When was the last time you were as impressed by a Celtic debutant as Sebastian Tounekti yesterday? For me it was 20 years ago: Nakamura’s memorable first outing, against Dundee United. Post-match, Brendan Rodgers put it succinctly, “He’s brilliant!”
With their new winger deployed, much of Celtic’s play went down the left, forcing the Tunisian into a new partnership with Marcelo Saracchi. Marcelo’s passing suffered early in the game (perhaps his first as an adult on plastic), before reaching a pinnacle when he sent an early cross from deep onto the head of Daizen Maeda for the opening goal.
That looked like settling the game until an abject failure to defend a long punt up field from Kilmarnock keeper Stryjek. The defence were all in place but slept on the job. Kasper Schmeichel, who was a spectator for the previous 81 minutes, was forced into a triple intervention to prevent a goal at the cost of a corner.
Having failed to clear that set-piece, a second corner was met by an outstanding effort from Greg Kiltie to level the game. A game which should have been a comfortable win was now at risk of going the other way.
I am a great believer in deflections. Make a chance and they can happen, create nothing, and nothing will happen. James Forrest’s shot in the 93rd minute spun up against an extended arm of a Kilmarnock defender inside the six yard box. It was harsh on the home side, especially so on their manager, who deployed significantly less potent resources so well, but the penalty award was the right decision.
I know what you were thinking. It’s a Celtic penalty, what do we have to be confident about? Until then, Kelechi Iheanacho had an unnoteworthy 20-odd minutes on the field. Grabbing the ball was as ballsy a move as we have seen since Adam Idah did the same think at Easter Road on his debut in February 2024.
On Friday I wrote, “It will read as tongue-in-cheek, but we have an interest in whether Hearts drop points at Ibrox tomorrow…… We are accustomed to looking locally for a challenge but that situation is fluid.” It feels less fluid today.
Later this week: chasing ‘proven’ talent in Belgium and finding gems in Sweden, and a bit about strategy and leadership.
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Hail Hail from Jakarta
Back to Basics – Glass Half Full
I left a reply on the previous thread 👍
HH FESS19
“we have an interest in whether Hearts drop points at Ibrox tomorrow”
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Yeah – nip and tuck heading into the final 33 games!
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Tounekti – is that not the guy we overpaid for?
Two transfer window players got us the victory. Not such a bad window after all.
Tounekti scares the bejaisus out of defenders. If* he’s got end product he’ll return handsomely on and off the balance sheet.
*conditional
Their goal was a surprise given how solid our defence has been this season, but watching it back Tounekti completely lost his man and gave him a free header, so it’s not something that you’d expect to happen again once the coaches have had a bit of a chance to work with him on set pieces.
I thought we lost control of the game a bit, but playing at Killie, on that pitch, in those conditions must have been a pretty novel experience for our new players so to come away with the win is encouraging.
” GlassTwoThirdsFull on 15th September 2025 12:11 pm
Yeah – nip and tuck heading into the final 33 games! ”
:-))))
Kels getting all the plaudits for stepping up to take the penalty, but it was Colby Donovan who made it happen. Well played youngster for persevering.
Assuming we have a recruitment strategy, the team should be looking at hits and misses.
Where are the rich veins we should be exploiting? Which scouts, agents and markets should we be revisiting.
We must become data and insight rich re recruitment. The roulette wheel should be consigned to analogue history
Celtic Quirky News
That wasnt a go at Tounekti, I thought he looked like a Celtic winger from the start.
Balikwisha looks like he’s a different sort of player and character, which isnt to say he won’t contribute as much in time.
Another positive is that Maeda has said he will give everything for the team. Presumably he will be granted his wish to leave in January. He said in Japan that he had asked for a move before the end of last season. The lack of planning to find a replacement was another part of the transfer window fiasco created by our dysfunctional board. Have they learnt? I doubt it.
I look forward to P67’s article on finding gems in Norway. Hopefully we’ll find out why it was so impossible to sign said gem before deadline day.
Not everyone can walk into the chaos thats been created at the club and perform straight away, but hopefully we can go through a period of calm and get back to the football so everyon can settle properly
THE BATTERED BUNNET on 15TH SEPTEMBER 2025 12:06 PM
Back to Basics – Glass Half Full
“ Yip, I wrote something similar recently.
No doubt in my mind that the leadership have failed on a number of important aspects, caused in part by a broken governance structure, but those folk who want the CFO canned as a consequence don’t understand what a CFO is responsible for”.
Yip, which makes you wonder if “The Movement” actually knows what it’s doing, which in turn makes the necessary changes and modernisation of the governace structure unlikely as those in charge can’t capitulate to what appears to be a simple witch hunt.
