Tag: Brendan Rodgers

Celtic begin summer clearout and the season ticket debacle begins.

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The pre-season is now officially upon us and not surprisingly due to what’s going on in the world teams are shedding players from their squads across Scotland at a rate of knots.

That would usually be the case to an extent up here in any case what with so many signed on short term contracts these days but it really is quite startling just how many out of contract players have been allowed to depart without being offered new terms from the moment the calendar hit June 1st.

As for Celtic, the club has pretty succinctly bid farewell to first-team squad players Jonny Hayes and Jozo Simunovic with fringe player Calvin Miller also exiting.

All three players were out of contract and under normal circumstances, Hayes and Jozo may have been offered season-long extensions but in these precarious times, it would appear there is no room for sentiment or a bloated squad.

After impressing at Aberdeen where he was their star player Jonny completed a dream £1.3 million move to Celtic in the summer of 2017 and went on to make a very respectable 68 appearances for the club over three seasons, some of which was impacted by injury, and scored two goals.

Mostly fitting in as a utility player on the left side he offered cover for the left-back position and from the subs bench, he was often deployed in a more attacking role.

The highlight of his time at the club was undoubtedly him scoring the second goal in injury time to secure a resounding 2-0 win over a fancied Rangers side at Ibrox on a sunny day on the 1st of September 2019.

A bit of a marmite player amongst the Celtic support no one can ever deny the fact Jonny gave 100% for the jersey and was happy to play in any position where cover was required.

Celtic's Jonny Hayes celebrates his winner during the Ladbrokes ...
Jonny bids farewell. 

Personally, I’ll never forget the tireless shift he put in during our memorable 2-1 win over Lazio at Rome’s Stadio Olimpico last year.

Soon to turn 33 it would be no surprise to see him turn out for a top-six Scottish Premiership or English Championship side next season.

Now we move onto Jozo Simunovic, the Croatian under-21 internationalist who was the biggest signing of the Ronny Deila era after being brought in for a significant fee from Dinamo Zagreb in the wake of Virgil Van Djik’s transfer to Southampton in September 2015.

Big Jozo cost anywhere from £3.5 to £6.75 million depending on what source you read which was a considerable chunk of the initial £13 million Celtic received for Dutch internationalist Van Djik though Celtic ultimately received far more than that for the Dutchman over the years due to various contractual add-ons.

Either way, he wasn’t cheap and much was expected though sadly injury blighted much of his initial time at the club.

He nearly departed for Torino in the summer of 2016 as Brendan Rodgers was beginning his Celtic revolution but the move fell through at the last minute and it was credit to the big Croat for how he reacted throughout.

Sitting outside a sun-kissed cafe, in Turn, awaiting news on developments a Sky Sports News reporter had tracked him down and was determined for him to say something that might be a slight to the club he was on the verge of departing but big Jozo apparently well aware of the politics of football just smiled and stated he had no ill-feeling towards Celtic and was fine with returning to fight for his place should the proposed move to Torino his agent was trying to barter fall through.

In the end, it did and he spent the next four years with the men in hoops.

Often blighted by injuries and with first-team appearances at a premium due to the likes of Boyata, Ajer and laterally recent signing Christopher Jullien being preferred ahead of him he, unfortunately, committed a few defensive howlers when he did get opportunities such as in big European games against Anderlecht and Copenhagen at Celtic Park – the second of which effectively eliminated us from the Europea League knockout phase back in February – and he was sent off at Ibrox against Rangers though we recovered to beat the light blues 3-2 in any case.

Still only 25 it’s safe to say he’ll get plenty of opportunities on the continent and though he failed to live up to his large transfer fee he leaves with two great individual memories the first being scoring the goal to beat Kilmarnock in April of last year that paid tribute perfectly to the recently departed club legend Billy McNeill and then that unforgettable crunching tackle on Kenny Miller that sent the Rangers captain into orbit during Celtic’s resounding 5-1 thumping of the light blues on their own patch back on the 29th of April 2017.

