There are several parts of Tuesday’s performance which could be improved upon, parts which will be exposed by the rigours of Champions League football, but we looked like an experienced European team, one who could go away from home, roll with the early season uncertainties, but still have enough in the tank to win comfortably.
For the last couple of years we have watched a team mature while Neil Lennon has continued to add young blood to the squad. Fraser Forster has become an adept shot-stopper, puncher and kicker-with-both-feet. Joe Ledley has developed into a disciplined anchor in midfield while Adam Matthews, Victor Wanyama and Beram Kayal have progressed even quicker than I am sure the manager expected.
Last season’s Europa League campaign contributed significantly to the development. The team seemed to grow a few inches during the home win over Rennes, which propelled them onto the league title. A Champions League examination will present no fears but will expedite progress.
We could be on the verge of the first sustainable, successful, team development plan in 40 years, one that delivers titles, significant progress in Europe and lives within its means.
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bloke109
23:40 on 23 August, 2012
Sorry missed your reply last night, school night.
I think we’ll see the best of Kayal in the coming months, if he can stay injury free, if he can’t, that’s another story.
Morning Bhoys from a soggy north Glasgow.
Has this young Japanese(?) fella signed and is he either a centre half or centre forward?
hamiltontim
Still at the rumour stage, seems we have “applied”(german mates translation¨) to take him on loan.
His wiki has him as an attacking midfielder, he looked like a striker to me in the Olympics..
Interesting article on Lance Armstrong and the possibility that he will be stripped of 7 Tour titles.
A Sevco spokesman said: “Hasn’t he been punished enough already?”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2012/aug/24/how-lance-armstrong-strongarmed-cycling
HT
He’s a bit of both CH and CF.
Well a CM in fact.
MWD
Morning all
I’m just getting to the point where the delight at Tuesday’s result is subsiding, to be replaced by the nerves ahead of next week’s game. On the side, a realisation that I really couldn’t care less about tomorrow’s result.
Hoping for some juicy transfer news to take my mind off next week…
From Wikipedia: “Yūki Shunsuke Nakamura Ōtsu”
Methinks someone has been up to mischief :-)
Woke up this morning to hear that Lance Armstrong may be stripped of all his Tour wins.
Seems to have been collusion and cover up by the Cycling authorities.
Surely that cannot happen in sport.
Armstrong does not want to fight this in court after being refused a hearing in Edinburgh.
:-))
bundoran bhoy – wee oscar 4 life campaign
22:43 on 23 August, 2012
Petition to prevent the Closure of The Schiehallion Ward Playroom at Yorkhill (RHSC) Glasgow http://www.change.org/petitions/yorkhill-children-s-hospital-stop-the-closure-of-the-schiehallion-ward-playroom – very valuable resource!
A wee repost from last night, hope you don’t mind…
HH
Robert Tressel
You haven’t quite got the scenario right. What actually happens is that a chancer like me buys Lance’s old bike, change my name by deed poll to “THE Lance Armstrong”, claim Lance’s titles and then demand that I get a slot in next years Tour de France.
If anyone objects, I just call them a bigot. That’s how it works…
tim malone will tell
09:13 on 24 August, 2012
Robert Tressel
I agree and think the Bradley Wiggins win this year is tainted.
Cycling needs Armstrong.
The King Of Kings on Celtic TV freeview…
Gregor Kyle @gkOnTheHuddle
Wee reminder – all supporters can watch our exclusive interview with Henrik Larsson for free here: http://www.celticfc.tv/
Expand
Home footage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuId4B0uY30&feature=related
Starry
Thanks, is he any good???
MWD
Is he ‘we’…..:-)
Tim Malone – urine samples held for 8 years and you describe that as a ‘wee’ lesson?
You taking the p!ss?
hamiltontim
I hear good things about him from Mrs Starry’y family, they support Kashiwa Reysol where he played, her nephew is very excited that he might come to us, I sent him his first Hoops this season, Japan is on the way up in World Football might be a good move for him and for us..
moonbeams wd.
That tweet that you put up translated into..You have been signed for Celtic.
OT67
Not on google translate.
HT
We r Us. The people.
MWD
Googybhoy,
Again not quite right…cycling needs a “strong” Lance Armstrong.
In that vein, if the hills and mountains of the Pyrenees are looking a bit difficult for me, I have a couple of mates called Regan and Doncaster who will appear and give me a shove…
Celtic’s Swedish adventure in Europe and return of Rangers’ fans gives Scottish football reason to be cheerful
Reasons to be cheerful have not been abundant in the headlines about Scottish football for some time but all of a sudden a clutch of them have appeared.
