Tag: Kilmarnock FC

Celtic smash seven past saints, the other results plus Cluj Champs League preview.

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Celtic got their title defence off to a flyer with a seven nil massacre of St.Johnstone at Celtic Park yesterday afternoon – Saturday afternoon at the time of publication.

In my last article, I had predicted a romp for Celtic based on the Perth sides woeful League Cup group section campaign throughout July which had seen them lost to newly-promoted Ross County though more pertinently to League One sides Forfar Athletic and Montrose.

Before the game, I listened to their manager Tommy Wright passionately defend his record at the club on BBC Sportsound which is telling as no one had actually called it into question and is more of a reflection of the pressure Wright must himself feel under and his frustrations at the fact they have lost nine first-team squad players over the summer with only a couple coming in and a striker badly needed.

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Joy for Christie and Johnstone but not so much for Tommy.

As much as I expected an inform Celtic, fresh from a 7-0 aggregate dismissal of Nomme Kalju in the Champions League qualifiers,  to put them to the sword I could never have predicted a 7-0 skelping which is the men from Perth’s worst result in 21 years and even eclipses the 6-0 scudding we gave them at McDiarmid Park last term.

Ryan Christie kept up his sparkling recent form with a hattrick. His first a beauty from the edge of the box and his third an even more spectacular finish with the one in the middle being a tad fortunate with Saints keeper Zander Clark not exactly covering himself in glory.

Mikey Johnstone had opened the scoring with a nice finish of his own after only nine mins and Ntcham, Edouard and Griffiths also delivered the goods with each executing fine finishes in the second half.

Hatem Abd Elhamed also made his debut and looked pretty good – let’s be honest if you can’t look good when your team is winning 7-0 then you never will – but sadly limped off in the second half. Let’s hope it isn’t too serious.

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Hatem in action.

A perfect way to start the title defence on a day in which our eighth consecutive title flag was fittingly unveiled by Liz McNeill and Sadie Chalmers, the wives of the legendary Billy McNeill and Stevie Chalmers, two immortal club legends who we lost earlier in the year.

Elsewhere over the weekend Livingston and Motherwell burst my coupon with a meandering 0-0 draw whilst Hibs stuttered before scoring late to beat struggling St.Mirren at Easter Road thanks to a Scott Allen goal. It’s early doors but from what I’ve seen thus far I’m not too impressed with Paul Heckingbottom’s English League One level purchases.  Last seasons Championship winners Ross County re-entered the top flight in style as they easily dismissed perennial relegation candidates Hamilton Accies 3-0 up in Dingwall.

Earlier on today Aberdeen won a rabble-rousing encounter at home to Hearts 3-2 with the Edinburgh side literally grasping defeat from the jaws of victory after throwing away 2-1 lead and seeing young 17-year-old Aaron Hickey sent off before Clévid Dikamona needlessly gave away a penalty which was converted by goal machine Sam Cosgrove before new singing Ryan Hedges blasted home a late winner.

Rangers also continued to provide further evidence that we have little to worry about this term as they struggled to a 2-1 away win at a Kilmarnock team coming off the back of a shambolic Europea League exit. Killie look like a pale imitation of the well-oiled machine Stevie Clarke had moulded them into last season but still dominated large swaths of the game and were unlucky to concede late to a Connor Goldson header.

But now let’s get back to our next European opponents in the 3rd Qualifying round of the Champions League.

They are of course CFR Cluj of Romania who have won back to back national titles and are managed by former Chelsea star Dan Petrescu.

He’s had great success on these shores before both as a player with Chelsea and in a coaching capacity with the now-defunct Unirea Urziceni who he led to a 4-1 Champions league groups stage hammering of Walter Smith’s Rangers back in 2009 at Ibrox.

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Cluj manager Dan Petrescu thinking about Celtic. 

Cluj themselves are currently enjoying the most successful period in their history having been formed way back in 1907 they only won their first top-flight title back in 2008 and very first national cup that same year.

