Let’s be clear, Morton are not a good football team, nor are Hibernian, but the former’s 0-3 win at Easter Road last night demonstrates the uncertainty principle of any game. Turn up with less than 100% hunger and you will find yourself out of the cup.
Celtic cannot afford to field anything less than their top team a week on Sunday in the Scottish Cup quarter final. Morton are a better team now than they were three years ago when they last won at Celtic Park – and we’re everyone’s favourite soft spot.
I watched Manchester City win comfortably away to Dynamo Kiev last night. It finished 1-3 but 1-5 would have been a more accurate reflection on the chances made. The result and performances didn’t reflect the relative merits of each team. Dynamo are not that bad, City not that good.
City are horrible away from home this season. They have scored 13 goals in 12 away league games, winning only five. More curious is that they also won 1-3 away to Sevilla and 2-4 away to Borussia Monchengladbach. That’s 10 goals in 4 (in total) Champions League away games, not far shy of their 13 goals in 12 Premier League games, most of which were against inferior opponents.
Here’s the thing, Dynamo, Borussia, Sevilla all fancied their chances against City. They pushed high up-field and were shredded as a consequence. Premier League teams don’t make that mistake.
Cup competitions are different from the league, success is all about getting to the next round, and to do that you need to pose a threat, but all three of City’s opponents failed to comprehend the consequences of pressing forward.
All I could think of was our efforts in Molde and Malmo. We took both games to our opponents and were skelped as a result. Away to Ajax we defended deeply and gained a credible draw, at home the open spaces of Celtic Park behind us were exploited by Ajax to our cost.
Dynamo, Borussia, Sevilla and Celtic didn’t know when it would have been wiser to prioritise defending their own 18 yard box. It’s a big lesson, one which has been evident since Warsaw.
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Remember watching an Italian cooncil tele channel’s dramatized version of the life of ” The Good Pope” . Usual adverts every 5 minutes — Panty liners / Durex Love Gel / lavvy paper/ denture fixatives and sprays to clean your shower .
Lunch break over -back to work .
I’ve been a Celt my whole life. I remember watching games down at the front of the Celtic end, whilst my Da was up the back with his mates, way back in the mid 70s. And boy did we have some lean times.
The thing is though we always played good football, attacking football, competitive football and fought and scrapped for everything.
I look what we have become as I near my 50th birthday next year. We are not even a shadow nor a remnant of our former self. We are a sterile boring commercial bean counting employment machine for a bunch of Joe Averages. This club is a self serving propaganda machine that only exists these days, under the current leadership, to line their own pockets and skin the fan-base.
Every game for me is a win win. If we win I am happy. If we lose I am happy that Deila and hopefully Lawwell are closer to the bullet.
Two has been Hunnish managers on radio this week begging for attention..Billy Davis and Jimmy Calderwood.
Davis is a serious Walter Mitty and is suffering from extreme delusions ( referring to yourself by your surname always a tell tale sign) and Jimmy ‘social hand grenade’ Calderwood giving half of Scottish fitba a verbal assassination …
It was in some ways incredible listening….
Wand there’s me thinking the mid 70’s was still good times
And as well
At least 82% of Scots don’t read newspapers.
Just 800k, from 4.44m adults in Scotland buy a newspaper.
http://wingsoverscotland.com/the-sands-of-the-times/
Big Peat
We are of a similar vintage and by the sounds of it share similar experiences hanging over the wall at the front behind the goals…
I think we probably have 15 decent players but no longer is the corporate effeort in place to support a team.. Quite the reverse.. The team is just a conveyor belt to place ‘projects’ in the hope they drop off the other end more expensive commodities.
I’ve no problem with this as a strategy. VVD Vic etc are great. However the conveyor belt has been switched on full pelt and a hit n hope pile em high strategy now the way. I guess PL realising that selling one player for 10m profit is a difficult trick to repeat so he’s going for the 20x 500k approach. Which means we have a stupid sixes squad and no continuity.
I’m sure there must be a joke somwhere in there involving Italian fiba highlights programmes and last man standing but I’ll leave the punchline to otehrs ;-)
Cults…,
If the Griff keeps putting them away, he will be the next £10M sale, you can take that to the bank.
You can tell how bad it’s got when your expectations are now being managed against Morton.
Oh dear. What ambition?
And the award for CQN poster most like a broken record goes to………
It’s a crowded field!
Canamalar
Hate to agree with you on that one but I do. Griffiths is just over performing. I was delighted with his signing and felt he was a great fit for SPFL as he is supremely capable but perhaps just a cut beneath top Champioship or bottom EPL so we had a high chance of retaining him for a very long time.
However as you say he keeps scoring he’s off and Jason Cummings will replace .. Or someone of that ilk..