Good 3 points and good debut for Tounekti,
Bhoy will he give poor Tav even more nightmares
” thank you lord for Jota injury and giving me respite
Thank you lord for moving Diazen into middle as striker
Lord, can you convince Brendan to try Tounekti on right to replace Khun.
Lord I need a easy life and finish my career as Sevcos most successful Captain.”
yours
J Tav
I felt a bit sorry for the Killie defender who had no intention of handling the ball, having been on the end of that in my playing days.
However, there were 2 other handball claims that looked equally as justified – 50 50 ones again, earlier on.
The Blogger Formerly Known As GM:
Hard to know where to start when dealing with such wilful ignorance.
“The Movement” has been pretty clear on what it wants; people who can articulate a strategic plan. It’s a renewal movement not a revolutionary one. The club needs new thinking, modern thinking, up to date thinking, people who will bring new ideas.
It’s not a “witch hunt.” If you want to see what a “witch hunt” looks like, take a look at people who are doing annonymous briefings to scummy tabloid rags. It’s not a “witch hunt” to wonder what a chairman drawing a six figure sum does for his money when he claims not to do anything, nor is it a “witch hunt” to expect basic communication and accountability from a CEO who takes home a seven figure sum.
And if your whole argument is based on the targeting of Chris McKay, then it’s stupid and a straw man argument if ever there was one. The missing name on the list is Desmond of course, but there are perfectly good reasons why he’s not on the list right now which you’d be able to see if you were as stragically minded as you demand “The Movement” is.
Let me be as blunt as I can; the executive, all of them, spent the summer standing in the way of the manager and hampering his ability to do his job by depriving him of the necessary resources in a timely fashion. That didn’t just hamstring him, it hamstrung the club itself. It was a wilful act of sabotage. Not one of them gets to walk away clean from that. Not one of them.
An executive board which inflicts deliberate harm on the institution it is supposed to serve does not deserve to survive that and as none of them has stuck up his head in defence of the manager that means that they at least recognise the concept of collective responsibility … so they can understand too the concept of collective guilt and collective blame.
There’s no witch hunt here. This is a necessary reckoning. This is accountability.
Celts for Change II
Happily reposting similar (especially for here), it’s over for this Celtic board as it stands. In need of ‘key player’ restoration from the moment it became clear, spend was totally restrained against the current team needs. This latest mistake was an overnight £30M loss and a direct contribution to CL elimination. It should lead to a complete rethink in strategy, not just decision and policy makers as individuals, it a change that preceded BR and has been coming for years long, long before Kairat Almaty.
‘Cataclysmic retrenchment’ is not on the horizon never mind here, with an unspeakable cash reserve, instead we have an undermined half emptied manager. Still facing the press and not a single word of support or good will from his employers? – that can’t go on, in what is going to be a tough battle with Hearts and Hibs.
‘Heading off’ the inevitable boycotting before it starts should be the plan? – hastily recouped beans on EL League packages and HCTS that could still be saved, if contrition and change was signposted in the short term. It’s time to revisit the root cause which is ‘ good value ’ first. What will change aside from the cast? , Celtic supporters will face a never ending struggle where “ great guys in on Christmas Day ” just isn’t, all that’s required in the modern game, where we need men of reverie, not restraint.
The game has changed beyond recognition, half in and half out recruitment strategies, won’t get us past winning the mounting qualifiers, ( nor will the summer signings that don’t even make EL squad registration ) With irony not lost, a free striker tasked with a free hit, in rescuing the points with his incorrectly spelled shirt name hopefully draws a line under this ‘crisis’.
Bring on the Harry Rags.
James, let me be as blunt as I can: “The Movement” will achieve little and lack credibility so long as it has the likes of you representing it.
Paul67 “ Later this week: chasing ‘proven’ talent in Belgium and finding gems in Sweden, and a bit about strategy and leadership.”
What larks Paul – what larks
TBB @ 12:09.
Thank you.
Got it
The Blogger Formerly Known As GM:
That’s a lot of big talk from someone who
1) Doesn’t know me or the first thing about me.
2) Doesn’t even appear to know what The Movement wants or represents.
You tell fortunes as well?
Attack me all you want, it makes you sound pathetic. Attack “The Movement” as you like; it’s made up of tens of thousands of fellow fans with differing skill-sets. You embarrass yourself in pretending to know more than you do. I know this; it depends on people with courage.
That counts you out, and no I don’t know much about you but I do know that someone who snipes at others who are willing to put their name to things and put things on the line whilst hiding behind an annonymous user name isn’t really to be taken seriously.
Hey wait a minute … I just had a thought … personal sniping from behind an annonymous user name … you’re not the Brendan Rodgers boardroom coward are you?
Oh by the way, for the record;
I’m proud to be part of the fan movement. I don’t represent it or claim to.
That thought exists only in your own mind.