They’ve won four more titles and three more cups since and have established themselves as the second biggest club in the country beyond the famous Steaua Bucharest.

So far this season they’ve won three and drawn one in the league and currently sit top of the division after hammering AFC Chindia Târgoviște 4-1 away yesterday. They’ve scored ten goals conceding only three in the process.

In Europe, the success story has continued as they bounced back from a 1-0 loss in Kazakhstan to Astana to win 3-1 at home to progress 3-2 on aggregate before then eliminating Maccabi Tel Aviv of Israel 3-2 on aggregate also after gaining a 2-2 draw away following on from a tight 1-0 home win.

Their squad isn’t full of stars and indeed Petrescu has boasted that both Astana and Tel Aviv had superior budgets so they haven’t achieved what they have by simply splashing the cash.

Experience is heavy in the team.

Attacking winger Ciprian Deac is 33 and has 20 caps for Romania. Defensive midfielder Ovidiu Hoban is 36 and has 30 caps for Romania. Their Portuguese captain Camora has no caps for his country but at 32 has played 240 games for Cluj. Recently signed striker Mario Rondón is 33, has over 100 career goals at eight previous clubs and 13 caps for Venezuela.

Veteran Argentine midfielder Emmanuel Culio is in his second spell at the club, is 36 and has played for 15 clubs in total and has been described by Petrescu as ‘the best player in Cluj’s history.’ Though apparently, he’s struggling to makes Wednesday nights encounter with fitness issues. So that’s good.

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Cluj’s ‘greatest ever player’ in action.

Up front, the ones to watch out for are big striker George Țucudean who was the leading striker in the Romanian top flight last season with 18 goals from 24 games and his strike partner, Frenchman Billel Omrani whose also a six-footer.

They haven’t made any big-name additions this summer but held onto the majority of their squad with no significant departures. It’s certainly an ageing squad but also a successful one and very consistent.

Last season despite their domestic success Malmo eliminated them from the Champions League qualifiers and in a big shock, Luxembourg’s F91 Dudelange put them out of Europe all together at the Europea League play-offs stage 5-2 on aggregate.

Currently, in the UEFA association coefficients, Romania sits at 29, nine places behind Scotland which gives you an idea of the sort of impact or lack of that their clubs have been making in Europe recently.

But their recent form has been good and this will be a definite step-up from what we came up against in the first two qualifying rounds.

They lost only one home game in the league last season but did lose two of their three home European ties and at home in the semi-finals of the national cup to former Celtic European opponents Astra Giurgiu so there is hope for optimism.

I think it’ll be tight but as much as I’d like to go with the ultra optimism of a comfortable win I’m going to go for a score draw at the Dr. Constantin Rădulescu Stadium on Wednesday night with us bringing them back to Celtic Park for a classic European home tie the following Tuesday.

It’s definitely doable and we’ll find out in the morning who we could potentially get in the Play-off round.

It’ll be the winner of Rosenborg vs Maribor, APOEL Nicosia, Young Boys or Slavia Prague.

The only one that makes me wary there is Young Boys. They won the league last season over Basel who’ve already eliminated PSV from the Champions League this season so safe to say that the Swiss champs will be pretty tasty.

Exciting times.

 

 

Celtic: a 5-day review, from despair against Valencia to late joy at Killie.

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It’s not ideal to be writing two post-match reviews several days late but alas I’ve been floored by a virus so have been bed bound up until today.

I didn’t fancy writing anything in the wake of the Valencia defeat anyway. Negatively abounded online and in Celtic cyberspace in particular. Ultimately it’s the sort of performance on big European nights that we’ve become accustomed to not just under Brendan but over the past six years full stop. I plan to write a preview tomorrow of the second leg anyway so will touch more on that there.

