Tag: Celtic Park

Celtic 2-0 St.Johnstone: Six points clear one month into the new year plus transfer deadline day talk.

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In the last update on the blog, I wrote that it was three wins on the spin since the return from the winter break. Well, I guess we can make that four now as Celtic coasted home to a 2-0 win over St.Johnstone which makes it 12 goals scored and four clean sheets too.

At the top of the table we remain and now we’re six points clear with a superior goal difference as well. Not a bad eleven days if you ask me. Incredible to think we’ve already played four games in that time.

Celtic dominated the first half with Saints keeper Zander Clark making a wonderful save from a point-blank Scott Sinclair header. Later on, in the half,  Olly Burke produced a curling effort from the left-hand side of the box which zipped just past the far post. But that aside the visiting side kept it tight and remained encamped around their box for the whole 45 mins with only Rangers legend Michael O’Halloran looking any kind of a threat on the break.

At halftime, you started to wonder if it just might not be our night but five minutes after the restart any such fears were allayed when Callum McGregor had acres of space to advance towards the opposition box after being fed in from the right by Mikel Lustig and he unleashed a storming drive that gave Clark no chance and ended up in the bottom right corner to give the men in Hoops the lead.

A mere two mins later it got even better and the points were pretty much signed, sealed and delivered when the advancing Lustig again fed a ball in from the right, this time to the edge of the box where Ryan Christie left Saints captain Joe Shaughnessy for dead and proceeded to curl the ball spectacularly past Clark high into the far corner to make it 2-0 and more or less game over.

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It’s a beauty from Christie. 

Odsonne Edouard made his long-awaited comeback from the bench and almost scored before Clark made a wonderful save from McGregor minutes later. Then right at the end, Ricky Foster produced a blatant handball whilst sliding in the box to prevent a cross from James Forrest after the Celtic winger had played a cute one-two with Lustig but the referee and the linesman had already decided Celtic had scored enough for the evening so chose to pretend they didn’t see it.

So that was that. As comfortable as you like with the Celt’s keeper Scott Bain a virtual spectator.

That’s our 13th win in our last 17 league games now, 16th win in 20 domestic games and our 12th win in 12 home league games this season.

We now visit McDiarmid Park on Sunday to face the same opposition again and let’s hope for more of the same or better still a repeat of the 6-0 hammering we dished out to them back in early October. Hard to believe that’s four months ago already. I remember it well. It was pretty much the performance that kick-started our season after a, to say the least, tepid start.

Tomorrow is, of course, the final day of the transfer window. By Celtic’s standards, it’s been a pretty active January with most of our business done uncharacteristically early via the signing of striker Vakoun Issouf Bayo and the loan deals for attackers Timothy Weah and Olly Burke. There were of course hopes of a right back arriving though rumoured interest in Atalanta’s Belgium internationalist Timothy Castagne was kiboshed by a price tag of somewhere in the region of £10 million.

Scott McKenna was also linked with some social media sources even going as far as to proclaim that a £6.5 million fee with Aberdeen had been agreed and that the big centre back was en route via a taxi all the way from Dubai. It was of course baseless. Aberdeen have got the player tied up until 2023 and have already said they think they can get an eight-figure fee from a club down south this summer. Being that they are in rude financial health these days they are under no pressure to sell and can name their price. That price is likely to be too rich for our blood especially when you consider that McKenna is far from the finished article.

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Perhaps the closest Scott McKenna will ever get to wearing a Celtic jersey.

The latest name to be linked is Borussia Dortmund’s Jeremy Toljan, a right back who made 27 appearances for the current Bundesliga league leaders last season but so far none this term. Brendan was quick to dampen any hopes though prematch saying that there’s nothing in it.

Who knows what will materialise over the next 24 hrs.  But with Filipe Benkovic out until at least March suddenly central defence is a concern again.

That aside defender Jack Hendry and midfielder Lewis Morgan continue to be linked with loan moves away for the rest of the season. Considering the improvement we’ve seen in Ryan Christie since his return from a loan stint at Aberdeen I’d say such moves would be good for both young players. It would also trim a very bloated squad that at his way too much dead wood with Gamboa, Hayes, Eboue and Mulumbu other worthy candidates for the dispatch box. As for Marvin Compper, well, they’ll need to carry him out.

All of this and more will be answered in the coming hours. Of course, it could be that nothing happens at all.

As is always the case with a Celtic transfer deadline day………….expect the worst…..hope for the best.

 

Weekend review: Celtic keep rattling them in, managerial heads tumble and them from Govan invade the pitch.

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Another weekend and another victory as Celtic made it three on the spin since returning from the winter break.