Kenny Miller says referee John Beaton was too lenient | Daily Mail ...
Jozo leaves Kenny Miller in no doubt whose ball it is.

He leaves the club having made 129 appearances and scored five times.

Incredibly he also departs with eleven winners medals to go with the five he’d previously claimed at first club Zagreb. Not a bad haul for a guy still two months away from his 26th birthday.

As for Calvin Miller alas there isn’t much to tell and the 22-year-old probably now regrets not taking up an offer to move to Kilmarnock permanently last summer.

Instead, he decided to see out the final year of his contract at Celtic where he spent most of his time on the sidelines injured.

In total, he made five first-team appearances for Celtic.

Now onto when the game will return and it looks like it’ll be early August and barring some incredible turnaround in the coming two months, it’s pretty certain to be behind closed doors until possibly the end of the year.

Season tickets are on sale and the proposal is you can use them to watch all home games on Sky Sports with the specific details still to be ironed out.

I presumed the club would simply give all season ticket holders the right to have exclusive access to view all home games via Celtic TV like they do for foreign subscribers but it appears the deal has been done with Sky to provide coverage instead.

Rather than vainly attempt to describe how this would be possible, I’ll wait for more info to be forthcoming in greater detail from both the club and broadcaster.

With two months left before the season is proposed to begin, they have plenty of time to iron out the kinks.

Of course, English football is scheduled to return behind closed doors in two weeks time so rather like with the somewhat disastrous introduction of VAR to the top flight game down south last season, Scottish football can use the EPL and lower leagues as a Guinea Pig for what works and what doesn’t.

Things such as carboard cutouts of fans and piping in artificial fan reactions to the stadium have been proposed and could be farcical or may actually elevate it above the glorified training ground games it otherwise will inevitably be.

As Jock Stein said: “Football without fans is nothing.”

I have a feeling big Jock will be proven to be very right on that count in the coming months.

 

 

 

On a traumatic day, Brendan abandones us for mediocrity and Lenny returns.

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Well, what a day that was.

Probably the most deflated I’ve felt since we were eliminated by our beloved Govan neighbours at the semi-final stage of the Scottish Cup back in April 2016.

In some ways, this feels even worse. Sort of like discovering that, that old antique your dad has been harbouring in the attic for years is actually worth sod all or that your winning scratch card is a fake.

Or perhaps more accurately that your bird who you thought you were in love with and was in love with you has been having it off behind your back with some guy she met on a night out down south the whole time.

That’s what it was like to discover that the man who claimed he was in his dream job had actually found a dreamier one and that all of the things he’d said over the years about his love for the club and his ongoing commitment were all just words. All said just to keep us sweet and onside while his eyes wondered elsewhere. I guess this is how the first Mrs Rodgers felt.

Brendan of course rather unceremoniously left us yesterday afternoon drawing to an end a highly successful – domestically anyway – 33 months in charge.

Below are some pictures from the day:

 

 

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Initially, this article was about our 4-1 win over Motherwell at Celtic Park on Sunday where we maintained our 8 points lead at the top of the table in a game that saw the visitors score a highly contentious goal when they refused to honour the unwritten rule of passing the ball back to you once it has been put of play for an injury.

It was all much ado about nothing in any case as we scored two goals either side of it – one an absolute peach of a free kick from Odsonne Edouard – but then the news started to filter through that the game was afoot over at the Celtic training ground on Monday afternoon. Instead of churning that out I thought I’d wait to see how events transpired hoping of course that it was all smoke and no fire. Let’s be honest as all the rumours started intensifying yesterday young James Scott’s ill-advised decision to take advantage of the throw in situation on Sunday which seemed oh so important at the time had rather paled into significance when it became obvious that Sunday might actually have been our manager’s last game in charge.

