When I heard of Liverpool’s freak 3-0 defeat to Watford on Saturday, their first in the league this season, it portended to how Celtic are vulnerable to a cup upset. Football is not a sport where winning all the time is possible.
Even great teams score with a small percentage of their chances and sometimes will miss all chances in a game. Conversely, underdogs will sometimes score with their only chance(s) in a game; cup upsets are a statistical certainty.
As a consequence, this impossibly long run of domestic cup success simply has to end sometime and Perth on Sunday had all the hallmarks of the classic upset. St Johnstone are on form, the pitch was rutted and sodden; the weather, inclement. St Johnstone players were watching television on Thursday, while Celtic’s were exhausting limbs in a failed attempt to remain in Europe.
You will have noted that the only time any of our 33 previous cup games finished level after 90 minutes was at home to Dunfermline this season – immediately after our Champions League qualification defeat to Cluj. That European result hovered ominously over the domestic cup game; players are only human, full of human emotions. Perhaps that Dunfermline game put steel in the legs yesterday.
It takes more than good form, a horrible pitch, a sore European defeat and awful weather to knock this Celtic team out of a cup. The sheer determination to win, which was evident at Hampden in December’s League Cup Final, decided the outcome of yesterday’s Scottish Cup quarterfinal.
We are watching a dressing room united and with common purpose, unlike others I could mention. 34 consecutive cup wins is nothing short of miraculous, but the more miracles you perform, the more real estate you occupy in the minds of your opponents. Does anyone really expect to knock Celtic out of a cup these days?
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ANGELA MERKEL’s Interior Minister Horst Seehofer was caught refusing to shake the German Chancellor’s hand at a press conference on Monday, amid fears of coronavirus spreading.
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No high fiving , then.
Coronavirus in Italy .
Government Official stated that as of 12 noon today —
1700 confirmed cases
37 dead ( the majority of whom said to be over 60 with many having pre existing chronic health issues )
Italy made an early decision to ban all flights from China to Italy . That didn’t stop people flying from China to places like Germany / France / Switzerland and then travelling to Italy !
Macjay
If the governments of the world were serious about containing this all flights, unless absolutely necessary should have been grounded. Too late now unfortunately as people are obviously more expendable than big business.
I think the reason the west are struggling to control this is that they have more scruples than the Chinese.
I think the Chinese solution is the only one left tbh…
MACJAY1 FOR NEIL LENNON on 2ND MARCH 2020 1:38 PM
ANGELA MERKEL’s Interior Minister Horst Seehofer was caught refusing to shake the German Chancellor’s hand at a press conference on Monday, amid fears of coronavirus spreading.
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No high fiving , then.
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😂😂😂
Behind closed doors is an absolutely possibility for sporting events and other events.
The lock down in northern Italy is highly probable for other regions and cities.
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Global sport calendar severely affected by coronavirus
Updated / Monday, 2 Mar 2020 09:31
https://www.rte.ie/sport/other-sport/2020/0302/1119635-global-sport-calendar-severely-affected-by-coronavirus/
MACJAY1 FOR NEIL LENNON on 2ND MARCH 2020 1:25 PM
Will have a look later,
HH
THEWEEGREENMAN on 2ND MARCH 2020 1:40 PM
My opinion only.
Absolutely obvious weeks ago that this was going to be a pandemic.
Unless , of course , you listen to the reassuring platitudes of the WHO president.
You wanna get a virus ? Catch a plane.
After the govt. mandated cover up in China , the time lapse resulting , and the mobility of the Chinese population , the global spread was guaranteed.
aka. Uncontrollable .
Chinese solution ?
You are joking :-) .
Perhaps Chinese prevention would have been a good idea.
And may be in the future.
CELTIC40ME on 2ND MARCH 2020 1:32 PM
Kopenhagrn don’t have a leaky defense, they had the joint third best defensive record in the Europa League.
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They’ve lost double the amount of goals domestically than the team above them and its why they are 6 pts behind having played a game more and will not win their domestic title.
Make no mistake, whilst they are an organised unit as a team they are nothing special and no defensive masters. We played into their hands last week, could have had the tie killed in the first leg and with 6 mins to go in the second leg we were in the ascendancy.
We got sloppy, they got lucky.
HH
There’s an article on CQN about offering Eddy a bumper new contract and it is quoting the Daily Record as the source of the article.
Surely some mistake? Lazy journalism . . .