As predicted in my last article it really was like shooting fish in a barrel as Hamilton offered only slight resistance en route to being beaten 3-0 going on six.

Young Ryan Fulton in the away teams goal had both a great game and a calamity at the same time as he produced some fine stops to keep the men in green and white out for 40 mins before letting a Callum McGregor shot straight at him squirm under his body and into the net.

His indifferent form continued in the second half as he made more good saves only to spill the ball at the feet of Ryan Christie on 77 mins with the Celtic man duly obliging to increase the lead before Scott Sinclair headed home his seventh in five games ten minutes later to give a more realistic final scoreline to proceedings.

Easy peasy and Celtic maintained their lead at the top whilst for the Accies this was their 11th defeat in 15 games of which they have only won two. It’s the kind of form that would usually see you cut adrift at the bottom but luckily for them both St.Mirren and Dundee have been equally awful this term and they actually still sit 10th and above the relegation zone.

Still, it was no great surprise to see their manager Martin Canning sacked this morning. In fairness, he’s operating with the financial equivalent of a pea shooter in the transfer market and Hamilton are a club who have punched well above their weight to stay in the Premier league since coming up via the playoffs in May 2014. This season reality seems to be really biting though and Canning has paid the price.

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Times up for Martin.

For Celtic, that’s 10 goals with none conceded in the past three games and the break certainly seems to have re-energised them with an opportunity to extend their lead at the top of the table when they play St.Johnstone at Celtic Park tomorrow night as we finally play our game in hand.

Elsewhere Rangers avenged an earlier season loss to Livingston at the Tony Macaroni Arena putting them back up to second spot, a victory of such significance to the hordes in blue that they invaded the pitch in exuberant celebration. Pitch invasions for beating 8th placed Livi eh? They’ve come a long way alright.

In a clash between two of the chasing pack at Pittodrie both Aberdeen and Kilmarnock played out a disappointing 0-0 draw with the only highlight being Krois Boyd receiving a straight red. For Aberdeen, that means they’ve only lost once in eight games and remain in fourth spot one place behind Killie who have only lost once their last eleven league games.

Hearts inconsistent form also continued as they bounced back from a surprise 2-1 midweek home defeat to basement dwellers Dundee by defeating in form St.Johnstone comfortably 2-0 at Tynecastle which sees them leapfrog Tommy Wright’s team and go back into fifth place.

Over in Leith all hell kicked off on Friday night as Neil Lennon was suspended for an apparent bust-up with his squad and in particular striker, Florian Kamberi who he ironically brought to the side in the summer after a successful loan spell last season.

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Lennon and Flo Kamberi in happier times. 

For some reason, Hibs haven’t actually sacked him yet though it’s 90% certain it’ll be made official sometime this week. The exact details of what happened are of course sketchy but Lenny is prone to outbursts and combined with poor results this season which have seen his team win only seven from 22 games then I guess it was the perfect storm.

Still, it’s disappointing to see. Lennon has been good for Hibs winning the Championship to get them back up in his first season and then guiding them back into Europe via a fourth-placed finish last season where they were also in contention for the second spot right up to the last few weeks. Considering his squad was decimated in the summer due to the departures of his entire central midfield in McGinn, Allen and McGeouch it’s not really a surprise they have floundered so badly this term. The incredible job being done by Stevie Clarke over at Kilmarnock with no money has undoubtedly put extra pressure on him also.

Into his place stepped youth coach Eddie May on Sunday and despite the chaos around Hibs they still inflicted more anguish on poor Oran Kearney with a 3-1 win at New St.Mirren Park.

Kearney really must be wondering what the hell he’s got himself into having come over from Northern Ireland with lofty ambitions only to have tasted the cold hard reality of trying to compete in the SPFL Premiership on a shoestring and a with squad decimated from last season by the ill-advised summer transfer antics of his short-lived predecessor Alan Stubbs.

This latest defeat keeps the Buddies bottom only a point behind Dundee who lost 1-0 at home to Motherwell. The bottom three are now trapped in a little min-relegation league of their own with ‘Well now 13 points clear of them in 9th spot and looking up the table after two back to back league wins.

Never a dull moment in the good old SPFL.

 

Midweek review: Celtic win, Killie keep going and it turns out we did do well in the transfer window.

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So Wednesday was our second game back since returning from the winter break.

After a pretty easy 3-0 win over Airdrieonians in the cup on Saturday evening, we were again at home though this time in the league and up against perennial season long basement dwellers St.Mirren.

Not much to see here as it was about as comfortable as you can get with Celtic dominating proceedings from start to finish en route to a 4-0 win over our underwhelming opponents and their seemingly overwhelmed manager Oran Kearney.