I awoke this morning to hale of What’s App activity. It had the same kind of feeling as when the Mojo story broke back in ’89. That being that something unthinkably bad was happening.

Some sources were diving right in and announcing his departure as confirmed whilst the BBC and others held the line insisting it was still only at the discussion stage. The latter, of course, led to an outbreak of mass denial on Twitter. Countless messages read that there surely was nothing in this and that indeed it was just anti-Celtic desperate journalism at its worst.

However, even a clock gets it right twice a day and yesterday the press was on the money right down to the second. Our beloved Brendan, the man who masterminded ‘The Invincibles Season’ and the famed ‘Double Treble’ was for the offski and he wasn’t even hanging around to say goodbye.

Rumours had been circulating for some time that he was being targeted by Leicester City with their manager Claude Puel’s jacket hanging on a shaky peg for months now. But surely not to them? Not to a club who are mid-table, safely above relegation but way off any potential European places and out of the domestic cups so with literally nothing to play for?

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The kind of support Brendan got at Celtic.

But in his day and age money talks and bullshit walks and the English Premiership side have the money so Brendan did the walking.

Of their financial power, there is no doubt. Last season we broke our turnover record as we surged to £101.5 million thanks in the main to Champions League revenues but despite finishing only just above the relegation zone in their league the Midlands side made the Champions League quarter-finals and with that plus their usual English Premier League cash bonanza they hit £176 million in total turnover for the year.

That affords them the ability to pay fees and wages that we can only dream about and this appears to be the main reason that our once beloved leader has abandoned us.

That’s what it is by the way. It’s abandonment. Not just leaving us for pastures new but all out, pure, unadulterated abandonment. What the hell else could you call it when you do it on the eve of a vital league game and with a historic Treble Treble on the cards and only two and half months of the season to go?

The timing of bad news is never good but at least do it at a time when it makes sense. If Brendan had achieved the aforementioned trio of trebles goal then he could have departed into the sunset with his head held high and all our best wishes this summer.

But to do it now just smacks of both arrogance and most hurtfully indifference.

Yes, the board and in particular, serial panto villain Peter Lawwell will take a lot of flack with once again the debacle that was last summer’s transfer window coming in for renewed withering analysis but today’s decision and the stunningly awful timing of it is all on Brendan.

For him to be wearing the Leicester City tie and stiltedly reading out scripted pish from an autocue where he confirmed how much of an honour it was to be managing them and even going as far as to offer up his life in his pursuit of their success was as absurd as it was stomach-churningly hollow. Yeah, Brendan, you’ll give it ‘everything’………….until something else comes along.

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The kind of support he’ll get at Leicester. 

When Chris Sutton seemed to pretty brazenly insist he thought Rodgers was off at the weekend I laughed. Yeah, Chris, I seem to remember you predicting the Rangers signings of Jermain Defoe and Steven Davis had pushed the title race in their favour. That was obviously pish and so was this. The only thing is it wasn’t. The second prediction anyway.

Once again we are reminded that nothing lasts forever in football and that unfortunately our geographic proximity to England in this day and age often works against us. With the exposure and TV money on offer down there dwarfing what we can get up here it means that even blatantly smaller clubs whos stadiums are half Celtic Park’s size such as Leicester can come and pinch our most prized talents from top to bottom. Back at the turn of the century, it was quite literally the other way around.

As for Brendan himself, he was dominant domestically.  He won seven consecutive trophies and gained a colossal 24 straight wins in domestic cup competitions. In the league, he suffered only 8 defeats from 103 matches which is quite incredible.  He also only lost one of thirteen Old Firm games. But let’s be honest……who was he up against? Mark Warburton, Graeme Murty (twice) and Pedro Caixinha?? Hardly stellar tacticians. As for Europe, he achieved only 16 wins in 42 games with 8 draws, 18 defeats and 63 goals conceded. Yes, he brought us back into the group stages of the money-spinning Champions League but once there he stubbornly refused to adapt to our far more harsh surroundings and as a result, we endured some of the most degrading nights ever as Celtic supporters.

