You and I have seen it dozens of times. The manager rests half the team in a cup game against lower league opposition and those who participate somehow play as though the game was less important. Whose fault is that? Nothing gives out signals that we are not at fully strength like rotating seven players from the starting line-up.
Players are not machines; they cannot climb the mountain every time as though this time was the most crucial. That is why systems need to be robust enough to see them through mundane days. Ange Postecoglou was right to rest so many ahead of an important European game. This act, however, rendered him unable to convince those selected that their adrenalin should be pumping at full throttle.
The angry manager routine from the touchline, and no doubt at halftime, was enough of a top-up to comfortably see the game over the line. I doubt he was truly angry, as he has seen as many of these type of games as we have.
That ball from Reo Hatate to Jota for the second goal is totemic of how Celtic are playing now. In any season of the last 10, that ball would have been carried into the final third before circulating down either flank looking for an opening. This ability to exploit the space behind defenders separates the talented from the earnest.
If you wander down Buchanan St there’s a good chance you will see someone doing a Find the Lady trick, where a queen card is shuffled around a board with two others. The object is to not take your eyes off the card until you make a decision (you will still lose). Refereeing can be a bit like that. When an offence occurs that you decide is punishable with a card, keep your eyes on the player until you have sight of his number.
Referee Steven McLean decided to book the Raith player whose arm met the ball for Celtic’s late penalty. Steven, however, let his eyes wander off the already booked Sean Mackie, who handled the ball, to the uninvolved Ross Matthews. A second yellow would have been harsh for Mackie, but still………..
10 years ago today the “they are going to crash and burn” predictions we made of Oldco Rangers for 8 years came to fruition. Chairman Craig Whyte stood on the steps of Ibrox to say he was putting the club into administration. Subsequent attempts to negotiate with HMRC failed. The basket of assets were sold to a consortium and administrators Duff and Phelps wrote a letter of comfort for Companies House to permit the Newco, which had applied for membership of the SFA as Sevco Scotland, to adopt a similar trading name to Oldco: “Rangers”, would be the name.
There were dozens of ways Rangers fall from perpetual debt and losses could have ended, liquidation was not inevitable. Pain was, though. You live within your means, or you face consequences.
Newco are approaching their 10th year in business and have yet to live within their means for a single season. Like Oldco, they are playing roulette football, with no more than a gamblers chance of leaving the table with their shirt. Like Oldco, I predict they will crash and burn. It is as though there is something pathological going on.
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Onwards and upwards to Thursday!
Back in the day — SDM “buried” the TFOD to try and hang on to some of his family’s personal wealth.
The TFOD was by then surplus to his needs — shiny bauble that got him an audience with the Auld Reekie / Magic Circle financial establishment that his provincial coal man roots would not have allowed.
The squad is still settling down — not everybody knows their place and all of our performances have to be built from the ground up.
AP needs to work on the general level — the TFOD2.1 games will look after themselves.
Paul
And yet Celtic have sat back and let the same club, LNS and Res12 go by without any real comments. Disgraceful
What does TFOD mean?
In England Middlesbrough threatened to sue Derby for cheating – apparently the ex owner of Derby has come to a settlement. I think Reading are doing the same thing.
Whereas in Scotland …….
The Forces Of Darkness -TFOD
Pingback: Still pathological roulette football 10 years on | Celtic FC News Now
G-D
The forces of darkness – it’s the only abbreviation I know. I usually skip by
ernie lynch on 14th February 2022 11:56 am
You are almost as much of a hypocrite as JHB these days.
Still as long as you believe the nonsense to be true everything is ok right? Just like BJ.
TIMMY7_NOTED on 14TH FEBRUARY 2022 12:24 PM
What nonsense are you talking about?
Yeti @ the madam
Grown man interested in the social life of teenagers …
It comes with the territory when you have a family full of them.
It keeps you young / makes you shake your head / thankful that they took lead out of petrol.
A lot has happened in the last 35 / 40 years.
Hard to believe it’s ten years since Rangers were around. In fact a lot of the time it almost feels like they are still around! Crazy as that sounds….
It’s a good thing Celtic don’t need them anyway. Otherwise we would have to take another team and pretend they were Rangers. How ridiculous would that be!
Probably as good time to remind ourselves of the important role that Paul67 and others played in it, at considerable risk to themselves
It’s a great counter to the argument that blogs and social media sites are full of inconsequential guff, half-truths and ignorant assumptions that become truisms
Thumbs up for the difference makers
Some stinking entitled bigioted zombie carcass will always exisit out of Govan.
Celtic will silently acquiesce to it. Der hun will parrot their continuity pash and the needle will return to the start of the ‘jelly and ice cream’ song.
