Tag: Hibs

Post-match analysis: Livingston 0 – 0 Celtic plus the weekend’s events.

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As predicted Celtic got it pretty tough at the Tony Macaroni Arena out in Livingston on Sunday.

The rain was pouring down in Glasgow as I took my place with seven other hardy souls at an otherwise deserted Crow Tavern to take in the proceedings whilst Remembrance Sunday memorials were taking place at the cenotaph across the road that afternoon and the minute’s silence before the game was impeccably observed much to everyone’s relief.

Let’s be honest the artificial surface that has been installed out at what used to be called Almondvale is not fit for purpose and everyone knows that but fair play to Livingston who with their meagre resources have found a way to put 19 points on the board so far this season and are really well coached under ex-Celtic Gary Holt.

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Holt & Rodgers. Sounds like it could be a new Netflix series.

To the game itself and the men in Hoops looked a little tired which is no surprise given their exertions on Thursday night against a top-class Red Bull Leipzig team who incidentally hammed VfB Stuttgart 3-0 at home on Sunday to leapfrog Bayern Munich into third spot in the Bundesliga.

Indeed the team was unchanged from then apart from Kristofer Ajer replacing Filipe Benkovic beside Boyata in central defence and in the first 45 mins Ryan Christie – who has really stepped up to the plate in the last three weeks and set up Edouard for the winner against the German three days previously – should have scored but his point-blank effort was saved by Liam Kelly in the Livi goal.

In the second half, Celtic created several chances in the last 15 mins with the best of them seeing Rogic crack in a seemingly goal-bound effort from the edge of the box only for that men Kelly again to somehow touch over.

The wonderfully named Dolly Menga should have walked for the home side in the first half for a clear headbutt on Christie at a corner but it went undetected and it’s likely he’ll now receive a retrospective ban for his efforts.

Livingston ran themselves into the ground and threw themselves in front of every ball and it’s difficult to begrudge them a point. Let’s not forget they have only conceded seven goals all season with the second best defensive record in the league only one behind us.

Sadly Kristofer Ajer suffered a broken cheekbone during events and will likely be out for some time as the injury list piles up at Lennoxtown with Scott Brown, Olivier Ntcham, Eboue Kouassi, Leight Griffiths and Daniel Arzani already out.

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Pretty much the story of the match.

The result sees Celtic back to the top of the league on 26 points even with Hearts but ahead on goal difference with a game in hand.

The Jam Tarts were the latest team to fall victim to the incredible spell Steve Clark has cast over Kilmarnock as the Ayrshire club left Tynecastle with a 1-0 victory thanks to a solitary strike from the previously unheard of Ross Millen. That means Clark now has a 54% win ratio after well over 50 games in charge with a team that were serial relegation candidates season upon season before his arrival. Quite incredible.

Aberdeen kept their recent strong momentum going as they defeated Hibs at Pittodrie to climb into the top six via a winning first-half strike from ex-Celtic Gary Mackay-Steven whilst elsewhere St.Johnstone also continued their stunning run of form which started when we massacred them 6-0 a month ago – by hammering Hamilton Accies 4-0.

Basement dwellers Dundee and St.Mirren battled out a 1-1 draw as respective managers Jim McIntyre and Oran Kearney still seek out their first wins in charge of their new-ish clubs.

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The Donegal man sees red as Morelos endears himself to no one.

 

Oh and over at Ibrox Rangers thumped Motherwell 7-1 as the boys in blue bounced back spectacularly from their keystone cops performance over in Moscow on Thursday evening. The match was actually pretty even until Donegal man Carl McHugh was harshly red-carded for two yellows the first of which saw him dare to go within two yards of loveable rogue Alfredo Morelos. The Columbian then appeared to take great delight in McHugh’s second yellow for handball as he clapped in his face. Thereafter the Steelman folded like a cheap suit and the Govan side remain within touching distance of ourselves at the top of the league on 24 points as next month’s Ibrox encounter begins to really start to heat-up.

Anyway, that was the weekend that was. Top of the league so not all bad by any means. Now into the dreaded international break, we go.

Post-match analysis: Dundee 0 – 5 Celtic. A massacre at Dens while it kicks off big time elsewhere.

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Well, I think it’s pretty safe to say that we’re back to being in fine fettle now.

Domestically at least.

A rampant Celtic tore hapless Dundee apart on Halloween with four goals in the first half all started by a beautiful strike from star man Tom Rogic on the 20 minute mark followed  by a penalty conversion from Scott Sinclair just after the half hour, James Forrest finishing off a sublime passing move with a neat finish on 38mins and then Odsonne Edouard tapping in the fourth just before the half-time whistle blew after some fine wing play and a cut back from Forrest.