Let’s not forget that some of his predecessors such as Gordon Strachan and Neil Lennon were also faced against opposition with superior resources on the continent and emerged with somewhat miraculous results by comparison. Whilst under those two scalps such as AC Milan, Benfica (twice), Manchester Utd, Ajax and of course Barcelona were taken and legendary nights were born instead under Brendan the ‘big scalps’ were Astana, Be’er Sheva, Anderlecht, Leipzig and Rosenborg, the latter on multiple occasions. Hardly in the same bracket.

In Europe, there’s little doubt he was a failure but yes domestically an overwhelming success.

He leaves with both my disappointment and mutual indifference. Personally, I hope he never darkens our door again and it’s too late now to insult us with the flattery of undying love and regret that it ended the way it has.

Ah, it really does feel like only yesterday or thereabouts that we were unveiling him on a bright Friday afternoon in May 2016. This was our response to the Rangers calamity the month before and what a response it was. It put the shitters up them so much they quite literally ‘Hibsed’ the Scottish Cup final the very next day to Hibs.

I was actually travelling down south to work in the north of England over that weekend when the announcement came through just as I was pulling into Leeds train station. As I boarded my connecting train to Dearne Valley some local oaf sitting close by announced to his mates “Why is he going up there?” with puzzled arrogance. “Because we’re Celtic!” I thought to myself with a big smile on my face.

Alas, how things change………………..

Lenny will be in the dugout until the summer. Though it’s highly likely he’ll spend much of it in the stand. I’m underwhelmed but he gets all of my support. He goes straight back into the lion’s den against Hearts tomorrow evening in what should be, to say the least, an interesting occasion.  Suddenly tomorrow night is huge with only 11 games to go in the title race. After that, it’s onto his former club Hibs – whom he left in a blaze of unspoken acrimony last month – at the weekend in a vital Scottish Cup quarter-final.

This is testing time for all of us but at least we’re well and truly in the driving seat.

As for the big story, in summation…..goodbye Brendan, it was quite a ride but in the end, you discarded us with about as much empathy as a piss head at a music festival does to an empty beer can so ultimately good riddance.

Post-Old Firm perspective and the transfer window.

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I never got an opportunity to write an analysis of the Old Firm match which was a week ago on Saturday. To be honest there wasn’t much to say. I wrote in my preview that if we turned up then I believed we’d win. We didn’t and Rangers were clearly in fighting mood and contested vigorously every 50/50 and created far more and better chances. They deserved their victory.

We badly missed Tom Rogic and benching both Kieran Tierney and Odsonne Edouard was a strange call especially as it led to Callum McGregor playing at left-back which was quite frankly bizarre and young Mikey Johnstone was effectively thrown to the wolves being played up front on his own.

On the whole, Craig Gordon kept us in it with some excellent saves and he was one of our few players who deserved pass marks especially in the first 45 mins. In the second half, McGregor was pushed forward into his more natural position which helped greatly though at his side was Scott Brown and Olivier Ntcham both of whom struggled throughout.

First-half injuries to Mikel Lustig and Stefan Benkovic pretty much confirmed that sneaky feeling that it wasn’t to be our day.

That was reinforced by referee John Beaton’s anomalous decision to ignore three definite yellow and potential red card calls on Alfredo Morelos fouls as well as a Callum McGregor’s second-half goal being chopped off for being marginally offside.

The fallout since has been significant with Beaton unsurprisingly coming under intense scrutiny for his lack of action against the Colombian striker with his decision to go out boozing on the very night of the game in the Crown Bar in Bellshill where he happily posed for pictures with delighted local punters not helping his cause.

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Good night John?

Just about everyone and their dog believed there would be some form of retrospective action against Morelos but apparently, it’s at the referee’s own discretion if he wants to reassess his original conclusion and low and behold Beaton still believes he was spot on.