It’s back the last remaining hope……….. …” Rainjurz have a game in hand “
TIMALOY29 on 2ND MARCH 2020 1:35 PM
How do you marry the two?
They aren’t mutually exclusive
We played well enough and created enough chances in the first half in Copenhagen against a very good defensive team to have scored more than we did
“ Travelled round the world to Braga ”
Seethen Gerrard
Only 2 Serie A games yesterday .
16 goals scored .
Including this beauty –
https://youtu.be/69nXAkC8mZ0
Offering Edouard a massive pay rise and a gentlemen’s agreement to leave after the 10 is the very best we can do.
If that is indeed what’s been offered it’s a good sign we have adopted common sense.
sense of direction
overheard 4 bearz in a shop on saturday.
am going, are youse going,
aye how you going
club bus, already booked, doon to dover, across to calais , we are going to nip up to hamburg (8 hours away by the way) then doon to the game next day.
you got tickets, naw, there will be plenty over err.
much spends do you think, couple of hunner i spent last time
you know if we turn up like braga we can go all the way.
and the cup.
hahahhahahah, i couldnt help but think of them on saturday night.
CELTIC40ME on 2ND MARCH 2020 2:03 PM
We played well enough and created enough chances in the first half in Copenhagen against a very good defensive team to have scored more than we did
___
They aren’t a good outfit in any sense. They benefited from a weak group.
They got a kind draw in the last 16 but will still get eliminated.
Copenhagen aren’t a good side. Cluj were better.
SIEMPRE CELTIC (FORMERLY TRADITIONALIST88)
We didn’t play them in the Superliga, where they’ve scored more than any other team, we played them in the Europa League where they have an excellent defensive record
TIMALOY29 on 2ND MARCH 2020 2:19 PM
They aren’t a good outfit in any sense.
Conceding 4 goals in 6 group stage games suggests you’re wrong.
@ SIEMPRE CELTIC (FORMERLY TRADITIONALIST88) on 2ND MARCH 2020 2:00 PM
Agree that Copenhagen were not anything special, but they were tactically well organised and well drilled. Even in the first leg, after our initial chances and goal in the first 15 minutes, they did shore up their defence and we were limited to a couple of decent counter attacks in the 2nd half.
I thought we had the better of it in the first half at CP, but even then our only real clear cut effort was ME blazing it over the bar (although we did have some good half chances).
In all, it was tactically naivety (as well as maybe a mistake or two with player selection) that led to the result. Individual errors do happen in games. In the first leg, Eddy’s two chances stemmed from errors from Copenhagen players. The frustrating aspect is our collapse in shape and tactics once under scrutiny (it happened in both legs).
Let’s not forget that Copenhagen were coming off a 2 month winter break with the 2nd leg at CP and they were the team needing to push for a result. They also had 4 first team players injured and sold their star striker in the week before the 1st leg.
Bitterly disappointing result.
@ CELTIC40ME on 2ND MARCH 2020 2:22 PM
They were in a pretty poor group through: Malmo, Copenhagen, Dynamo Kyiv and Lugano.
Most teams that beat Celtic in Europe are somewhere on a scale of ‘pure sh&te to very well organised’
Fact CSC
Quite understandably, wee Frimpong hasn’t looked quite the same since his return from injury. Yesterday would have been just about the worst place for him to be. 2 inches of mud, state sanctioned fouling, midwinter storm.
McCart’s tackle on the (supposedly hiding coward) James Forrest was disgusting. A straight red in any civilised football nation. And testament to why we don’t qualify for international tournaments.
You need to earn that sunny day in late May with results like that in the late winter.
I’d like to see Polish Paddy get a run. Soonish. Bayo, less so.
HH jg
Copenhagen – good, bad, indifferent – they knocked us out of the competition. Lessons to learn – the question is will we.
” !!BADA BING!! on 2ND MARCH 2020 1:32 PM
No chance of game at Poundland, behind closed doors IMO,they are desperate for any cash that they can get.”
I thought that when I read the earlier post suggesting we might be denied the opportunity to win nine titles in a row.
Ironic that Sevco`s desperate need for money might prevent the Football Authorities in Scotland from taking the Closed Doors option for league games. !
Cup games might be a different story !!
Does anybody expect Copenhagen to do anything in this competition with their great tactics and defence?
They are not a patch on the Valencia side that beat us last season and reached the Semi Finals.