The second half saw Celtic predictably drop down a few gears whilst Dundee put on their best guiser masks and started hammer throwing as they committed to keeping the score down.

That didn’t stop Ryan Christie bursting through on goal to finish expertly on 48 mins and Kieran Tierney should have made it six when he placed it past the post when it seemed easier to score after a fine low cross to the back post by substitute Daniel Arzani.

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Arzani wishes the Celtic support a hello and a goodbye. 

Incidentally, we finally got a glimpse of the highly touted Man City loanee Arzani who looked a little off the pace but still pretty tasty all before he went down in a heap on 78 mins before being taken off on a stretcher. Sadly early reports indicate ligament damage and that he’ll be out for nine months so safe to say we won’t be seeing him again. Thanks for the memories, Daniel. We’ll always have Dens.

The performance was a continuation from what we’ve been seeing from the Hoops since the mauling of St.Johnstone at McDiarmid Park nearly four weeks ago and saw us rack up our 18th goal in four domestic games.

Yes, Dundee are pretty much on their arse at the moment with their shellshocked new manager Jim McIntyre probably wondering what the hell he’s has got himself into and gave nothing going forward all night incredibly registering no shots on goal. But Celtic still put them to the sword in impressive fashion none the less.

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Who’d be Jim?

Let’s hope we can continue this on to our top of the table clash with Hearts on Saturday with victory seeing us close the gap to 1 point with a game in hand over the jam tarts.

Over at Tynecastle last night they played out an eventful 0-0 draw with city rivals Hibs that saw their keeper smacked in the chops from a Hibs fan – no way it was a punch but still was uncalled for – and Neil Lennon got coined by one of Hearts more impassioned supporters who our ex-manager would now like to meet for a friendly one to one over a cup of tea or words to that effect.

Elsewhere crisis continued to envelop Rangers as they dropped points to Kilmarnock – who in fairness are no mugs these days as we found out to our own detriment earlier in the season – just as their financial figures were released revealing trading losses of over ÂŁ14 million to the year ending June 30th.  Interesting that they decided to release the figures just before a home game kicked off. It’s almost as if they are trying to divert attention. Still, Dave King is very confident things are moving in the right direction and he looks pretty trustworthy.

I’m told that Europea League qualification will sort all things financial out. Strange how it’s been painted as financial salvation over in Govan yet our elimination from the Champions League and subsequent qualification for the very same Europa League has been painted as a near financial disaster. Funny that.

Anyway, it’s all going well on the good ship Celtic for the moment and there can be no doubt that the team has their swagger back.

Let’s hope the re-established domestic dominance can be translated into a positive European result in one weeks times as we desperately need to beat Red Bull Leipzig at Celtic Park next Thursday.

Anything but victory effectively eliminates us and defeat combined with Salzburg winning in Norway would confirm it.

I was disappointed we prioritised the weekend’s cup semi-final against Hearts over last Thursday nights away game against the Germans.

Europe for me is always where good Celtic teams and managers really prove their worth and by and large in the past three seasons we’ve been found wanting.

I guess I can delve a bit deeper into that quandary next week so for now, let’s just enjoy our continued return to form whilst all of our rivals faltered on Halloween night.

Post-match analysis: Celtic 4 – 2 Hibs. That’ll be the crisis over then.

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What a game that was.

Celtic and Hibs played out what must be undoubtedly the game of the season on Saturday afternoon.

As expected ex-Celtic manager Neil Lennon set-up his team to attack and as a result, a very open and free-flowing game occurred with Celtic’s superior firepower seeing us emerge with three points in a spectacular end to end game.

In total there were 30 shots on goal between the two teams with 12 of those on target as well as 12 corners shared and Hibs even had 46% of possession which is highly unusual for a domestic team visiting Celtic Park.

But despite the stats looking fairly even the reality was that this would have been a travesty if Celtic had not emerged with the three points. Along with the four goals the Hoops hit the post three times and the opposition goalie Adam Bogdan had one of the games of his life.

Tom Rogic gave Celtic the lead as he played a one-two with Forrest, the man whose goals he had mostly helped conjure up at St.Johnstone a fortnight ago, and lashed a curling left-foot drive past Bogdan on eight mins, a goal highly reminiscent of his strike against Rangers at Ibrox in the 3-2 triumph last season.

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“How’s about that for a strike?”

Then on 19 minutes, Olivier Ntcham doubled the lead with a fine sweeping low finish from inside the box past Bogdan after a lovely pass from Rogic.