I believe this time they don’t even need the indignity of the journey around the hedges and gardens of lower league football and the petrofac cup…
Yawn csc
HH
I see Gerry “Irish tosh” McNee getting another mention last night. Eejit
As AULDHEID has been pointing out since 2012, what is the point then? If they can re-incarnate every time, where’s the sporting integrity in that. There is none, only PLC dividends and the stock price, that’s all that matters, nothing else. por cierto.
oldfirm 2012 = £49
oldfirm 2016 = £49
oldfirm 2020 = £52?
The Celtic executive didn’t address the same club issue they just slyly kept the ticket prices the same.
Celtic supporters who sing lots of Irish rebel songs, 3,000 of them, were among the 7,000 in 2016 to visit Ibrox, paid £49 and then sang “Your Not Rangers Anymore” then they’ll smugly, and conceitedly speak about Rangers fans as gulliBillys?? These Celtic fans must be dim Tims then?? Why not, they both bought the same club £49 tickets?? Bought the trick tickets which stipulate the same club, same price, then these supporters sung “Your Not Rangers Anymore” after paying for tickets which suggested same club?? Price agreed by the sly PLC??
I blame university snow flake factories full of Green Brigade & Celtic Trust folk, the same CT & GB who spent six months of the 10 season in the Parkhead car park protesting about “PLC frauds” then the CT & GB heard the ticket renewal bell, called off the protests, then financially backed the “PLC Frauds” with a 53,000 season ticket sell out??
PLC Frauds??
CT & GB Frauds??
The truth will not be spoken by any of these frauds. That’s a FACt.
Now their team is in the losers lounge of Europe.
And then they vote for a political party that detests Celtic, Catholic’s, Irish, Gypsies, White people, Black people, pays lip service about refugees then uses their names to rig elections, hates women, children, working class, ffs
tic, toc….
“Like Oldco, I predict they will crash and burn”.
Every year since they were liquidated, we’ve heard that sevco won’t make payroll, that their stadium is falling down, that they don’t have a credit line at a bank, that Mike Ashley will bury them, that UEFA will punish them over FFP . . . but they keep issuing new shares, their directors keep buying them and the merry-go-round keeps spinning. Obviously they are not paying Ramsey’s 400,000 euro a month salary but God do they love the world of football to think that they can afford him.
Been a while since we heard of the fabled Hong Kong investor who had gazillions to give them – wonder what happened to him?
Nice on Pablo.
I’ve been away from Celtic cyberspace for 18 hours (feels like an eternity) so might be late to the party on some topics ….
“That ball from Reo Hatate to Jota for the second goal is totemic of how Celtic are playing now”
i.e. we’ve dispensed with the 50 lateral passes 30 yards out yawn fest and are applying genuine pressure through the simple compounding of possession, territory and speed. (Thank the Lord).
“A second yellow would have been harsh for Mackie”
Why?
Deliberate stamp on Maeda – yellow
Deliberate hand ball block of goal bound shot – yellow.
What prompted the Sevco bit of the new article?
Have they done something silly which has recently emerged?
PS – 10 years, 1 trophy?
An abject failure of a project.
Long may it continue !
Letter of comfort, first i’ve heard of it applying to Sevco, heard of it in the context of someone doing something to their home without council permission and having to get a letter from the council to say it’s ok.
I’m sure there was something to prevent a business in admin continue trading using a name that is similar to the one in administration, but normal rules dont apply.
Fraud then, fraud now.
Happy administration day.
Park
Pissing on the support again
Park
No mention of George Galloway – must be some mistake surely
GENE @ 12:17
Paul
And yet Celtic have sat back and let the same club, LNS and Res12 go by without any real comments. Disgraceful
—-
What good would Celtic getting involved have actually achieved?
The consequential damage to the brand that still trades out of Ibrox was harsher & deeper than anyone could/would have imagined at the time, and is impacting even now, ten years down the line, as Paul rightly says.
Celtic was right to distance itself from the whole farce and let things take their natural & disastrous course. If our club had got involved in the sh** storm at that time, we would have surely received some collateral splatter as the media would have looked for the ‘old firm’ angle.
Rangers FC, Sevco & Sevco Scotland, were busy digging a hole, why on earth would we have wanted to jump in beside them? We would have been pulled into court cases and the like, which in all probability would still be going on.
Apart from trying to score some debating points, there was absolutely no advantage to Celtic to get involved. It would have made no difference to our club then or, now. If we had tried to ‘nail’ Rangers FC on certain issues at that time, we would have been seen in the football world as kicking our greatest rivals when they were down – that would have reflected badly on Celtic & would still be remembered as part of the fiasco even now.
By ‘swerving the crap’, we went on to have the second-most successful football period in our history…and became the most financially successful entity in Scottish sporting history.