Yeah, I’ll bet you do John.

Anyway since then some moronic Celtic fan put Beaton’s number out on social media and he has been subsequently inundated with friendly requests from other Celtic fans wishing to meet and greet him in person or words to that effect.

In no way can this be condoned and whoever it is who has threatened him should be publicly outed and banned from any involvement with the club for life as they are clearly not of sound mind nevermind intent.

Though it has been amusing seeing some elements of the Rangers support expressing their moral outrage online with the irony of the fact their own fanbase launched an online petition against the SFA back in August 2017 in the wake of what they felt was inherent anti-Rangers bias after John Beaton himself had sent off Ryan Jack during their 3-2 home defeat by Hibernian.

There was also the small issue a few years back of some of their fans sending parcel bombs to the then Celtic manager Neil Lennon as well as players Niall McGinn and Paddy McCourt and even a few known Celtic supporting MSPs but hey………….short memories.

All that aside both Celtic and Rangers are now neck and neck at the summit of the Premiership table on 42 points with Celtic leading due to a superior goal difference and we also have a game in hand.

Both clubs return to domestic action the weekend after next in the Scottish Cup but the league action starts up again two weeks on Wednesday and we’re at home against lowly St. Mirren with Rangers visiting third-placed Kilmarnock. The weekend after that we entertain third bottom Hamilton Accies whilst Rangers visit Livingston at a ground where they have already lost this season against a team with the third-best home record in the division. We then play our game in hand at home against St.Johnstone the following Wednesday.

So there’s a pretty strong chance that come early February we could have a decent points advantage over them all things going well.

Until then we must content ourselves with non-stop transfer innuendo as every club in the Scottish top flight and indeed many in the lower divisions try to rebuild, reassemble or reinforce in preparation for the second half of the season.

Thus far we’ve added Scotland internationalist winger Oliver Burke or ‘Super Olly’ as I’m hoping we come to know him by. However, the signing has been met with lashings of pessimism in some quarters amongst our own support and whilst it’s true the kid failed to make much impact down at West Bromwich Albion it wasn’t so long ago he was tearing it up in the Championship with Nottingham Forest which led to Red Bull Leipzig parting with £13 million for his services. After a year and 25 appearances in the Bundesliga, he returned to the UK via a £15 million move to WBA. He’s 21, 6’2 with 80 first team appearances under his belt – 40 of which have been in either the Bundesliga or English Premiership, eight goals and five Scotland caps. That’s pedigree.

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Olly Burke in the thick of it in Dubai.

I expect his pace and power will do well up here and I’m actually pretty excited about the signing. He can play on both sides with the right wing being his preferred domain and at the very least it should see both James Forrest and Scott Sinclair upping their games.

Also on the cards are precocious 18-year-old PSG striker Timothy Weah on an apparent 18 months loan as well as 23-year-old Ivorian striker Vakoun Issouf Bayo in a £2million move from Slovakian side Dunajska Streda where he has hit 18 goals in 23 games and provided seven assists going by my always on-point online research.

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Bayo scores. Hopefully, he’s doing this for us very soon.

Both will hopefully be wrapped up in the next few days barring any last minute shenanigans ie: the sort of nonsense that harpooned our apparently inevitable move to sign John McGinn back in the summer.

Weah is, of course, the son of the legendary George who’s skill and talent I could rave about all night having been lucky enough to see him star on ITV in UEFA Cup matches for PSG and in Serie A for AC Milan on Channel 4 back in the ’90s.

He has little to no first team experience but has just signed a new contract with the Parisian aristocrats so is clearly highly rated and a similar move for Edouard last season worked out pretty well so fingers crossed he can make the same impact.

