I was disappointed for St Johnstone at their exit from the Europa League last night but not for Scottish football, or our coefficient points. Saints are a provincial club in a very rural part of Scotland. You only have to travel through the hills to Perth to realise that pocket of Scotland, with its tractors, knitwear and wellie boot shops, has no God given right to beat a team from any municipality anywhere.
They have done very well for the last couple of seasons, from a tiny catchment area, but managed to reach Europe by pipping Dundee United, who ironically were good enough to have key players poached midseason.
St Johnstone don’t have potential superstars, they are also the oldest team in the league, which gets you through a long campaign but they are never going to sparkle. Or earn Scottish football a hatful of coefficient points.
Dundee United were decimated by the loss of those two players midseason, and were done no favours with the shadow of uncertainty which enveloped backroom and boardroom for months, but they, Aberdeen and Celtic are the only Scottish clubs capable of getting their act together to the extent required to reach European group stages. For everyone else, Europe is strictly a July pursuit, so don’t stress about it, and Tommy Wright is well within his rights to talk up his own club.
If Scottish football wants to get all introspective about last night, we should concern ourselves with concentrating resources on clubs who are independently financially viable: Dundee United, Aberdeen, Hearts, Celtic, Hibs and maybe Dundee. If more of our sponsorship and TV money went to Aberdeen and United and less to the thirty-or-so hangers on, they would be better placed to consolidate their development work and compete in Europe.
Celtic are five days away from their opening competitive game of the season, so I would think tonight’s friendly against Davie Moyes’ Real Sociedad will be the last strenuous exercise the players go through after what will have been a taxing first few weeks of preseason. After this workout it should all be about recovery before the visit of Stjarnan on Wednesday. The usual caveats apply to Nadir Ciftci, if he looks like he couldn’t run upstairs, he’s about where I’d expect him to be right now.
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Celtic Football Club @celticfc 5m5 minutes ago
Subs: Fasan, Fisher, Forrest, Rogic, Henderson, Ciftci, van Dijk, Ambrose, Tierney, Stokes, Scepovic & Janko.
The First Minister in the Six Counties is an upstanding guy.
Just ask Martin McGuinness.
HH!!
Sometimes ye just have to put your hand up and say the other man is better like Andy today and me trying to post the Celtic team before embramike :))))
C’mon Liam.
Ronny is STRONG.
Ahhhh
The Tims start to arrive.
HH jamesgang
Posting team was just to try to bring the the blog kicking and screaming back to Celtic FC again as there are new signings, CL qualification and tonight’s match to discuss.
Sorry for interruption to political tripe ….
Will janko get a run tonight
Well played Federer….
Andy met the big man on one of his exceptional days ..reckon that with the exception of ND he would have beaten anyone playing as he was
Big Murray fan …good guy !!!
WITS
Small fields tomorrow night …rain promised …
Any info ?
The Alamo is Green and White COYBIG
BMCUW. There was a big sell off of Property Loans with a face value of 5.7 billion for 1.6 billion by the National Assets Management Agency.
First sale fell through as NAMA got wind that there were fixers with their fingers in the pie standing to get pay off of Millions. Amazingly a new buyer came on the scene and a sale of this magnitude was completed in about 22 days.
7 million of the proceeds turned up in an off shore Account in the Isle of Man. Allegation is that it was meant to pay off a fixer. The money has been recovered but there is major investigation ongoing to get tp the bottom of the matter.
The Solicitors handling the sale Tughans have close connections with a PR Company run by Peter Robinson’s son. One of the partners of Solicitor firm since resigned transferred the funds. There was an allegation that the funds would benefit a Politician/Political Party.
Peter & Son have issued a roboust response denying any involvement. That is where it stands.
Property Loans Portfolio.
Pf ayr
Nothing yet
Hope we see an hour with the starting line up before Ronny introduces subs. They need to get a rhythm especially in central defence with Boyata and Mulgrew together.
Hope we see Janko and Ciftci later also, as both could come on against Stjarnan on Wednesday if needed.
Commons still injured ? H.H.
Peter, take it you are son of the Rock. What happened to Dumbarton Harp?. From memory their ground was visible from train between Dumbarton East and Dumbarton Central.
Just met bobbio’s Da. Like an even more handsome version of Bobbio. Hard to believe but true!
HH jamesgang
Hamiltontim
10:44 on
10 July, 2015
a ceiler gonof rust
01:07 on 10 July, 2015
Finally got my seat sorted out today after a marathon fiasco with the Celtic ticketing Stasi. Got a great seat in 405 and I asked specifically if it was within pie throwing range of Hamilton Tim. The wee lassie on the phone stuttered, paused and asked how far I could throw a pie.
