Aberdeen played well and Gary Mackay-Steven nearly came back to haunt us in the first half with a mazy run where he then typically fluffed his lines when through one on one with the keeper. Good save from Gordon in fairness.
Niall McGinn also had a decent effort from distance whizz just past the post but down at the other end, Edouard was unlucky to see a wonderful effort crack off the post from 25 yards.
He later had to go off after being assaulted on the edge of the box by Scott McKenna though Bobby Madden ludicrously adjusted it to be nothing more than a 50/50 challenge when in reality it was a wild attempt at a WWE style drop-kick from the Aberdeen defender.
You can clearly see he’s focused purely on the ball.
That aside Celtic were a bit wasteful and Aberdeen remained a threat with Leigh Griffiths having to head one off the line from a corner.
Scott Sinclair came on for French Eddy and conjured up a wonderful goal via a back heeler midway through the second half.
An important three points and it maintains our pretty incredible home record this season of eight wins and one draw from nine matches, with six clean sheets.
It was also vitally important for Scott Sinclair who as we all know has been bang out for form recently which just isn’t acceptable for one of the highest paid players at the club.
Niall McGinn knows what’s coming.
Before the match, the players dawned black armbands for the second time in the week and observed a minutes applause along with the fans for Jim Brogan.
I was at Jim’s funeral that morning and was disappointed to hear that the club had made no official contact with the family outside of flowers sent to the crematorium where Jim was finally laid to rest after a Requiem Mass at the Cathedral earlier which was attended by many Celtic greats such as Danny McGrain, Davie Hay, John Clark, Dixie Deans and Bobby Lennox to name but a few.
Hopefully, they can resolve that in the coming days and weeks though it’s another example of how disconnected clubs are in the modern day from the people who have played such a pivotal role in their history. Alas……
I was able to stream the game onto my phone and show some of Jim’s family the round of applause just before kick off as well as his picture on the big screens.
Thankfully we got the right result in the end.
It was tough and hard fought but the win was ours. A fitting tribute to Jim.
Not the greatest performance by any means but a win and a deserved one at that.
As predicted the Saints sat in still licking their wounds from a 5-1 pasting at Ibrox on Sunday.
In an action replay of Celtic’s last half dozen or more displays, Celtic lacked tempo and mainly passed the ball aimlessly around at the back for the majority of the first half as the Perth side rarely ventured into our half.
Despite that, both Leigh Griffiths and on the stroke of half-time Callum McGregor passed up stick on chances as Leigh headed straight at the keeper and Callum raced through one on one only to clip it past the far post.
A whisker away.
In the second half, Celtic came out like a team clearly given a boot up the backside by Brendan during the half-time team talk and played like a team determined to actually win.
It was all one-way traffic with Zander Clark producing some fine saves in the opposition goal and Leigh Griffiths passing up a few more chances you would usually fancy him to bury.
The men in blue did break away on a few occasions and David Wotherspoon was unlucky to see his curling drive from the edge of the box whistle just past the post but that apart Celtic were dominant.
Just rewards were delivered as Griffiths pounced on a loose ball in the box to bury it and give a deserved lead and eventual winner on 83 minutes. His third goal in as many games and it was good to see him not give up the ghost after a frustrating evening.
If at first, you don’t succeed……
That was pretty much it bar Boyata getting a senseless straight red card moments later for dissent towards referee Steve Beaton. Replays showed Beaton originally planned to only dish out a yellow but the Belgian internationalist refusal to A) walk over to him when asked and B) keep his mouth shut leading to the claret-coloured one instead.
Scott Bain, in goal for the night with Craig Gordon on the bench, then had a rush of blood in the last few seconds and came for a ball he was miles away from almost resulting in disaster but thankfully it came to nothing.
Aside from that Bain literally had nothing to do all night bar gather up a few speculative crosses and shots from distance.
On the whole, the second half was more like it from Celtic. Showing determination and a real will to win they created chance after chance and it was inevitable one would eventually be taken. It really is amazing what injecting a bit of intensity to the play can do.
Lewis Morgan came on and looked good once again and he is starting to cement a pretty solid case for a starting place.