On the night itself, our passing was poor, our movement lacked conviction and after a good opening ten minutes spell we lost our way and allowed our opponents to grow into the game and ultimately take over. As a result, they scored in each half via strikes from Cheryshev and Sobrino with both goals totally preventable and born out of unnecessary mistakes on our part. That aside Scott Brown struggled badly but in fairness so did the whole team. Even the ever dependable Callum McGregor had an off night something you can rarely say about the 25-year-old. We were well beaten by a team who had extra quality but who also did the basics right.

All that being said at European level we just can’t afford to not have players the calibre of Tierney, Rogic, Benkovic as well as Ntcham and Griffiths available to us. The first three would be automatic starters and the other two would be at the very least be in contention to start and even if they didn’t would be quality options to bring on from the bench.

Anyway, it’s done and Thursday gives us a chance, however unlikely, to redeem ourselves. Like I’ve said I’ll talk more about that tomorrow.

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Valencia makes it two.

As for Sunday well it wasn’t the best performance but we got the job done and in doing so go eight points clear at the top.

Killie haven’t lost to us at Rugby Park since Steve Clarke’s arrival – indeed they’ve beaten us on each of our last two visits – and up until recently were even considered title challengers so strong has their season-long form been. They are hard working, determined and well organised. They are also capable of some decent passing movements in tight situations which they really don’t get credit for. In players like Jordan Jones and Eamonn Brophy, they have genuine attacking threats who come at you with pace.

In the early exchanges, we dominated though created little in the way of clear cut chances and then as the match progressed Killie did what they do and began to ease into the game and created opportunities of their own.

In the second half Kirk Broadfoot went in rashly on Brown with the type of challenge refs just don’t stand for these days – well most refs anyway – and got himself a straight red. It didn’t really change the momentum of the game though as Kilmarnock were already pretty adept at sitting in and frustrating. We struggled to create much as we often do when faced up with defensively minded teams down in numbers. It was kind of playing out just like it did against AEK Athens in the home tie of our Champions League 3rd qualifying round match against them at Celtic Park back in August where despite our numerical advantage when they had a man sent off we basically refused to adapt, kept recycling the ball and passing it around in front of them and refused to improvise. Then veteran defender Alex Bruce came on, we won a corner, it fell to Boyata who headed it down to Scott Brown who was just inside the box and launched one – which may have been row Z bound – and Bruce threw himself at it, with the result being it deflected off of his outstretched arm and into the net.

Broonie went delirious and after pondering it for a second decided to run into the fans who invaded the pitch and the Scottish press prepared to mount their moral collective high horse. Nobody got hurt though, it all appeared to be pretty good-natured and Brown paid the price with a second yellow and red card which actually saw us having to hold out for the last few mins.

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All’s well that ends well.

But hold out we did and what with Rangers being held to a surprising 0-0 draw against St.Johnstone – who we had decided to let out of our pockets for the afternoon – at Ibrox we stretched our lead at the top to eight points with all teams in the league having played 26 games.

Kris Boyd got pinged with a coin whilst warming up for which there is no excuse and he was decent enough not to make a big deal of it during the match at least. He’s been pretty vocal about it since and there’s no point in trying to deflect here. We are quick to point the finger when other clubs fans do it and our players or staff are affected so have to hold ourselves to the same standard. Late afternoon or early evening games always have that extra potential for stupidity from the stands due to the increased likelihood of prematch drinking and continued actions such as these bury any arguments to allow alcohol sales into Scottish football stadiums for the first time.

Anyway, we now have a healthy lead up at the top. That plus we’be now gone eight domestic games without conceding a goal, scoring 22 and winning every one. We also got to see Bayo for the first time and first impressions are he looks pretty composed but we will, of course, need to see a helluva lot more.

On Sunday after our Europa League campaign is likely finished we will face a very much inform Motherwell team at Celtic Park. Like us, they have won their last six consecutive league matches and have young players like Jake Hastie, Allan Campbell and David Turnbull on fire. Whilst we are looking to tie up our eight consecutive league title they are rampaging towards an unlikely top six league finish with the gap on sixth-placed St.Johnstone now down to only two points – it was 13 points only four weeks ago -and their free-flowing style should make for an entertaining match.  After that, we’re at Tynecastle to play Hearts midweek which is always a pretty raucous and competitive affair. Get through these two and the schedule gets a little kinder for us and less so for our closest rivals. So basically what I’m saying is win these next two league matches and we can only really throw it away.