There is a lot of pressure on the beeb to cut their cloth accordingly
so their trust issue an edict inferring continuity on the criminality and liquidation of Dave Murrays old club,
furthermore they pack their radio shows with fellow frontiersmen of the myth, attempting at all costs to stifle any enquiry into their self harm,as thats what it was,lets be clear,to coin a slur ‘they brought it on themselves.
The Beeb and impartiality my a…,waiting, like their bedfellows in the declining sales world of the written press to be TOLD by spent PR companies.
Where is your investigation into Dave King? a convicted criminal,
Where is analysis of his delisting? his reasons for doing so? bearing in mind the charges for money laundering where plea bargained out.
His ex city trading boss questioning the development league-Is this cos they do not have the money to participate?
fa on ffp from our fa appears par for the course until Dave gets his squinted fix in,so they think.
Sportscene is now a an old habit,the big tactics telly doesnt cut it,repetition of bad edits either,wee pat can have as many hairdo but it will still be crap,
The Beeb in scotland need to stop bein part of their flagship MOTD narrative as their is enough over marketing /money flowing to the EPL already from Scotland in other media,
HH
Panty Liners? Might be the answer to getting up twice a night for a wee.
Celtic 1 Hearts 0 Mc Cart 29
Beatbhoy
No worries. He’s not really my cup of tea – but the guy definitely does his research to be fair.
Geordie
Chelsea beat Barca in the first leg of the 2012 SF. Guess that was the last.
On Twitter, the Warby not happy.
Mark Warburton says Ronny Deila’s being disrespectful if he said it’s old fashioned to think senior players should only play on grass.
Morton nearly cost us title 3 of the 9.
beatbhoy – Get with the program, down with reality…
What’s twitter?
Glass two thirds full
My remark about Savage getting his hair done was born out of pyooor jealousy.
I realised after my last rare visit to the barber that, if all his customers had my bonce, he’d be on about 150 quid an hour.
Glass 2/3’s
Aye it was.
Quite remarkable considering they won it that year.
HH
Disrespect Morton and you’ll get what you deserve……..pumped out the cup, same as you would with any other team in the tournament, or opponents in any other sport, history is full of great underdogs, Lisbon Lions?
Beatbhoy,
Ha! But if you had a mane like him would you style it like he does?? :0
His Barnet is grim but it’s better than his commentary.
HH
Tony,
Correct. The best team more often than not wins just so long as they put more effort than the other team.
Some call it expectation management. Others call it the reality of things.
HH
Have a great Day Celts
can somebody post the final score of the evelopment game when it finishes currently 1-0 at halftime v Hearts
HH
Interesting changes in the development side since the Dunfermline game the other week.
HH
och , whit they like, bless his little cotton socks.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3463713/F-Pope-IRA-Gazza-appears-sing-sectarian-songs-sold-event-held-honour-former-Rangers-England-star.html
Savage managed to achieve the impossible by getting his new hairdo to be worse than his old one!
Lol, now PL is going to punt LG.?
Imagination sure is a wonderful thing, even more so when your looking for negatives they are there if you look hard enough, but don’t be talking CFC up ffs, that we can’t be seen doing..
Gazza – in a worse state than his Palestinian namesake.
Saint Stivs @ 2.08
Its just banter:)
HH
http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A9mSs3G.C89W7wQA3XWA3YlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByaW11dnNvBGNvbG8DaXIyBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzcg–/RV=2/RE=1456438335/RO=10/RU=http%3a%2f%2fwww.laziowiki.org%2fwiki%2fLuned%25C3%25AC_4_settembre_1950_-_Glasgow%2c_Celtic_Park_-_Celtic-Lazio_4-0/RK=0/RS=iv_DvuKGbSF6iH0CAhLJ5uXzizU-
Green Man – No panic on my part – I never panic – too old and too experienced to panic.
However what I do do, is base my views ,as far as I can, on evidence; and the evidence in cup-ties and one-off ‘must win’ games, points to unreliability.
It was felt a few weeks ago, that as Ross County had ‘done us’ once, that it “couldn’t happen again” – well it did,and ICT have also repeated their dose – so my friend, why won’t Morton?
St Stives..,
Noted in that article that Half the population of Glasgow is Catholic, new stat to me that one, or is it to give the impression that Catholics are not a minority ?
Can I ask someone to let me know if the OB bill has been, or will be challenged, in the UK Supreme Court and/or ECHR?
Most folk on here prefer to call the manager Ronny….Deila is the media name…..or if your a hun……none of this surname stuff on here
Morton ?
I went to see them play Chelsea in that Inter City Cup thing shortly before I left home in the autumn of 68.Cant remember who won but I do remember lots of goals and encountering a mob of Chelsea skinheads at Central Station as I made my way home to Queens X..Same tournament saw the Deady Bears behaving disgracefully( while being humped ) @ Newcastle..