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“If he’s even half the player his father was……………”

Bayo is also an unknown quantity having plied his trade in his native Ivory Coast and now in Slovakia and even with such impressive stats you always wonder if he’ll be the next Moussa Dembele or the ghost of Mohammed Bangura come back to haunt us again. Whos’ to say but hopefully, on this occasion, the scouting network have found a gem on par with Wanyama or Van Dijk as opposed to duds like Teemu Pukki or Derk Boerrigter.

Meanwhile over at Castle Greyskull Rangers have also pushed the boat out by bringing in the pairing of Southampton’s Steven Davis and Bournemouth’s Jermain Defoe both on loans. Neither has had much game time this season and they have a collective age of 70 and I can’t help but remember how we were lampooned back in the day when we brought in the likes of Ian Wright, Carlton Cole and Freddie Ljungberg at the midway points of our seasons with all three faded veterans failing to make any kind of impact but hey-ho. Stevie G knows best.

They’ve also tied up Jordan Jones and Glen Kamara on pre-contracts apparently being unselfish enough not to prize them from their respective clubs with transfer fees right now and preferring to allow them to see out their current commitments. Aye. Right.

Motherwell have also been able to secure the services of Ross McCormack which could prove the move of the window or might make no difference at all to their struggling season.

Oran Keaney is also attempting to undo the work done by his predecessor Alan Stubbs in the summer at St.Mirren by more or less releasing a whole team’s worth of players pretty much all of whom were brought in by Stubbs.

It’s only the 7th of January and there’s a long way to go in the window. And let’s not forget it’s also a time when players can be sold or released too. Personally, I’m hoping we part company with the likes of Cristian Gamboa, Nir Bitton, Scott Allen and the ultimate wage thief Marvin Compper who has done precisely nothing since his arrival at the club exactly a year ago outside of collecting the empty water bottles at the end of training.

We don’t have to sell though so don’t expect to see any of our assets leaving. Elsewhere though it might be a different story. So watch this space.

A wee preview of Bayo below and I’m hoping we actually see him the Hoops now or it’ll be more transfer window egg on our faces and calls for perennial panto villain Peter Lawwell’s head. Apologies about the music in advance.

Oh, and I hope you had a Happy New Year. I know I did. Though not as good as John Beaton’s.

 

Celtic 3 – 0 Motherwell: Back to the top we go.

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Celtic cruised to a pretty routine 3-0 win over Motherwell at Celtic Park last night.

The game was all over by halftime with Celtic going for the jugular early and it was great to see young right back Anthony Ralston getting his first start in a very long time. I actually think we haven’t seen him in a Hoops jersey since way back in September 2017 truth be told.

Motherwell held out until almost the half-hour mark when Edouard played through Ralston who put it through the ‘Well keepers legs to score his first ever goal for Celtic. James Forrest was then scythed down only four mins later by a reckless Charles Dunne challenge in the box and Scott Sinclair stepped up to put us 2-0 up from the spot. That’s actually the first pen we’ve scored in four attempts so good to put an end to that unwelcome stat. Unfortunately, French Eddy had to depart the scene with an apparent groin injury but his replacement young Mikey Johnstone came on and rattled one in on the stroke of halftime and that was pretty that.

Olivier Ntcham should have done better with an effort in the second half but by then the visitors were just playing to keep the score down.

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Brendan and the players take the acclaim. 

I was initially really puzzled by Motherwell’s approach to the game. This was our third outing in six days and on the back of two defeats and with several key players missing you would have thought that the Lanarkshire side would have smelt the faintest trace of blood. Instead, though they decided to drop five players from their surprise away victory on Saturday against an in from St Johnstone with star men David Turnbull, Allan Campbell and strikers Curtis Main and Danny Johnson all benched.

It would appear manager Stephen Robinson had written the game off with Saturday’s home tie against lowly St.Mirren prioritised. Fair enough and to be honest with you pretty welcome considering our recent exhausting schedule which clearly showed at Easter Road on Sunday.

