Consider this: with Celtic certainties to win the league, they have now been given three consecutive home Scottish Cup games, against Brechin, Partick and Morton, on the road to perhaps becoming the first club to retain the treble in Scottish football history. For so many years home cup draws were as elusive as the outcome to SFA review results into Rangers Uefa licence in 2011, but here we are.
The big picture from the weekend: Despite things still being far from flowing on the park, I’m delighted with the win over Partick Thistle. Of the two cup games this week, the Thistle game was the most important. An aggregate win over Zenit would flood more euros into the Celtic Park coffers, but progress of (perhaps only) one more round in the Europa League will be forgotten long before the outcome of this season’s Scottish Cup.
In his first five seasons in charge, Jock Stein won five league titles and five League Cups, losing three Scottish Cup games during that period. This is the standard we now dare aspire to.
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Lovely day
COYBIG
Eurochamps
How are ya?
Sun shining, cool crisp air.
Twists, thanks for asking.
Just building up to my first post chemo outing.
Gonna try a wee stroll round the estate.
So far, just feels like a dose of the flu.
Eurochamps67
A welcome result on Saturday but so frustrating to see a goal given away and the wind taken out of the sails of the team!
Meanwhile, here is something expressing appreciation of the heroes in the Scottish sports media who have finally decided to criticise the SFA… https://theclumpany.wordpress.com/2018/02/11/slagging-off-the-sfa/
Paul
Celtic are undoubtedly overwhelming favourite to win the league, but no certainties if recent performances are not improved.
If that gap reduces much further we will, for the first time, come under a different type of pressure.
Factor in the MIB effect should things start to get tight, and we will be breaking into a sweat.
As I say, favourites, without a doubt. Certainties? I admire your confidence but I’d say not.
Eurochamps
Good man.
Still planning to see you post retirement, in July/August most likely
“Been Given”? Oh thanx, Thought it was a draw out of the’Hat’.
So, it’s hard not to be suspicious of the Scottish Cup draw yesterday.
So much so I went to youtube etc to see who actually picked the balls – but can’t find anything.
Can someone reassure me I’m just being paranoid?
PAUL67
IIRC,did Celtic not get an unfeasibly long run of home cup ties when Big Jock bossed Celtic and everyone else?
Btw,a home cup draw against Morton brings back really bad memories.
But also one very good one,involving HAMILTONTIM and MINX1988.
TWISTSNTURNS
I agree. Eight points clear is marvellous,but our form is uncertain.
Question.
Was there ever a time, when the cup draws were made “ behind closed doors” ?
Surely there must’ve been a era, before tv, and even with tv, when draws weren’t televised?
Who attended?
How did it go for us back then?
With today’s draws being so public, I’m not one of the conspiracy theorists. However, given the opportunity to make a less public draw, would they? I’d say it was short odds that they would!
ALASDAIR MACLEAN on 12TH FEBRUARY 2018 12:10 PM
Good point cant find any video evidence anywhere. Suss as hell.
Oh, so the draw wasn’t televised yesterday? Really????
Almost invariably the huns are drawn out in the first or last pairing…………………..
Draw was made on Sky after the Old Firm game (Aberdeen v Dundee Utd), live from the Louden…
HH
Twists n Turns
I don’t know if it was televised or not…..but the shear convenience of the draw to Sevco and the SFA made me WANT to see it.
So far can’t find anything.
Traditionalist
Yeah I’ve just googled it.
Alisdair
Was def on Sky bud
Traditonalist
In my opinion the biggest risk facing Celtic is loss of CL money.
There are a number of factors there, one not being match fit during qualifying, the other being starting with a side, some of whom were introduced in the dressing room before the game. Even greater if they are new CBs.
These risks can be mitigated by planning but to qualify we need to win the title and the biggest risk to that was Rangers. Not just Rangers but a Rangers prepared to cheat and lie to get their mitts on UEFA geld.
They were able to do that because of the SFA culture and the folk there who influenced it.
Although not as strong financially as they were and so less of a risk, history has shown that they are prepared to take risks with the existence of the club and with the same mindset as before, will do so again.
There will not be a Scottish football without Rangers in one form or another, but to prevent them acting as they did before and are now, the policing of their financial behaviour has to be rigorous, hence attempts at reforming the governance by Celtic.
It does not make risk management sense to me to say Celtic are playing a part in strengthening one of the biggest financial risks they face.
What they are trying to do is make sure that any risk from their most likely rival is an honest and fair one and there can be no return to a governance regime that increased the risk to the business.
Celtic will always act on what is in their self interest. Everyone does.
However what can be in self interest at one point in time can change in another because nothing stays the same over time.