—————————————-
Gravity, distance and the fact that you throw like a wee lassie will ensure my continued safety. On the off chance it does reach me in 405, Bon appetite :-)
—————————————————————————-
ACGR
I’m in 409 …might give you a better angle to hit the wee twerp.
Hope helpful. :O)
Corkcelt,
Good, concise summation of the NAMA scandal.
WITS was not bad, too!
Stephbhoy
Really enjoyed your post this afternoon and I might even pop in to ask you to repost it in future.
Thomthethim
Read your reply to Stephbhoy earlier and I actually agree with you.
lurkdomcsc
Hail Hail
RONNY Deila has made two changes for the Hoops’ third pre-season game in Paisley against Real Sociedad, following last Saturday’s defeat to Dukla Prague.
Stuart Armstrong replaces James Forrest who is named on the bench while Israeli midfielder Nir Bitton returns in the middle of the park alongside the Celtic captain Scott Brown.
New recruits Nadir Ciftci and Saidy Janko are named amongst the substitutes alongside Celtic Youth Academy graduates Darnell Fisher, Liam Henderson, Luke Donnelly and Kieran Tierney.
Celtic kick off at St Mirren Park at 7.45pm, Celtic Park time and live match updates of all the action can be found on the club’s official Twitter feed: @celticfc
Today’s team:
CELTIC (4-2-3-1) Gordon; Lustig, Boyata, Mulgrew, Izaguirre; Brown, Bitton; Mackay-Steven, Johansen, Armstrong; Griffiths.
Subs: Fasan, Fisher, Forrest, Rogic, Henderson, Donnelly, Ciftci, van Dijk, Ambrose, Tierney, Stokes, Scepovic, Janko
I’m no fan of St Johnston but,
“You only have to travel through the hills to Perth to realise that pocket of Scotland, with its tractors, knitwear and wellie boot shops,……”
Petty, Paul67, very petty.
At St Mirren Park with my bhoy and his Dundee United supporting pal..good night for football if anyone on the blog is interested HH
Kikinthenakas
H H Jamesgang
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Going to try and watch the Celtic game via a very dodgy internet connection in the Algerian Sahara Desert. Don’t fancy ma chances but you never know.
Cmon the stone-age internet connection
Cmon the Celtic TV!!
Cmon the Hoops!!
Guys. Late in the day. Does anyone know any bars in Glasgow City centre streaming game tonight???
kikinthenakas
Enjoy.
Till later all
Early Friday night quiz.
The following are extracts of bbc.co.uk. Learn Ulster Scots, Lesson 7.
I will post a number of Ulstur Scotch words and see if you can work them out.
Sorry, this probably favours scholars of Latin, Greek and Hebrew.
1) Mooth/gub……?
2) burd hoose….?
3) Picter hoose….?
4) fairmhoose….?
5) slaughter hoose…?
And for big bonus points, Big Hoose…?
Sorry for the complexity, this is an ancient language.
HH,
Clogher
Only 13 subs listed for tonight
Watching my auld dear Faitherwalkin towards me.
Auld but happy cos he’s with his boy.
That’s Celtic
HH jamesgang
Ron Bacardi
19:05 on
10 July, 2015
Peter, take it you are son of the Rock. What happened to Dumbarton Harp?. From memory their ground was visible from train between Dumbarton East and Dumbarton Central.
Believe that Harp may have gone out of existence an late 1930s or early 1940s.
Although probably visible from Dumbarton Central I doubt if its groungcould be seen from between Central and East.stations.
Until sometime in the early 1960s, sometimes simply known as the Meadow, the ground was used by St. Patrick’s Boys Guild and St. Patrick’s McClean Place School.
It was probably one of the first grounds to have tubular steel goalposts.
for twitter updates
https://mobile.twitter.com/celticfc
Clogher
I think all those words translate into English as no Pope here
Am I right
John Clark got his work cut out
jamesgang
19:22 on 10 July, 2015
Watching my auld dear Faitherwalkin towards me.
Auld but happy cos he’s with his boy.
That’s Celtic
HH jamesgang
——
TWO lucky bhoys, enjoy every second
Ron Bacardi
19:05 on 10 July, 2015
Peter, take it you are son of the Rock. What happened to Dumbarton Harp?. From memory their ground was visible from train between Dumbarton East and Dumbarton Central.
……………………..
Thats news to me.
“Dundee United, Aberdeen, Hearts, Celtic, Hibs and maybe Dundee. If more of our sponsorship and TV money went to Aberdeen and United and less to the thirty-or-so hangers on……….”
The new proposal: a six team league.
Sponsors will be queuing up.
Great summation of Nama,
Did you get the translations okay?
I have been reading up on the Fenian invasions of Canada today.
Thanks for the heads up.
Clogher.
Clogher
War in the shadows. Book about the fenian dynamite campaign in London 1880s. Ruthless, mainly irish Americans, tom Clarke was involved. Interesting book