What can’t be ignored though is the number of absences we now have. With Leigh Griffiths out for an unspecified period of time and Edouard’s departure early doors last night, we are now literally left with no recognised striker. The big question is how long will the Frenchman be out for?

Kieran Tierney and Tom Rogic were rested last night as they were on Sunday and Ryan Christie, Dedryk Boyata and Mikel Lustig are also being given as much time as is required to make full recoveries. There’s a good chance we’ll see them all back over the coming nine days as we face three league matches.

But news has just come down that the Australian FA has selected Rogic along with three players from Hibs for the Asia Cup next month which means they may not be allowed to be involved in their respective clubs derbies on December 29th. Hopefully, that can be resolved in our favour as I would feel much better about our chances of turning over Rangers once again in their own stadium with Tom with us, as opposed to being without him.

Talking of the men in blue they were held to a 0-0 draw by Hibs at Easter Road last night. Hibs were in our faces all day on Sunday but were rather standoffish last night in a game which generally saw them under siege and on another day Morelos could have scored a hattrick. Alas, a combination of Hibs keeper Adam Bogdan as well as the Colombian’s poor finishing saw the Leith men hold out for a draw and in doing so our victory propelled us back to the top by one point over our city rivals with a game in hand.

So back to the top we go and even with a slightly weakened side you’d think we’ll be too strong at home on Saturday against a struggling Dundee side who were hammered 5-1 at Pittodrie on Tuesday night by Aberdeen leading manager Jim McIntyre to promise a major squad overhaul in January. So it won’t be a very Merry Christmas for some of the Dens Park men this festive period as they look for employment elsewhere it would seem.

Some job Neil McCann did up there.

 

Celtic go down meekly to Hibs. Meanwhile, it’s Valencia in the last 32.

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First things first and that’s Celtic’s performance away at Easter Road yesterday. Truth be told the team looked exhausted –  not surprisingly after being run ragged against Red Bull Salzburg during Thursday night’s emotional rollercoaster – and as a result pretty devoid of ideas.

I wrote a piece over a week ago about how the players looked out on their feet away against Motherwell. We dropped two points that night as we wilted badly in the second half but recovered pretty sensationally to bury surprise table-toppers Kilmarnock 5-1 at Celtic Park a week ago on Saturday.

Thursday night though saw us come up against easily our toughest opposition of the season and for me the best team we’ve seen at Celtic Park since PSG clinically dispatched us 5-0 in the Champions League group stages 15 months ago.

Each one of our three domestic defeats this season have come in the weekend after a midweek European game and all have been away. So the taxing effects of  European football definitely plays a part but our away record, in general, this season has been pretty awful with 15 points dropped from a potential 27 in the league and only two wins from seven away ties in Europe.

Hibs have themselves been struggling of late having gone through a period of no wins in seven league games which saw them lose four times. They arrested that decline with a 1-0 win away at Hamilton Accies last weekend but generally weren’t given much of a hope yesterday. So much so that their prematch decision to reduce the Celtic away capacity so as to allow more Hibs fans tickets looked utterly absurd as half of the stand where our support usually sits was left virtually empty.

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Another great call from Rod Petrie.

Brendan decided to really utilise the squad and even went for three at the back with Ajer brought into partner Simunovic and Benkovic. Kieran Tierney was rested and in came Emilio Izaguirre with Scott Sinclair being asked to cover a right wing-back role in the absence of the injured Lustig and Gamboa.

In midfield, Ryan Christie was missing after being stretchered off with an ankle injury on Thursday night and Tom Rogic was also left at home to recover from his recent exploits. In came Brown and Ntcham to replace them with McGregor, Forrest and Edouard all retaining their places.

The last three, in particular, were noticeably quiet and looked a little jaded.

Apart from the fatigue side of things the likes of Brown and Ntcham never clicked all day and Izaguirre, who had been so impressive when he came in against Kilmarnock, really struggled with Sinclair looking pretty lost in an unfamiliar defensive role.