To the minus points though and the man Morgan came on for, Edouard, again looked ineffective showing very little and there would appear to be slim hope of a partnership with LG up front working as both are way too similar.
Boyata’s straight red rules him out of the semi-final which is cause for concern though it can be appealed. However, I’d hold out little hope of it being successful.
Boyata walks. No one looks surprised.
As for the semi-final we got Hearts which is a refreshing change from Rangers who we’ve been drawn against in three out of the last four cup semis.
It brings up the also potentially controversial situation of either ourselves or the side from Govan having to play their semi on the afternoon of Saturday the 27th of October, just 40 hours after a scheduled Thursday night Europa League match.
Rangers are at home in their game against Spartak Moscow whilst we’ll be away to Red Bull Leipzig.
The possible solution is to play both matches on the Sunday with one at Hampden and the other through in Edinburgh at Murrayfield. Outside of that, I don’t really see how it would work. Playing one after the other at Hampden on the Sunday will be kyboshed by the police and having one semi remain on the Saturday will lead to outcry from either half of the Glasgow divide claiming bias.
In the past few months over in America, I noticed that chat show darling Ellen De Generis has rolled out George W Bush like he’s some old cuddly darling grandad of American politics.
This is, of course, an attempt to use the political elite to have a go at Donald Trump’s presidency. Like we need George W to tell us how much of a shit show that all is.
In amongst all the fawning over the ‘good ol’ president’ everyone conveniently forgets of course that Mr Bush and his UK cronies took us all into an illegal war in Iraq which cost the death of hundreds of thousands and created the legacy of Isis and complete destabilisation in the middle east. And all based on a huge lie as confirmed in the Chilcoat report which has also been conveniently forgotten about.
It’s funny how easily and selectively people forget.
In the past few days, it appears George Peat has emerged from his crypt.
Good old George eh?
He was president of the SFA during that glorious period for Scottish football between 2007-2011 just in case you forgot.
Right before he did his latest interview with BBC’s Sportsound which was broadcast via their podcast on Monday I swear I could hear the Adams Family theme playing in the background as we once again got a glimpse of Scottish football’s very own Uncle Fester.
As the interview unfolded George wheezed out all the old dust that had accumulated in his lungs over the past seven years and then wiped off some of the cobwebs from his SFA / bowling club blazer to give us his earth-shattering insights into the state of Scottish football.
George being ‘ironic’.
To sum up the highlights………he negotiated a big SFA TV contract with Sky before he left his role the money from which has not been used satisfactorily – if at all, the current SFA are incompetent, he threw Gordon Smith – his appointment as SFA chief executive – under the bus and then claimed a prominent Scottish club chairman had contacted him requesting the SFA didn’t help Rangers as the 2007/08 season reached its climax.
That last one in particular really stuck in his throat apparently.
George wouldn’t identify the chairman directly of course. Instead, he relied on winks, nudges and general innuendo.
But then Goegoe once said that he was the “kind of guy if someone asks me a question, I will give them an answer”.
That is until the question is: “So who is the chairman you are making these rather serious allegations against?”
In this instance, the reply is: “I’m not saying but you can guess.”
Yeah, the thing is that isn’t an answer George. But then George always was a coward.
Originally an accountant by profession he spent 22 years on the board of Airdrieonians FC. They, of course, were liquidated due to financial mismanagement.
“Then the club went out of business. And the ultimate irony is that far from being held responsible for a club going to the wall, Peat pulled another club’s blazer on at Stenhousemuir, kept his privileges with the SFA and went on to become the top man in the game.” – ex-Airdrie defender Chris Honor, Daily Record, 12/06/2011.
George doesn’t talk much about his time at Airdrie. I wonder why.
Many years back I remember writing an article for the Celtic Underground. It related to George’s handling of Neil Lennon’s six-match ban which had just been handed down at the time.
Here’ an insert:
“Perhaps Celtic should devote more time to their own responsibilities and discipline than questioning others.” George Peat.