I said a few weeks back during my winter transfer window piece that I thought Olly Burke would be a good singing. At 21, 6’2, with pace to burn and something to prove he looked like he was just lacking a bit of sharpness against the men from Airdrie on Saturday but still showed plenty of desire and some nice touches. On Wednesday though that extra bit of sharpness was there and he scored two goals to prove it. His first, a header on 11 mins, really should have been saved by new Buddies keeper Vaclav Hladky but there was no denying his second on the 55th-minute mark when he buried it from the rebound after Hladky had atoned for his earlier error with an excellent double save.

In between those Scott Sinclair netted a penalty on 18 mins after he had been upended in the box and that’s his 12th of the season which is pretty good going when you consider that he has generally struggled for form.

Timothy Weah then came on for Burke and the 18-year-old picked up where he left off by following up his debut goal on Saturday with another on Wednesday to make it four and put the icing on the cake. I really like the look of Weah. He plays football with a smile on his face and a rarely seen type of exuberance. You can tell he just appreciates the opportunity and is prepared to make the most of it. He missed a few chances against Airdrie and kept on coming back for more until he got his just deserts and it was the exact same against St.Mirren. Having been denied a few times he kept on making the runs and produced another lovely finish to make it two games and two goals from the bench.

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Timothy can’t stop scoring.

At half time we unveiled our other new striker Vakoun Issouf Bayo though he must be wondering how he’ll get into the team what with the scoring exploits of Messrs Burke and Weah who have both hit the ground running.

That put us top on 45 points with a game in hand over our nearest rivals and a superior goal difference. But the big question was who were our nearest rivals going to be come 10pm?

Down in Ayrshire Rangers unveiled their own winter transfer signings as they started veterans Steve Davis (34) and Jermaine Defoe (36) who according to some sources is being bankrolled to the tune of an incredible, make that suicidal, £65,000 a week.

Early doors he fired in at close range to give the light blues the lead and it looked like it might be a long old night for Steve Clarke’s men but as has been the story with them ever since his arrival they always seem to find a way and they were back on even terms after Eamonn Brophy robbed the hapless Joe Worrall and finished neatly on 22 mins.

In the second half, it got even better for Killie and worse for Rangers as precontract signing Jordan Jones ran the ancient Gareth McAuley ragged and blasted past Allan McGregor from 20 yards to make it 2-1 and ultimately secure the points. Stevie Gerrard must really be wishing they had just stumped up the cash to buy Jones now as opposed to waiting for the summer. Alas, hindsight and all that.

According to the online community of our Glasgow neighbours, Davis looks done. I could have told them that before they signed him though most, of course, insisted he would come up here and run the show. How often do we hear that about faded players brought up from down south? And when does it ever materialise? I mean Davis was a fair player in his day but he never ran the show up here when he was 27 never mind 34.

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Jordan Jones listens out for Simply the Best from the away end.

Elsewhere Aberdeen recovered from their hapless display against the mighty Stenhousemuir on Saturday by cuffing Hamilton Accies who have been pretty hopeless all season. Sam Cosgrove bagged two goals as his incredible goalscoring run continues and they now sit on 42 points alongside Rangers, only two behind Kilmarnock and three behind us.

Hearts indifferent form continued as they were surprisingly beaten 2-1 by struggling bottom side Dundee at home. Craig Levein decided to describe his new signing, Czech striker David Vanecek as ‘rubbish’ in the post-match interviews after subbing him on 34 mins. What is it they say? Praise in public, criticise in private? Obviously part of the man management course that Craig ignored whilst getting his badges down in Largs.

Injury-ravaged Hibs were beaten 1-0 by Motherwell and this season is turning into a bit of a nightmare for Neil Lennon with a cup run looking like their only possible salvation.

St.Johnstone kept up their incredible season-long form with a 1-0 win at home against Livingstone. They climb to fifth having won their third league game on the spin and their ninth in 13 games. They are also only nine points off their total for the whole of last season with still 15 games left to play.

This weekend we’ll be at home against the struggling Hamilton Accies and comparing the contrasting forms of the two teams this really could be a case of how many. Expect Martin Canning’s team to park the bus as well as all of the player’s cars too as they attempt to avoid a spanking.

Elsewhere something has to give amongst the chasing pack as Kilmarnock visit Aberdeen – the pair are separated by only three points – and St.Johnstone go to Hearts who they sit one point above. I wonder if Vanecek will start?

On Sunday Rangers go back to the Tony Macaroni Arena to play Livingston where they lost earlier in the season and Hibs visit Paisley to play St.Mirren with both sides desperate for points.