By Roddy Forsyth11:00PM BST 23 Aug 2012
The most obvious was Celtic’s victory in their Champions League first-leg play-off in Helsingborg and, while the main benefits will accrue to the club if they make the group stage, Neil Lennon and his players have stood their ground against the recently prevailing feeling that it would be some time before we saw a Scottish side compete at that level again.
Of course, there is work to be done to finish the task but, barring a major calamity, we can look forward to games of substance in the east end of Glasgow until Christmas at least.
More importantly on the other side of the city, the possibility that Ibrox would be a ghost ground as fans boycotted the Charles Green regime has evidently been banished if last Saturday’s crowd – the third biggest in the UK – is a reliable measure.
The greater scheme is not clear to the Ibrox support (or anybody outside Green’s inner circle) but, for the moment, the knock-on effect is delighting the rest of the Scottish Football League Third Division and the caravan will pitch up at Berwick on Sunday. I heard one Rangers supporter say on radio that she would go to every ground in the division this season because “I love my team.”
The fan’s statement did remind this correspondent of the contestant on Groucho Marx’s 1950s TV quiz show who told him she had 10 children. When Groucho asked her why, she replied: “I love my husband”, to which he retorted: “I love my cigar – but I take it out sometimes.”
Whether Rangers fans will be so keen to insert themselves into spartan grounds in midwinter remains to be seen but the signs are that their cash will be good at away turnstiles for the duration. And speaking of cash, we now learn that, as a consequence of Uefa agreeing to operate a market pool for TV rights to international games, the SFA is liable to get £80 million more than it had budgeted for in the next four years.
The money is hugely welcome but, far from dispelling Stewart Regan’s recent prediction of “a slow lingering death” for Scottish football, the disclosure of this bonanza put him on the back foot in defence of the original statement.
To be fair, there was always bound to be a large speculative element to any prediction made before Scottish football’s broadcast partners showed their hands in the wake of Rangers’ collapse, but Regan’s forecast of doom is bandied about frequently by his detractors and it looks likely to haunt him.
A similar caveat has to be attached to the Sunderland’s £14 million bid for Steven Fletcher that will make him the most expensive Scottish player ever. Unhappily, Fletcher will not play for Craig Levein and will be unavailable for Scotland’s World Cup qualifying campaign.
And, sorry to say, the otherwise brighter outlook was also marred for Scottish fans by Everton’s victory over Manchester United on Monday night. It’s one thing to admire Marouane Fellaini on the box – and quite another to realise he will be lining up against Scotland for Belgium in Brussels in October.
Happiness is a cigar in Helsingborg
Susan Davey is not a name familiar to Scottish football fans but the economic spokesman for the Labour group on Northumberland County Council is on the ball in respect of the introduction to Scotland next April of a minimum alcohol unit price of 50p.
She has called for shops on the English side of the border to prepare for “a huge increase in trade” and, no doubt, the followers of Scottish Football League clubs visiting Berwick and Annan will take advantage of the opportunity.
However, it is another nae luck story for Rangers, who are at Berwick on Sunday and in Annan on Sept 15. The equivalent fixtures in the second half of the season fall on Feb 23 and Jan 2 respectively – both before the minimum pricing law comes in.
Davey’s proposal was condemned by MSPs in the south of Scotland, none of whom can have been in Helsingborg with Celtic this week. The town’s harbour is extremely busy, as are the ferries which sail every quarter hour to Shakespeare’s famed Elsinore – a mere 20 minutes away across the Oresund – and passengers are greeted with a sign that says: “Alcohol sold only in Danish waters, tobacco sold only in Swedish waters.”
Certainly, Danish liquor prices are lower than those in Sweden making it easier to answer the question, ‘Two beers or not two beers?’ And presumably Hamlet goes down particularly well with Elsinore cigar smokers – but only if bought on the Helsingborg side of the channel.
For the record, no one at Sheriff will tell you anything
The banning of journalists by football managers and clubs has slipped. It was always a gift to the writer involved – and his paper, which invariably pasted “The Man They Could Not Gag!!!” under his photo.
The Daily Record, it must be said, is doing its best. Their veteran football journo, Hugh Keevins is currently barred from Parkhead for some trifle or other and two more Record reporters – Keith Jackson and Craig Swan – were refused entry by Craig Levein to his press conference prior to Scotland’s friendly with Australia last week.
But it’s a thin crop compared to the good old days and in that regard it is a shame that we have not yet encountered FC Sheriff Tiraspol of Transistria. The breakaway Soviet-style republic (complete with hammer and sickle flag) is recognised by nobody, including Uefa, so Sheriff play in the league of hated neighbour Moldova – and keep winning it.