This was no more than Celtic deserved considering that in the first seven mins alone Edouard had crashed one off the post after chesting down a clipped cross to the back stick from McGregor and then McGregor himself nearly caught Bogdan off his line with a free-kick from distance just going over the bar.

Celtic really should have made it three and finished it off in the first half when Scott Sinclair cracked one off the post when it seemed easier to score after being the first to meet a save from Bogdan who had denied the oncoming Edourde. The rebound came to James Forrest but the less said about his attempted finish the better. Needless to say, he scuffed it a mile wide from close range.

With it all being such one-way traffic it was easy to forget that Hibs have actually been in great form this season but they served up a sharp reminder when ex-Celt Efe Ambrose floated a cross into the box that was met perfectly by Martin Boyle requiring Craig Gordon to produce a wonder save to put it past the post.

Into the second half and Hibs continued to threaten and credit where it is due as Florian Kamberi produced an absolutely wonderful finish from just inside the box to reduce his side’s deficit to 2-1.

Odsonne Edouard was determined not to be outdone though and rampaged forward, skinning three Hibs defenders in the process before his curling finish came back off the bottom off the past with Bogdan well beaten.

But any doubts it wasn’t going to be his day were erased when James Forrest burst down the left wing towards the byline, leaving Mark Milligan in his wake before cutting back for Edouard to finally deliver a well-deserved goal and restore Celtic’s two-goal cushion.

You’d have thought that would be all she wrote but Hibs were never going to throw in the towel that easy with Neil Lennon as manager and again they broke away with Martin Boyle bearing down on goal before clipping it over the despairing Craig Gordon to make it 3-2.

Frenetic stuff.

The game continued to rage from end to end and Bogdan made several excellent saves before Celtic put it beyond doubt on 88 mins when Tierney passed it forward to Edouard who backheeled it on the spin beautifully to the onrushing McGregor who floated it back over to him in the box and the Frenchman brought it down before finishing superbly past the Hibs keeper to seal the three points.

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Brendan tells French Eddy he’s worth his weight in goals whilst KT does that pose with his hands on his hips pose that he often does. 

What a performance and there is no doubt that an ambitious and high flying Hibs team brought out the best in Celtic. Let’s not forget that Celtic could only record one win from four league meetings against the Edinburgh side last season and even that was only 1-0.

It really does look like we’re back to where we were for the first season and a half under Brendan with a pace and tenacity about the play as well as some absolutely wonderful combination play at pace as Celtic constantly looked to go on the offensive.

When you play like that the opposition will always get some chances but in fairness, both of Hibs goals were top drawer finishes the likes of which we will seldom see from visiting teams in any season domestically at least.

It would appear that we are now back to our best and that all of the nonsensical talk of divisions in the dressing rooms etc is just that. Scott Brown going off injured is definitely a blow as we clearly missed him away against Salzburg and will again on Thursday in Germany if his injury is as bad as initially feared but with the likes on Edouard, McGregor, Forrest and Rogic in red-hot form who knows.

Anyway, a review of Thursday nights opponents will follow tomorrow but at the very least we are definitely back at the races domestically.

So who does Brendan want out of the picture?

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Just before the international break, our manager made it pretty clear that there were too many players at the club and that some were going to have to go.

The press picked up on this briefly and it was interesting listening to the Sportsound team in the wake of the St.Johnstone mauling trying to figure out who he could be making reference to.

Ryan Christie, perhaps they wondered? Even though he’s been actually making the squad quite regularly this season.

Then they moved onto Nir Bitton before apparently hitting a brick wall.

Yep, they were absolutely flummoxed as to who Brendan could have been referring to.

It actually just goes to show just how far out of the picture some of our players are that football analysts paid to research and discuss the game on national radio couldn’t even think of anyone outside of two players, one of whom is clearly not one of the individuals Brendan was alluding to.

Christie might still be moved along in January and I’d be surprised if he’s still here next season but currently, he is involved albeit sparingly.

Bitton would definitely be one on the list and of course, he hasn’t been helped by a recent spate of injuries the legitimacy of which I doubt. After all, he’s made it quite clear on social media that he is more than happy to sit on the sidelines and collect his wages until his contract runs down.

But as well as those two there are some pretty startlingly obvious candidates that must be right at the top.

Firstly Scott Allen who joined us from Hibs in the summer of 2015 and has played about 17 times all in mostly from the bench.

Like many, I presumed he would be back off to Hibs permanently after a successful loan spell there last season but it would appear that Hibs handling of the John McGinn situation hit them with the double  whammy of ultimately receiving less money and not having a prayer of being entertained by the Celtic board in regards to any further transfer business.

