It was the morning after the night before, at Celtic Park, but the home team still collected three points against Motherwell. The champions did not get out of second gear, and surrendered possession for long period in the second half, but they got the job done without conceding a chance worthy of the name. You get the feeling this squad is pacing itself. You can only climb the mountain so many times.
Jonny Hayes won Man of the Match, largely for his balls into the box. The second goal came from a dangerous Hayes cross between defence and goalkeeper which that Motherwell defender, Richard Tait, felt obliged to intercept, turning the ball into his own net. Jonny sent in an equally good cross a few minutes later, but there were no takers on that occasion.
He was a few weeks shy of his 30th birthday when Brendan Rodgers singed him from Aberdeen: the exact opposite of a ‘Project’, but he is a solid player who did not look out of place in Rome on Thursday night. Cameos at Ibrox and in Rennes earlier this season further demonstrate the £1m spent taking him to Celtic was money well spent.
While Celtic have improved significantly since the early-season 2-5 win at Fir Park, so have Motherwell. I liked the way they knocked the ball around and it was noted to me that the thuggish element, which characterised much of their play in past seasons, was gone. I hope Steve Robinson is does not end up wasting his talent at Tynecastle.
165 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- »
And don’t call me a quizling. I’m probably more Catholic and Irish heritage than you.
The time has come for football to start asking some difficult questions about remembrance
Monday marks Armistice Day, but you could be forgiven for thinking different if you attended a British football match over the past two weeks
Miguel DelaneyChief Football Writer @MiguelDelaney
7 hours ago
15 comments
Today marks actual Armistice Day, but you could be forgiven for thinking different if you attended a British football match over the past two weeks.
You’d have already stood through a lot of “shows of respect”, that have drifted very far away from the idea of solemn remembrance.
At Arsenal last week, the entrance to the media room featured a metal outline of a World War One soldier, before you were “treated” to a huge white cake adorned with pastry poppies. The inside had red jam, in what feels a piece of rather under-considered symbolism. They were far from the only club to think that making these symbols of commemoration edible was appropriate.
It was outside the stadiums and on the pitches, however, where the most respect was shown. And by “most” we of course mean bigger, showier, more ostentatious, more spectacular.
Southampton had a huge flag featuring more and more poppies, getting bigger and bigger. Liverpool had a similar effect on their corner flags. Leicester City had a man dressed in black with a giant foam poppy for a face, just yards from an actual service jeep. Rangers have previously fired an actual cannon in the stadium.
Player Ratings: Leicester vs Arsenal
Show all 23
Player Ratings: Leicester vs Arsenal
Kasper Schmeichel – 6
Ricardo Pereira – 8
Jonny Evans – 7
You can think of any number of examples, but you’re by now probably thinking of one above all: that archive footage that did the rounds from Prenton Park of a man dressed as an actual poppy being led out onto the pitch. To really finish it off, “he” had oversized shoes more befitting a cartoon character, which is what this effectively was.
And it sums up how it’s really time to ask whether all this is actually befitting the occasion they’re all leaping over themselves to mark.
The football activities around Remembrance Weekend are genuinely difficult to satirise at this point, most of it a newspaper cartoon made flesh.
Overt commemoration has turned into unintentional comedy, at which point we should also be asking how we’ve got here, and what this is really all about. Because, for all the mirth about it, there lie some properly serious questions.
Watch more
McClean, Matic & our unhealthy obsession with depoliticising the poppy
We’ve by now gone way past the relatively simplistic debate about whether you should choose to wear a poppy or not, and the focus should instead be on another choice: why exactly football has so embraced all this. What exactly is going on?
Why has football seen the need to go so massive on this, in such vulgar displays?
Why has the Royal British Legion been picked – above any other charity you care to mention – for such an elevated and over-promoted status?
Why do the broadcasters feel the need to make it so front and centre of their coverage?
How have the military become so embedded in football?
When did this properly start? How is it going to finish?
Who is benefiting, because it sometimes doesn’t seem it’s the injured or aggrieved that are supposed to?
Who is making such decisions and what is the exact rationale for them?
How has a competition that revels in its internationalism as much as the Premier League so embraced what often feels a few shades from outright nationalism?
How have we got to the point where a much-admired modern club like Leicester City tweet out a video like this, where the line between lamenting the fallen and glorifying what they are ordered to do feels very blurred?
Because this is what the questions surrounding this date should really now be about.
How has the basic act of buying a poppy to commemorate the dead and maybe contribute a bit to the afflicted so given way to what often feels like glorification of the military?
This is all way beyond the dignified personal act of just wearing a poppy.
If it was really just about that and quiet remembrance, after all, it would be almost impossible to argue. But it patently isn’t.
If it was, we wouldn’t see the poppy itself so grotesquely caricatured by the people who purport to most care about it.
We might see more of a link to an anti-war charity, rather than one that can’t really be described as that.
We might see more uses of the phrase “never again”, something you don’t really see around this at all any more.
We wouldn’t see so many military displays. And we certainly wouldn’t see actual recruitment vans outside stadiums, as has been the case at Stoke City.
Leicester-poppy.jpg
A poppy mascot outside the stadium at Leicester City (Action Images via Reuters)
It is similarly telling that you only really seem to see these vans at football grounds in the country’s more economically deprived areas and not, say, at somewhere like the Emirates with its mostly middle-class support.
That is what is so disconcerting about it, and you don’t have to go too far back in history for parallels with the authorities exploiting the working class to fight their wars.
Some of the sights at Remembrance weekend make it difficult not to think this is all a more modern and sophisticated version of that, as well as a giant recruitment ad.