Founded by Victor Gushan, a former KGB officer in 1997, they are now the richest and most secretive club in the Moldovan league and last night met Marseille in the the Europa League qualifiers. The New York Times asked for an interview with Gushan and was told: “I am sorry but no one from the club will speak to you.”
There is a website which declares it illegal to “organise scandals at the stadium” or to bring in animals. Alas, there is no mention of what Victor and his ex-KGB pals do to recalcitrant journos like Keevins & Co.
I thought Hearts looked good last night and I was imprssed with the Arabs against Dundee. The SPL might not be the cakewalk everyone is expecting.
Hail Hail
Celtic’s imminent participation in the CL forcing Green and Sevco to bring forward their share issue plans.
I wonder why…
moonbeams wd.
Thats where I took it from.
AWE NAW 0947
Off to the customary stuttering start,and unless we can sort out the referes,you might be right.
I am nevertheless confident that the bookies have got it right.
Do you have any idea how difficult it is to type with fingers crossed?
If it hadn’t been you I was replying to,I’d have left the typos in-still scarred by our first exchange of views a few years back,haha!
Mark Hateley says that Lance Armstrong being stripped of titles is like a new signing.
Right. I’m off for a game of naked billiards.
Good morning fellow Celts from sunny Amsterdam
Seems Lance has finally been rumbled…sadly it was always a matter of time
Reading Scot David Miller’s account of the doping culture in cycling and he talks about Le Deux Peletons
Everyone knows who is or who is not doped…very few wins are clean and even then it seems they succumb to pressure to dope thereby ensuring more wins
When you consider what these guys are doing physically every day fir 3 weeks…pedalling up gradients some cars would struggle with.
It does not surprise me that UCF were involved in an alleged cover up
A wee bit like the SFA and currants….everyone knew but no-one could prove it …for a long time
The evidence is there tho’ …
HH
Lance Armstrong could always just liquidate and relaunch as The Lance Armstrong.. titles intact & they can’t pin anything to him — Brian Healy (@Brian_Healy)
Breivik sane!!
If he’s sane…so am I……and Rangers FC still exist and are a force for respect, moderation, inclusiveness.
21 years with possibility of release after 10.
Norway must have the most forgiving justice system and tolerant society. What would Thor or the Vikings have done?
Holds out hope for us all
Hail Hail
Estadio
Celtic looking to sign defender Maya Yoshido from VVV. He is being heavily linked with Southampton today right enough.
The Armstrong guilt is debatable because if he has evidence he was encouraged by the company that runs his club he can argue the club is separate from the company and its actually the company who instigated the drug use.
From VVV site.
Celtic has been reported in the race for Maya Yoshida. The Scottish champion was charmed by the Japanese International and VVV carefully informed about the conditions under which a transfer is possible.
A concrete offer is not on the table, says Managing Director Hans Soentjens, who did confirm that a delegation of Celtic tomorrow night sitting in the stands as tourist ADO Den Haag receive. Besides Celtic are therefore clubs from Belgium, Germany, England and Italy in the stands for Yoshida.
It’s obvious Lance Armstrong is a victim of ‘mismanagement’.
Edu walks away
Anyway – news of my relaunch as THE Lance Armstrong.
I have been competing in the Alf Tupper’s Fish Supper Cup – basically a knock-out competition where I had to race the wee 5 year old next door round the block.
It came down to a sprint finish but I gave the wee runt a shove and his stabilisers couldn’t save him.
The race was watched by the biggest crowd that’s ever watched a cycle race in my street…ever, ever!!!
This months Masonic Cyclist has got a picture of me on the front cover. That upstart tosser Wiggins has got a tiny paragraph on Page 5 – some crap about an Olympic time trial…
new article posted.
I see our Swedish Bhoy Mr. Lustig and Real Madrid’s brilliant defender Sergio Ramos have abandoned their sixties hippy hairstyles and gone for the short back and sides. Over to you Georgios.
Latest from Leggo:
EXCLUSIVE: GREENE IS GOD
We, Bomber and I, met Chaz in a darkened recess at the slag end of Annie Millers pub. We had a wonderful jaunty night of jolly guffaws and merry-making. It was enough to restore your faith in asset strippers the world over. Chazzer informed us that his life had encompassed some of the most vile aspects of human existence, including rampant alcohol consumption, sexual depravity, and financial impropriety mixed in with borderline criminality for good measure. Everything above board so far, we thought. Nothing out of the ordinary for a Rangers owner. He merely met the profile of all our gallant hero’s of glorious past. He was one of us, cankerous pustulating wort’s and all.