“When your opponent is making a fool of themselves, don’t interrupt”
Gene
Park is only passing on himself
He never gave the Kelly’s money either
Stuck in a confused and irrational bubble
He can’t get out of.repeating it only shows that
Angry at himself maybeez,but stopped goin to see Celtic light years ago,types tho.
HH
It was never about “interrupting them”, it’s about the integrity aspect which far outweighs any media soundbite. These are always used as a reason, but many of us know they are just an excuse to justify no action being taken, here’s a soundbite ” you can fool some of the people some of the time, but, you can’t fool all of the people all of the time”. If it were to happen again, I’m pretty sure this time the season ticket sales won’t be the same, I can vouch for my 2, they will not be renewed, as much as that would sadden me after 60yrs supporting the club, but so be it. por cierto
JHB on 14TH FEBRUARY 2022 1:16 PM
The huns being allowed to pretend the old club didn’t die has left Scottish football devoid of integrity.
It’s just a world of make believe. A fantasy land. A joke.
Celtic could have retained some integrity if they’d made it clear right at the start that they weren’t going along with the pretence.
But they didn’t.
And the way they’ve dealt with things since, specifically Res 12, makes you wonder just how deep the rot is.
Jhb.
You really show your ignorance of
Celtic share issues
Celtic shareholders
Celtic shareholder resolutions
You do exactly as any media man will do
1.not read res12
2.not understand res 12
Celtic board answering shareholders is right and just
Celtic board answering Celtic shareholders is right and just in pursuance of truth to Celtic shareholders
Your hun variations are not even mentioned in res12
Do take that in? Your paragraphs again pick up the narrative incorrectly, conflating what criminal behaviour going on at cheatpark with Celtic shareholders pursuing issues within our own club.
Conflate and involve your symbol of how to do business in Scotland.
Its lazy
That don’t surprise me.
Sunrise 07:46 Sunset17:19
Ah, ’tis the day the banter died!
I’ve hardly spoke to a hun since 2012. I worked in a large call centre in Glasgow and after Admin Day the two camps separated completely. No mixing in the staff restaurant or at social events. I barely spoke to a hun between then and October 2016 when I took early retirement. And I virtually haven’t since.
In the early days they were humiliated and angry. Then the brainwashing set in. I actually witnessed two huns who had given £1700 to Sir Duped for a seat for life at Ibrox insisting it was the same club despite have received their “Dear John” letter from Ibrox advising them that the Liquidators would be in touch!
It was at that point I realised it would be utterly futile to try and discuss the matter with them – and I haven’t ever since!
We should all diary a reminder to send the club a 10th birthday card on 29th May 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAV_YesiGI4&ab_channel=CelticFC
smiley a toast to the lassies thing
hoopy admin day valentino,s
Braw
Looking forward to the game on Thursday but also hoping that we don’t sleepwalk into it like we have done at this time of year a few times in the last decade.
I think getting through the tie, no matter what the competition name is, would be a massive boost for the run in.
Hoping for a whirlwind 1st half and sensible second half to take a lead to Norway
Hail Hail
JHB
Might have shown the board had a set. It would have been the right thing to do to maintain integrity – which is important to some of us.
SHAUNAMURA on 14TH FEBRUARY 2022 12:29 PM
Big Jimmy
If you recall during the flat season we discussed a certain trainer one sir Mark Todd
Just caught the video of his brutal treatment of a horse in his charge [truly horrific]
To think this entitled bully owes his entire success as an Eventer to these magnificent animals makes me despair
Hope he never trains another winner
……………….
Sorry Mate but I can NOT honestly remember ever discussing Mark Todd with you or anyone else, and when I saw ” The HEADLINE” of the article about his cruelty to a poor helpless horse, his name STILL didnt register with me ? Becuase of the cruelty aspect, I couldnt bring myself to read any details, such is my disgust.
I hope the HE NEVER is allowed to Train or keep Horses ever again, or ANY other animal whatsoeover.
I HATE Cruelty to animals.
HH Mate.
If Newco go tits up again, what will the new lot be called, Newco 2 or just Bigot Athletic
KINGLuBO
Ernie 1.32pm
Spot on.
WG
“Mikey Johnston is a cheeky boy, but someone I really like and I really want to do well. He’s an incredibly talented player.
“He’s been through a lot of difficult injuries that maybe people on the outside don’t necessarily understand. t’s not their job to understand, but he’s getting his head down, he’s got a good personality and he’s a top player.”
Come on Mikey – we support you through and through.
SCULLYBHOY on 14TH FEBRUARY 2022 2:27 PM
———
I saw that from Hart, really supportive from a senior player. I think Joe has brought so much more to the squad than just his saves.
I was gutted for Johnston , so many injuries he gets are long term ones. Hope to see him back in a week or two