That the people’s game has so fully embraced this warrants scrutiny. God forbid you’re one of those people who has any kind of anti-military sentiment.
Many might point to that same history – and the tradition – as the very reason for such shows of remembrance in the first place, but it is actually a nonsense, and untrue.
Look back at a Premier League game a mere 15 years ago. There was none of this.
There was none of it at all in football for most of its existence.
It was literally only a decade ago that it became a part of the game, powered by a Daily Mail campaign that effectively browbeat clubs into adopting the poppy.
You don’t have to go too far to make links between the newspaper’s politics of the time and that.
Many on the left would meanwhile maintain that all of this is overtly political, and about softening the view of the military to offset public criticism of UK foreign policy – which is why it’s all the more important to ask why football has so unthinkingly embraced this.
But then this is all very different from just wearing a poppy.
It’s maybe something for the game to start properly thinking about, particularly during Monday’s moment’s silence.
RT @Ryanmc67_
Was talking to my neighbour this morning, the auld boys only got one leg. So we starts talking about Christmas, he’s telling me his son is buying him a new prosthetic leg, I says you must be buzzing, he goes ‘aye, that’s no my main present though it’s just a stocking filler’
It’s Quisling , not what you said.
QUISLING!!!!!!
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news/poppy-armistice-day-2019-remembrance-a9198001.html
Philbhoy, I am in the huff with you now. 2 Months.
Gies peace!
philbhoy, just apologise to jim,he aint no scumbag, better get off before big jimmy upsets me👍🏻
JOBO BALDIE
I sacked SKY and BT earlier this year so don’t see live games on the box.
I do get to the occasional game, however, this year I have been hampered by a knee injury and Celtic Park has yet to be graced by my presence.
I am on this great Blog for match updates so my question is…………….can I vote for POTY based on comments on the match updates?
If no, why no?
BIG PACKY!
.
Philbhoy, YES
Good evening all from the Star Bar. And a special greeting to Phil. You old git. 😂😂
BIG PACKY1
.
To all CQN’ers.
If I reply to a post and the comments box is empty, well, it really means I’ve got nothing to say to you and I probably think you’re a dickhead.
why are leicester the go to club in england for staunchest poppyiests ?
is this guy poppyiest enough ?
https://news.images.itv.com/image/file/1140123/stream_img.jpg
Think I’ve stumbled into the wrong blog.
the guy being a poppy dressed as a poppy, but not actually wearing a poppy on his poppy.
weirdo,
https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2019/11/11/09/Leicester-poppy.jpg
PHILBHOY, such a shame you resort to namecalling, I was told you were a nice bloke once.
BIG PACK1
.
ok phil get the message, just think about it though if someone called you a scumbag,anyway have a nice night.
And some wonder why the blog is going down the pan.
DENIABHOY on 11TH NOVEMBER 2019 7:11 PM/St STIVS
Thanks for the link to the article.
Ah luv this place……hilarious
Put yer jooks up
Whit yoo lookin it?
Yoor gettin it
Oh well, back to my love affair with Stella. Night all, take care.
saint stivs
The relationship with the military appears to predate WWI and the later Poppy. The 2nd Boer War of 1900, and in particular the battle of the Spion Kop certainly found some kind of identification with many of the football clubs of the day, including the Greenwich Arsenal and later at Liverpool’s Anfield. Might be something to do with the fact that it was witnessed and written about by young journalist Winston Churchill. Or not as the case may be.
31003
Hit me with your best shot!
Celtic mac
Yoo lookin it me?
…..or….who d’ye hink yer talkin tae?
I promise to post a long football related post in just over an hour’s time….. cqnpoty@gmail.com
Some spectacular re-writing of recent history re Jock Tamsons WhatsApp group for the angry, bewildered or banned!
:)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
HH
Ernie Lynch at 2.17pm, I think it was…about the poppy and remembrance services.
Chapeau, sir. That was extremely well put and summed it up perfectly for me.
Celtic MAC
Big Pat Benatar fan are we?😀
Football story
When Big Bad John was still playing for us a pal of mine ended up in Big Johns flat for whatever reason. Any way he told me the big chap had at least 1 hundred Hartson tops scattered around the house. Seems the big fellow bought and signed these tops to give to fans and charities whenever asked for. I liked him even more when I heard that
Hello again all you young rebels.
It’s going to be a very interesting season to see which players
manage to cement their position in the team.
No doubt we’ve all got our favourites and me personally i love
players like young Frimpong but is big El hamed the better
option for his height? or will Bauer come in and surprise us?
As for the other side of the park Boli or Johnny? again just me
but i think give Johnny a run there.
Middle of the park? Broony has got a coupla seasons yet and
unless we get big Victor back he’s staying there, so Christie or Rogic?
Christie for me, his energy wins it.
Calmac is a definite, and Jamesy is heading for legendary status.
Up front Edoooard, but will Leigh be back firing on all cylinders? i have
my doubts so january window plans to buy a back up should be in
place now.
On the left hand side Ely, Mikey, or Scottie?
Well sadly it’s looking like Scottie has been made surplus, so for me
it would be the precocious talent of Mikey but if they can work out a
deal for Ely then i might change my mind lol.
All the above is only an aul Ozzies musings, feel free to differ.
H.H . Mick
Mick that is a very fair rundown of the team at the moment.
I always worry about our wee guys, but Neil must trust Frimpong to put him in against Motherwell who are not known for subtlety.
Johnny Hayes has been the great unexpected- played himself into a first pick – fair play to him.
And the great mysteries of Shved, Bayo and, not Lear young Dembele?
And all the while we know that very few of the cahasing pack will lay a glove on Sevco.
What a season we face.