 

Scottish Cup weekend review: Celtic 3-0 Airdrie, Auchinleck shock Ayr and the curse of Jimmy Bell.

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As Celtic continued their charge for the mythical treble-treble and a record third consecutive Scottish Cup we welcomed the team once named Airdrie Utd before being re-Christened Airdrieonians – in tribute to the team that were liquidated back in 2002 – to Celtic Park for the unusual kick-off time of 5.15pm on Saturday night as Premier Sports finally began their new coverage of the Scottish Cup.

It was, of course, all meant to start at the luxurious surroundings of Cowdenbeath’s Central Park the night before but Rangers kitman, the infamous Jimmy Bell put paid to that as the game was called off due to a frozen pitch allegedly at wee Jimmy’s instance. Well, that’s what Donald Findlay QC claims anyway.

Getting back to Celtic and it was as expected pretty easy-peasy as we coasted home to a 3-0 victory. Having missed a penalty and an open goal in the first half Scott Sinclair tapped in on 37 minutes to give us the lead. At the other end just before halftime keeper, Scott Bain made an incredible five saves in a row and all within the space of about seven seconds too.

In the second half, Celtic laid siege to the Airdrie goal with Sinclair tapping in a second, then was denied his hat-trick after being adjudged as offside despite two opposition defenders clearly playing him on.

Substitute Timothy Weah came on for his debut and after being fed through from Dedryk Boyata finished beautifully to make it 3-0. Another debutant Olly Burke missed a header late on that he really should have buried but that aside I thought he looked pretty good showing some nice touches. Both players injected energy and enthusiasm into the side and look like positive additions.

Over the piece, it was three going on seven and the visitors did well to keep the score down.

Considering the kick off time and lowly opposition getting a crowd of just under 30,000 inside Celtic Park for the tie was pretty impressive and the pubs were definitely rammed to boot. What is all that about January being a dead month when everyone is skint and off the booze? Not around these parts anyway.

Off the pitch, Airdrie’s lovely Section B fans showed up and after nearly being overrun by the Green Brigade outside the ground before the police arrived to save them, they were escorted into the stadium where they serenaded the home support with some classic sectarian anthems and catcalls for 90 minutes.  Apparently, the Section B-boys were all ramped up by the rumoured attendance at the game of their man crush Tommy Robinson though in the end he never made it. Wise call Tommy.

In other matches, BBC 1 decided to give live television coverage of the all Ayrshire battle between Ayr Utd and Junior side Auchinleck Talbot. I get the romance of the cup and all that but this was some pretty desperate early Saturday afternoon viewing with Ian McCall’s men – who are somehow in the chase for promotion to the Premiership – looking simply woeful without the services of goal machine Lawrence Shankland up front.

The game was dire on a grey and cold day with the only highlight being one of the Talbot players rattling the upstairs window of a house behind the Ayr goal in the second half. Though in fairness the headed goal by former Ayr defender Craig McCracken on 78 minutes was well executed leaving the Ayr fans behind the aforementioned goal with their big union jack flag absolutely gutted.

Aberdeen somehow contrived to draw at home with Stenhousemuir, who currently sit bottom of League 1 and will now replay in 10 days as will Dundee who continued their season-long woeful form with a 1-1 draw at home to Championship side Queen of the South.

St. Mirren were written off by Chick Young with 22 minutes to go probably due to being 2-0 and a man down at home to Alloa Athletic but that only served to galvanise them as they charged back to win 3-2 and Motherwell continued their bleak season as last year’s runners up exited to the cup 2-1 at home to Championship high flyers Ross County.

The rest of the 4th round results pretty much went as expected save League 1’s Raith Rovers flattening Dunfermline Athletic 3-0 in the Fife derby as Stevie Crawford’s reign as the new Pars manager got off to a ‘flyer’.

On Sunday Hearts went some way to avenging their 5-0 embarrassment away to Livingston five weeks ago as they beat the men from the Tony Macaroni arena 1-0 via a solitary Sean Clare strike at Tynecastle in another BBC televised live game and another forgettable affair.

As for the draw for the 5th round – or last 16 as they say in Europe –  we got St.Johnstone at home which you’d imagine should be pretty routine. Elsewhere there is a Highland derby, Auchinleck got Hearts at Tynecastle which will likely be live on the BBC and will also likely be awful,  St. Mirren will host Dundee Utd in a ‘Pick’Em’ encounter and barring the worst result in their history a week on Wednesday when they finally meet Cowdenbeath, Rangers should be playing Kilmarnock at Rugby Park in what will be the tie of the round between two teams currently only separated by one point in the league though of course, Killie could be miles ahead of them by the time the tie comes around on the weekend of the 9th/10th of February.

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.