You really have to make an effort to get your name thoroughly synonymous with evil and debauchery. It doesn’t just happen spontaneously. It takes a special kind of person to be up there with the best of them. Chazzer could be our Vlad the Impaler or a Rasputin. That would put Liewell in his place.
Grigori Charles Yefimovich Greene was born in a small village in the shadow of the Yorkshire Dales, as peasant in 1948, which is not the kind of background that usually lends itself to great success in life. Despite the fact Chazza could barely read, he managed to rise to a position of nearly unprecedented power on the basis of personal charisma, evil genius, body odor, sexual profligacy, psychotic deviousness and his virtuosity with a switchblade. Nice work if you can get it. At our night in Annie Millers our man Chazza told us of chortling rip-roaring yarns of wide eyed sexual promiscuity, dabbling with the occult, political intrigue, financial fraud and insane alcoholic and drug addled orgies of feverish debauchery. Immediately Bomber and I were mesmerized by these tales of frantic derangement. It reminded us of ourselves. And we took him to our sweaty bosoms. All through the night of drunken excess Chazza was an enthralling storyteller, he was able to hold his audience spellbound. According to his daughter, the Black Virgin of Bradford (a purportedly miraculous Yorkshire icon) appeared to Mr Greene and inspired him to make the move from rural witch doctor to power behind the Imperial South Govan Throne. Although admittedly it was the last time the words Chazza and “virgin” would appear in the same sentence without the word “defile” in there somewhere.
Firstly Chazza moved to Leeds as a brutal enforcer for a local upwardly mobile heroin tycoon named The Cleaver. Between his renowned personal magnetism and his reputed 13-inch penis, Chazza was a much sought-after sexual commodity in the Leeds underworld of psychotic Dorothy’s and violent perverts. Fortunately for the ladies and even many gentleman of Yorkshire, he was also a readily accessible commodity. Chuckles was liberal with his body, giving it free license and offering it up to any takers. He was biologically accommodating and generous to a man. He made a point of distributing the ‘wealth’. For a time he even found God. As a Seventh-Day-Adventist in Redcar. He wandered the streets preaching the quite sensible notion that in order to be properly saved one first had to sin prodigiously. He reportedly entertained somewhere between hundreds and thousands of women, from all walks of life, from toothless granny hags to teenage skanks. Although he told us of uproarious legends of wild and rowdy adventures in a most bouncy flouncy boisterous fashion, he was only able to think slowly and with difficulty and to reason with a certain pain. There were lots of things he couldn’t comprehend and failed to understand complicated things, but there was an incredible force of will inside him, some might say ‘demonic’. He was able to have people hanging on his lips, endless. He was able to fill people with enthusiasm. He had a tremendous endurance regarding physical pain. He was able to bear more physical pain than anybody else. He dislocated Bombers shoulder when he arm wrestled him. He chewed and ate a pint glass. And beat a man to death with his willy.
He had a very strong perseverance. For example, if he was physically worn out, his mental powers could still force his body to keep going. He could eat more kebabs than Durranty, he could ravish more pasties than Ally, he could drink more punch of Bombers Special than the even its inventor. The man was a marvel of dissipation. He has almost no physical needs, except for illegal sex, homemade hooch, and financial irregularities. He told me that he had been depressed, felt cast out, clumsy, nervous, with little self-confidence and no friends…but the Govan opportunity was a chance to become inexplicably popular, to feel successful, worshipped as a charismatic hero by a mass of morons and half-wits.
Bomber, myself and others have called for restaurants and pubs in Glasgow to named after our new hero- Mad Charlie. Bomber even suggested naming his fine Wine Alley cocktail, his unique corpse reviver, “Lazarus Charlie”. I’m even considering naming my Leverndale Liqueur the “Tonto Greene”. Ideas have been touted of a coup at Ibrox, with Griegs statue pulled down, post Iraq invasion style, to be replaced by a 50 foot statue of Chazza made from melted down sovvy rings of the adoring multitudes. For he is our Orange exemplar, our Champion of the Empires trailer trash, the new masonic hearthrob, a Presbyterian poster boy, our tea maker. I know he is my new found hero: I knew, I, Davidas William III of Ashgill Leggat, when I looked in his eyes, the eyes, like burning coals of hypnotic intensity, that were so seductive and wickedly captivating…and all I could hear was Boney M’s 1978 hit ‘Ra-Ra-Rasputin’ ringing in my ears and the words “Buy a Season Ticket!” echoing in my head.
What is going on with the CQN’s site.