHJ question,
what would the bold Harvey Jones do, remember speed of decision making, take a direction for the business, flatten the organisation, and remove the decion makers who can say no.
So, what would the arch capitalist do, strap yourselves in, because there will be venture funds out there thinking the same –
* Let the current board go, those that are leaving already, let them go.
* Get the owner off the board somehow, ask him to sell up or at least stand aside from decision making.
* Decide the direction of the business , I would suggest to make it attractive he would change the model, and a normal plc dividends payout would be put in place.
* No replacement, proxy NEDS, and instead more executives with operational accountability.
* A committment to invest, but on the things that will generate revenue streams, many will hate me saying this, but replacing the customer base , finding new customers, would be a strategic plan.
It is not rocket science, just business.
No billionaires were harmed in this test case.
SPIKEYSAULDMAN on 17TH APRIL 2026 12:48 PM
the award for the biggest arse-kisser in history goes to
https://substack.com/@palestinewillbefree/note/c-244715112?r=bc5xc&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
———
That’s a fine effort by your man there but not, IMHO, even close to Gianni Infantino’s nauseating turn at the WC draw.
Bournesouprecipe
Aff oot
Tidal pool Cellardyke
Frozen Scotum CSC
…………………………
Could be a lot worse. Be thankful it’s not a frozen scrotum! 🥶🥶🥶
the long wait is over on 17th April 2026 12:52 pm
I hope the Celtic players are sitting down as a group after training and watching the video of the League Cup Final, then analyzing with the coaching staff what went wrong that day, in order to avoid a repeat this weekend.
BIGCHIPSUK on 17TH APRIL 2026 1:05 PM
the long wait is over on 17th April 2026 12:52 pm
…
From memory we man marked at corners ( insanity against a taller team) lost a goal in what 3 minutes , played 3 at the back , which always gets exposed after 60 minutes.
HH
as an aside.
I see a narrative, that Allison coming off the board is some sort of “win” for the groups wanting change.
It is nothing of the kind, and old ill man is stepping down from his position of infuence, 78 years old, 25 years in position, he was on the board because he is a part owner, and had an entitlement back in the early 2000s.
Now, more importantly, what happens with his 3.5% shareholding ?
Keep it as a block in the family ? pass it on to a favoured child ? Sell it to another primary shareholder ?
Appoint a proxy to the board, a person of his choosing and acceptable to Dermo ?
What is Willie H doing /
Chairbhoy @ 12.53
You saved me a post
100%
67ECW
another aside –
Seems, Saint have only sold 9,000 tickets, and Celtic somewhere over 32,000.
Half the West stand will be near empty it seems.
Can anyone find where you can buy general sale tickets ?
I tried CFC Tickets, but it just goes to the Hampden app.
There are 18 “rest days” between the Scottish Cup Final and the first game of the World Cup Finals, and 12 between the WC Final and the first game of the 2026-27 SPL season.
We will presumably be scouring the non WC participant market for at least some of our incomings, but any quality signings who are due to compete across the pond will have little time to complete the formalities of signing, to get to know their new teammates and to get accustomed to the new manager’s preferred playing style and demands.
Anticipate an inconsistent start to the new season as players and tactics etc. take a little time to bed in and seek to gel.
Osmand, AJ,Iheanacho trained this morning