Hibs hit a lot of cross-field passes and balls in over the top which cost us no end of trouble and we were ultimately undone by two excellent though preventable finishes from Slivka in the very first minute and Kamberi in the second half.

The introductions of Lewis Morgan and Mikey Johnstone brought some urgency and penetration to the play in that second period but ultimately was too little too late. Johnny Hayes also appeared but did nothing of note which is pretty customary of his appearances in the hoops.

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Kamberi finally finds some form. 

The result meant that Rangers returned to the league summit due to a narrow win at home against lowly Hamilton and Kilmarnock also remain above us after a comfortable 3-1 home win against Dundee. We do of course have games in hand and no one’s really worrying especially as we can go top again if we beat Motherwell at home on Wednesday night and Rangers drop points at Easter Road which is as we’ve just discovered no easy place to go and get a result.

The likes of Boyata, Lustig, Rogic, Tierney as well as the inform Christie will also all be back soon – some as early as Wednesday night apparently – but even with that we clearly need reinforcements in January.  Up front plus at right fullback are two key areas we definitely need to address.

Earlier on today there was also the draw for the Last 32 of the Europa League. Being that we would be up against one of fifteen seeds we could only hope for something winnable and I think we got that when Valencia came out of the hat.

On paper, the Spaniards did well in their Champions League campaign to gain 8 points in a group that included one of the tournament favourites in Juventus as well as the once mighty Manchester United. But the truth is they were out by the time of the final group game which they won against a struggling Man U side who had already qualified. Valencia recorded a 2-1 home victory but for anyone who keeps up with English football that’s not that great an achievement these days considering the stumbling form Joe Mourinho’s side have shown this season so far.

In La Liga, they are struggling with only three wins from 16 matches and an incredible ten draws. Two of their defeats have been away from home and they only have two wins from nine home matches with six draws and one loss. They have only 19 points and are in 14th place, four points above the drop zone.  The goals have hardly been flowing either with only 15 so far in this campaign whilst conceding 13. In Europe, they have scored six and conceded six.

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The Mestella is where we are headed. 

All this after blowing over €126 million on players in the summer which included the €40 million capture of 21 -year-old Portuguese winger Gonçalo Guedes from PSG and veteran French striker Kevin Gameiro from Atletico Madrid for a mere €16 million. Belgian international striker Michy Batshuayi is also there on loan for the season from Chelsea and that deadly strike force has delivered a rather pathetic return of six goals in all competitions and their most dangerous marksman currently is, in fact, Spanish striker Santi Mina who has six this season and 35 in 114 appearances for them.

The other big summer singing was French midfielder Geoffrey Kondogbia who cost them €25 million from Inter Milan in the summer having previously cost the Italians €40 million from Monaco. He was injured at the weekend though and will be out for between eight to twelve weeks so there’s a good chance we won’t have to worry about him at all.

The star man is, or at least was, striker Rodrigo who’s 19 goals in 44 games last term earned him a place in the Spanish national side for the past summer’s World Cup. However this year he’s hit a measly two in twenty games and is bang out of form.

Backed by billionaire Singapore business magnate owner Peter Lim they could go on a spending spree this January in theory but based on their previous transfer dealings they have actually already spent double what they had spent in total over the two previous seasons combined plus they have only brought three players in, in total, during the past two winter transfer windows, two of which were loan deals.

All in all……….it’s doable.

There is a lot of water to go under the bridge between now and February 14th when they visit Celtic Park in the first leg but as of now, it’s a tie you’d take especially considering some of the Leviathans we could have drawn in the next round.

Let’s just hope that eight and a half weeks from now we’re top of the league, playing well with a stronger squad and that Valencia are pretty much in the same predicament if indeed not worse as they are now.

I guess that’s what I’ll be asking Santa for, for Christmas. Well, that, a pair of Diesel jeans, a significant financial windfall and a win at Ibrox.