Are you being serious George? What like how you dragged your heals over Hugh Dallas’s sacking, relegated Dougie McDonald to 4thofficial status for a few weeks after he’d admitted to doctoring post-match reports and how no investigation was conducted into the circumstances surrounding the resignation of assistant referee Steven Craven amid claims that the head of referee’s (the aforementioned Hugh Dallas) bullied and intimated Scottish referee’s and asked him to lie in his post-match report in regards to the previously mentioned incident involving McDonald? – Celtic Underground, 13/01/2011.
Apparently, the events above didn’t stick in George’s throat too much.
But a chairman having the temerity to request that he was “not to help Rangers in any way” did.
The thing is George that you were the president of the SFA. You could have moved the cup final – which would have seen Rangers’s opponents in said cup final Queen of the South go without a competitive game for four weeks in the lead up to it by the way but I guess that’s life eh? – but being that you had no involvement with the SPL at the time you couldn’t have done anything to reschedule their league games. Nothing at all in fact.
The SPL, under the leadership of Lex Gold did, in fact, extend the league season by four days, with the final games played on Thursday 22 May, instead of the previous Sunday.
So to sum up George has decided to conjure up a ten-year-old issue for nobodies benefit but his own. You see George always did love the attention.
“He’s now trying to portray the SFA changes as some kind of victory for him. Yet he doesn’t see the irony that his stewardship contributed to the game needing a total overhaul. All that tells me is he never loved the game – he just loved the power.” ex-Airdrie defender Chris Honor, Daily Record, 12/06/2011.
George’s selective memory doesn’t stop there. He also has a dig at the current SFA leadership for the way they handled the failed Michael O’Neill appointment. Yeah George, because your appointment history was just bang on, wasn’t it? Let me see. First, you appointed George Burley and then it was Craig Levein. Both were unmitigated disasters but why dwell on that when you can have a dig at the current men in power?
No love loss.
Then there’s also his recollections of Gordon Smith’s time at the SFA. Smith has persistently claimed that his decision making power was limited when the chief executive of the SFA.
So, does he regret taking the job?
“No, I think I was right to.” Adding in his experience in business, he thought he was well-qualified. “If I hadn’t taken it, I think I would have regretted not having a go. The one regret I have, what I didn’t check beforehand, was the scenario regarding how much control you actually have as chief exec.”
Does he mean how little?
“Well, an awful lot – nearly everything goes to committees or the board. I mean, I was able to offer my opinion on certain matters, and I was happy that a lot of things were accepted, but if I’d known about the procedures I might have thought: if I’m going to do this job properly I’d like to have a bigger say. I didn’t get the final say.”– Gordon Smith, The Scotsman, 02/10/2010
George though remembers it different of course.
“I thought it would do Scottish football good to get a football man in. Unfortunately, it didn’t come off because Gordon lacked the business experience………”
How much power does that man actually have?
“He has a lot of power. At the end of the day, a lot of the decisions have to go to the board. But if the chief executive strongly recommends something, nine times out of ten the board will approve it. It’s only if something unforeseen happens that the board would turn down a recommendation.” – George Peat, BBC Sportsound, 17/09/2018.
George also claims that Hampden needs an overhaul. The thing is George it needed the same overhaul ie: bringing the stands closer to the pitch, back in 2007-2011 too but you did sod all about it.
He also takes credit for securing the Sky TV deal before his departure. Though the sum part of George’s involvement was signing off on the offer that Sky had made the SFA. Any delusions by George that he was a tough mediator locked in a room all night with hard-nosed negotiators from Sky’s London office trying to get the best deal for Scottish football are utter fantasy. I believe the meeting went something like this:
“Come in George. Sorry for the delay.”
“Oh, that’s okay. I was just admiring your marble staircase and how it reminded me of ……..”
“Okay so sign here please.”
“Eh, yeah. I mean everything looks in order. Can I…..”
“Just sign it George.”
George glances eagerly at the large oak table in the middle of the room on which a buffet lunch has been laid out.
“Yeah, sure. Are the sandwiches and mineral water free?”
Anyway, George has grabbed the headlines once again in a sad attempt to live out former glories.
He’ll be relevant for a few days and then it’ll all calm down.
Rangers will make some noises about it but there’s little they can do because, as they are often keen to point out, this is really a matter for the ‘old club’.
....Always A Tim! 