Paul67,
I look forward to reading your upcoming article on Strategy and Leadership. I hope that you don’t fall into the trap that so many have, in discussing Strategy without discussing Objectives or Goals. As you know, a strategy is a means to an end.
Our board or CEO don’t talk about Objectives. They mention that the strategy works. That’s all. So we profit from the Buy low, Sell high. To what end?
We hoard the profits. To what end? It’s not to build a hotel. They mentioned that in their statement. It’s not to refurbish the south stand. That was in the statement as well. So if you could talk about what you think about what the Objective(s) might be, that would be helpful.
Given that we seem to have missed the opportunity to spend some this money on football operations, and cannot do so retroactively, is it no longer part of the strategy? So what is the Objective for this money, which is mostly from profits from the transfer activity?
If you could shed light on this, it would help us understand past inaction and future spending.
Many thanks in advance,
Weeron
Good afternoon all from the Penny Farthing.
Which is probably the value of a hun share.
James Forrest on 15th September 2025 12:54 pm
“The missing name on the list is Desmond of course, but there are perfectly good reasons why he’s not on the list RIGHT NOW which you’d be able to see if you were as stragically minded as you demand “The Movement” is.”
So when is his turn? You’d likely need his support to change the board but advertising his turn will come…
FirstTheyCameForTheSuitsCSC
The last minute spend immediately seems to throw up an oddity given that both Tounekti and Balikwisha both play on the left.
Surely we wouldn’t splash the treasured cash on duplicates unless we’ll alternate who gets the wrong wing?
The ‘Swedish gem’ ©️ P67 we unearthed, had a consecutive poor game, as did CalMac, and Hatate, maybe the League Cup will be perfect for BR’s to shake it up a bit. Paulo Bernardo seems underused despite vowing to stay to fight for his place, changing the system to accommodate players should be an option, not just subbing McCowan and Engels.
PETETHEBEAT on 15TH SEPTEMBER 2025 12:53 PM
I’ve no pity for him – he was asking for trouble having his hand up like that and as you say, they’d done it several times during the game. They were deliberately closing down angles by using their arms.
If the ball doesn’t strike the hand of the Killie defender at the end, it goes across the 6 yard line. Instead it deflects clear of danger because the defender had his hand at head height and extended.
BIGRAILROADBLUES on 15TH SEPTEMBER 2025 1:38 PM
Good afternoon all from the Penny Farthing.
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Sacked the Shipbank ?
An Dún on 15th September 2025 1:49 pm
“If the ball doesn’t strike the hand of the Killie defender at the end, it goes across the 6 yard line. Instead it deflects clear of danger because the defender had his hand at head height and extended.”
Plain and clear explanation. Similar to a hand-ball (accidental or not, arm natural position / elongating the body or not) immediately before a strike for goal (as per CalMac not so long ago) = no goal.
QuadBhoy:
Desmond gets away with all this not because he’s strong – if he was strong the person who briefed against Rodgers would be out in the street already – but because the executive is weak and/or prepared to do his bidding. Remove the weak executive and his instruments by which he exercises his power are removed too. Provided we get transparency on the process by which they are replaced, and he doesn’t promote from within, we’ve got a real shot at getting a strategic shift.
At the very least, we send a message to him about the limits of his own power. That’s a start.
By the way, for their act of sabotage this summer they all deserve to go anyway. I said at the open meeting that this was a valid reason for the removal of the executive even if it did not other greater good. But of course, it will do that greater good as well.
Yep, that’s as stonewall a penalty for hand ball as you’ll see: the outstretched arm changes the trajectory of the ball inside the 6 yard line. Look at where the goalkeeper was going.
The SMSM are super-raging because dropped points yesterday would have added fuel to the fire.
When was the last time you were as impressed by a Celtic debutant as Sebastian Tounekti yesterday?
*Paolo Di Canio at the same venue and Didier Agathe
Kilmarnock was lucky to get away with 2-1.
Considering the Paddy’s Market Carpet, the negative tactics reliant on blocks, use of arms, obstruction of attacking play and big punts up the park, they deserved to lose by more.
No sympathy with these Ayrshire huns whatsoever.
James Forrest on 15th September 2025 1:55 pm
“Remove the weak executive and his instruments by which he exercises his power are removed too.”
He has the majority to elect whoever the replacements are though does he not regardless of how transparent the process is? The replacements will still likely run his playbook or else it will be a one year gig.
“By the way, for their act of sabotage this summer they all deserve to go anyway.”
This is where I don’t get the thinking also – a deliberate act of sabotage to cost us the CL monies, the league title potentially and effectively lose money would be against the responsibility of any PLC board and likely hit them in the pocket also?
Happy to be corrected on any of the above, company law is not my forte, let alone current shareholding levels etc.