That is where patience comes in. It takes time out of the equation, producing immediate results. :)
Alasdair,
Russel anderson, former Aberdeen player and a former Scottish woman player, I reckon.
T&T do you have a link?
Hello this is WEE BGFC. So, Does anyone have spares for aberdeen? We would be eternally grateful. :D
HH
WEE BGFC
Auldheid
“There will not be a Scottish football without Rangers in one form or another”
Interesting
So what if they were liquidated tomorrow? They apply to rejoin in the lowest division again? They are allowed to do so? At the expense of who? This would be approved by?
UEFA order Anderlecht to refund Bayern fans £26 each for over charging them in CL game, how much did they charge us?
Barney
I don’t sorry
Cut n pasted this
“It took place at Pittodrie following the New Firm derby between Aberdeen and Dundee United.
SunSport Online has the full Scottish Cup quarter-final draw.”
What TV channel was the draw on?
It was screened live on Sky Sports. You can sign up to Sky TV here.
It was live on Sky after Sheep v DU game, Russell Anderson ex Sheep, and a female drew the teams.
The irony is that it’s Sevco’s successes against the Don’s that have protected our top of the league status.
Thanks Derek McInnes :)
TWISTS N TURNS on 12TH FEBRUARY 2018 12:07 PM
We have an 8 point gap to second, an 11 point gap to third and an 18 point gap to fourth.
We have to go to Pittodrie, Snake Mountain, Fir Park and New Douglas Park before the break. We are home to St Johnstone, Ross County and Dundee.
After the split, we will host Aberdeen, Sevco and probably Motherwell. We will visit Easter Road and Tynecastle.
In order to lose the league, I suspect we will have to lose all 4 games against Aberdeen and Rangers (plus 1 other) as well Aberdeen winning at least 10 of their games and the huns winning at least 11 of theirs. Even 4 draws wouldn’t really help them – we would need to lose at least 2 of the other 8 games; probably 3.
Only 5 wins out of 12? It’s not a scenario I can see happening. It would be a collapse of epic proportions.
Even playing at 70% we are still better than every other team in the league. We have had 2 really poor results against Hearts and Kilmarnock with shocking performances. Rogic and Roberts will be available for the run-in and will boost our performances in creative sense. That will give us many more options in attack. Comper should bolster our defence and play alongside young Ajer which means we will be more solid with either a 3 or a 4 at the back.
It’s not been as scintillating as last season but we are still way out in front and WILL win the league with games to spare – maybe even before the split.
An adequate performance will see us in the semi-final of the cup. I predict a semi against Der Hun (they could do with the money and ftSFA will hope to give them 2 Hampden Paydays) and we will have marked their card (again) before that so we should make the final. I expect Aberdeen or Motherwell to be the only dangers in the final as I think they will both win through.
A treble is on the cards with, IMHO, the Scottish Cup Final being the potential banana skin.
This isn’t a sense of entitlement, just a realistic (IMHO) view of how the next few months will pan out.
KTF
The importance of Thursday is twofold. Reputationally, we need to get CP back to being a fortress where we can at least compete with the best teams, and a more short tern goal, the need for a win/draw over the two legs against Zenit to boost our slim chance of being seeded in CL final qualifier next season (should we get that far). Next season’s CL group stage participation could be greatly affected by a defeat in both legs.
CLOGHER CELT on 12TH FEBRUARY 2018 12:43 PM
The irony is that it’s Sevco’s successes against the Don’s that have protected our top of the league status.
Thanks Derek McInnes
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No it isn’t; it’s the fact that we have won more games and lost fewer than any other team in the league, scoring 54 goals in the process. More importantly, beating Aberdeen twice has made the biggest difference.
The results between the also rans don’t win us a league, we do that on our own.
KTF
VFR
I agree with CLOGHERCELT on this. Canny argue with the facts. They’re eight points behind us. Had they taken all nine points from the huns,instead of none,they’d be a point clear.
And if we had beaten Hertz and Killie we’d be 14 points clear; if yer aunty had baws ……………..
Sounds like a Pedro press conference to me!
KTF
And btw,our results against “also-rans” are far from impressive.
Well i’ve been all over the Sky site. It seems the only game you cannot watch highlights of is the Aberdeen v Dundee Utd match. There is no doubt the cameras were there. You can even watch highlights of Brora Rangers, but not that game, v v strange.
Twisty
I believe Brendan was not lying but was being lied to.
MWD
VFR
If our mission statement is to improve Year on Year,we achieved that in spades last year.
A season to remember,and what a year to achieve it.
Seems to have stalled,bud.