I’m not convinced they are even as good as the Zenit St Petersburg side that beat us.
We handed them the game.
Expected goals:
1st Leg:
Celtic 2.1 Copenhagen 1.5
2nd Leg:
Celtic 2.2 Copenhagen 1.4
Anthony Stokes arrested and taken away by armed police at Gatwick Airport ‘on a matter relating to an outstanding warrant’.
BOURNESOUPRECIPE on 2ND MARCH 2020 2:31 PM
Most teams that beat Celtic in Europe are somewhere on a scale of ‘pure sh&te to very well organised’
___
Not true. I think most people understood that Valencia was a very good side.
Anybody who believed Cluj should have been beaten were proven correct when we beat them in the group stage.
Seems to me the performances since mid Feb are reminiscent of Dec. Some scratchy performances despite winning except on the 29th. InNovember we were flying…
Post break we were flying also so I guess its natural to dip again. The Bhoys are only human after all.
But…. Despite having a nominally large squad we have been relying on a core of 7/8 players and those guys have played so much football. Can’t help but think there is some mental tiredness which would be helped if a couple of ‘new’ faces stepped up to the plate to provide a fresh impetus.
Our opponents know these core guys well and can anticipate how they are going to play and therefore our task to break teams down is more difficult.
Now RC is back and TR is getting games it may be our movement and hint of the unexpected will be better.
But I’m very happy so far…. 😀
Splittinghairs CSC
HH
CELTIC40ME on 2ND MARCH 2020 2:19 PM
I’m talking about their defence primarily, but if you want to analyse their attack domestically lets – you say top scores, all well and good…but with 41 goals in 23 games.
Nothing to write home about for a supposed title challenger in Denmark(they’re 6pts adrift having played a games more).
Anyway, back to their defence – they have lost 26 goals in 23 games in Denmark, leaky for a title challenger. Hardly the defensive masters they were made out to be.
Also, 26 games is a lot more data to go on that 6 Europa league group stage ties, in which by the way, they hardly had any world beaters in.
And there are certainly no world beaters in Denmark where their defensive record is not good enough to support a serious title challenge.
HH
THE HANDS CANT HIT WHAT THE EYES CANT SEE on 2ND MARCH 2020 2:28 PM
@ CELTIC40ME on 2ND MARCH 2020 2:22 PM
They were in a pretty poor group through: Malmo, Copenhagen, Dynamo Kyiv and Lugano.
It wasn’t the hardest but it was still a Europa league group.
When you look at some of the other groups it does make you realize what a great achievement it was to win our with a game to spare while conceding so few goals.
I watched Sportscene last night. No Michael Stewart .
The result? Inane comments and any potentially serious discussion was replaced with good ol` boys laughingly dismissing anything remotely controversial . They were also at pains to repeat how well Saints had played and how they deserved at least a draw even though the same pundits accepted that celtic had good chances to have won comfortably ! Effing idiots.
Incidentally, is it likely that Stewart and Thompson won`t appear together again?
TIMALOY29
Irony
THE HANDS CANT HIT WHAT THE EYES CANT SEE on 2ND MARCH 2020 2:23 PM
Absolutely, we can only hope lessons are learnt on the pitch and in the dugout.
The most frustrating thing is we all know we are much better than the performance we put on last Thursday night.
HH
SIEMPRE CELTIC (FORMERLY TRADITIONALIST88) on 2ND MARCH 2020 2:41 PM
The point I was making was that they appear to play in a different way in Europe. They have an excellent defensive record in the groups, only two teams were better but the 6th fewest goals scored. In Denmark they score more goals than anyone but have an average defensive record.
Its not like they’re unique in that – you only have to look at what’s happened to the other team since our break.
HOT SMOKED
He was on Sportscene on Saturday night, bit more subdued but still there.
Anyways, Lenny and his players might have his faults but yesterday proved what a tough bunch they are.
Does anyone think the SFA will cancel matches due to Coronavirus? It seems that in other countries they have cancelled games and even made games played behind closed doors.
If things got worse would they have the cheek to void the league this year and stop 9 in a row? We know the are incompetent and there are Huns at every level who are not our friends. Would they have the balls to derail me?
I see they have formed the Coronavirus response group and have with SPFL incorporated. Should we be worried?
TIMALOY29 on 2ND MARCH 2020 2:37 PM
Cluj were a VAR decision away from putting out Sevilla on Thursday
They are a decent team