 

Along with him, there is Eboue Kouassi who has been at the club since January 2017 yet has only had a total of 19 outings despite costing us a pretty hefty fee of around £3 million from Krasnodar. He’s still only 20 but by all accounts had it made pretty clear to him in the summer that he had little to no future at Celtic Park. He then did himself no favours with a shambolic performance against Hearts at Tynecastle in August as we lost 1-0 and after that, his days were numbered. But as the transfer window shut Kouassi decided he’d prefer to continue to cut a forlorn figure on the bench this season as opposed to actually playing football somewhere else.

Then there’s Jonny Hayes. Jonny has been a serial bench warmer since arriving from Aberdeen in the summer of 2017. Despite suffering a serious injury in his time at the club he has actually pulled on the hoops 20 times scoring once but has failed to make anything like an impact. He basically looks out of his depth if truth be told and it didn’t help that he was effectively taking over the position occupied by Paddy Roberts the season before. There was, of course, a marked difference in quality between the two and last seasons upsurge in form by James Forest made Hayes potential contribution to proceedings look even more redundant.

We then get to Cristian Gamboa. He arrived for a ÂŁ1 million from WBA not long after Brendan took over the hot seat and after being thrown to the wolves against Barcelona in the Nou Camp for his debut in which we were beaten 7-0 he has never really recovered. Indeed since then, he has made only 19 more appearances but after an impressive showing, this summer at the World Cup with Costa Rica hopes abounded that he may be given a new lease of life especially considering the increasingly worrying displays by the faded Mikel Lustig at right back. And to begin with, Gamboa did slot in for the Swede who was still returning from his own extended World Cup duty at the start of the season with a particularly impressive display away against Rosenborg in the Champions League qualifiers coming to mind. But since then it’s been a case of ‘as you were’ with Gamboa now rarely even featuring in the squad and this is despite Lustig continuing to look a shadow of his former self.

But I do of course save the best for last. That being the fabled Marvin Compper who has now achieved a mythical status of that approaching the Yeti or Bigfoot. A man so far out of the picture rumour has it he’s training at Barrowfield. A man so seldom seen in the clubs colours they say he cites Martin Hayes and Freddie Ljungberg as his Celtic heroes.

Good old Marvin eh?! A player so good our top-notch recruitment coach Lee Congerton tried to sign him three times at previous clubs before finally reeling in his man at Celtic. Oh yes. Lee only says yes to the best.

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This is Lee Congerton if you were wondering by the way.

Who’s to say why Compper hasn’t made it. Clearly, he had a fallout with John Kennedy back in January during our winter break training camp in Dubai. God knows what he said but it was bad enough to have him excluded from events for the past nine months barring one runout in a Scottish cup tie against St.Mirren last season. Even with a centre-back crisis for our crucial Champions League qualifier against AEK Athens Marvin wasn’t even considered. And of course, this has led to other rumours surfacing with the old chestnut that he slept with another players wife even doing the rounds though of course nobody actually knows who’s wife it was or if the player even plays for Celtic.

It could just be that Marvin is mince. His fleeting display against the Buddies would appear to give some weight to that. To be pretty blunt about it he looked pish.

The real worrying aspect though is not that he was signed but how we’ve dealt with it ever since.

Sometimes clubs sign bad players. Sometimes players get homesick and just don’t fancy it. Sometimes payers turn out to have a reputation abroad built on sand and to not actually be up to what it takes to play for a club like Celtic or any other big club for that matter. And sometimes they blatantly only want to collect a wage and couldn’t really give two-stuffs about what anybody thinks.  Ian Wright anyone?

But when it hasn’t worked it hasn’t worked so you deal with it. Marvin should have been punted in the summer. If he didn’t want to leave then pay him off. Better he counts his money at another club as opposed to hanging around Lennoxtown bumping his gums about what he thinks of the coaching staff to other players and creating unnecessary levels of innuendo amongst our own support and mocking from our rivals.

I mean at least Mohammed Bangura had the good grace to go out on loan.

There are now rumours that Daniel Arzani might be returning to Manchester City much earlier than his initial two-year loan deal suggested. So another Charly Musonda then.

It all begs the question what the hell is going on with recruitment at the club?

Is it Lawwell? Is it Congerton? Who knows. Either way, it has to be addressed in the next transfer window both in terms of incoming and outgoing and before then the board has to be run over the coals for this at the next AGM.

Apparently, Marvin Compper will be in attendance. Here’s his latest picture just in case you go and can’t spot him.

 

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