Anyway, it’s been a mixed bag these last five days. Hopefully, the next eight are full of positives and my cold goes away.

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.

 

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.

 

Weekend review: Celtic put Killie in their place and surprises elsewhere.

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A few days late with this due to circumstances but better late than never.

Celtic faced in from table toppers Kilmarnock on Saturday with many wondering if an unlikely title challenge may be on the cards. With an opportunity to go top missed on Wednesday night if Celtic could win here then it would be back to the summit they would go.

On a horrible cold and rainy early December day, Celtic played like it was midday in May as they stroked the ball around effortlessly in the first half and scored four goals totally blowing Killie’s hopes of remaining top of the pile come 5pm out of the water in the process.

The first came within only five mins from a sweet first-time finish from James Forrest who swept it home with aplomb after a nice cross into the box from Emilio Izaguirre who had a rare start in place of the rested Kieran Tierney.

After a quarter of an hour, Celtic mounted the latest of their seemingly continuous attacks and Christie found Rogic in the box who played it first time to Odsonne Edouard and the Frenchman fired it high into the net to make it two.

It got worse for the Ayrshire side as Mikel Lustig came up with a rare goal as he stabbed his foot out to meet a Callum McGregor free kick into the box at the near post and leave Killie keeper Daniel Bachmann helpless.

Then just before halftime in-form Ryan Christie scored the latest in his sensational goalscoring run as he buried a fabulous free-kick into the back of the net from 25 yards right on the stroke of halftime.

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Unbridled joy.

In the second half, Benkovic made an uncustomary rash challenge on the edge of the box on Rory McKenzie leading to a penalty which Eamon Brophy scored but it was no more than a consolation and 15 mins later James Forrest netted a fantastic finish from an acute angle high into the net and delivered his 11th goal of the campaign in the process.

Celtic could have scored more with Bachmann making some good saves and Scott Sinclair hitting the frame of the post in the second half but five was as good as it got and Celtic are now back on top with 33 points.

Credit it to Steve Clark’s side who produced a near miracle just getting to the top of the league in December in the first place considering their meagre resources and where they were only a few seasons ago ie: perennial strugglers but they were thoroughly put in their place and it will be interesting to see how they bounce back.

Meanwhile elsewhere St.Johnstone’s incredible unbeaten run continued and is now up to eight with six wins as they recorded a surprise 2-0 win over Aberdeen at Pittodrie. The Dons had, of course, recorded a pretty stunning 1-0 win at Ibrox on Wednesday night and were hoping to kick on up the league. Goals remain a massive problem for them with Man U loanee James Wilson continuing to disappoint and Stevie May unable to hit a barn door since coming back up to Scotland the summer before last.

Both Hibs and Hearts finally ended long runs without wins as they both recorded 1-0 victories away at Hamilton and at home to Motherwell respectively and St.Mirren threw away a 1-0 lead going down 3-1 to Livingston who continued their sensational season-long home form which has seen them lose only one in nine and record six wins.

On Sunday Rangers travelled to Dens Park and predictably it was their former long-serving striker Kenny Miller – who only left them this past summer – who came back to haunt them as he gave the home team the lead before Dundee were reduced to 10 men and Andy Halliday equalised with a free kick, all of this happening in the first half. Rangers couldn’t make the advantage count though and Jim McIntyre’s team got a 1-1 draw and seem to have turned a corner. As for Steven Gerrard’s men, they have dropped 12 points on the road already this term and now sit second two points behind Celtic having played a game more.

So all in all a pretty fantastic weekend for Celtic as they bounced back from a tired display against Motherwell through the week with a ferocious performance.

All steam ahead now to the vital Red Bull Salzburg match on Thursday night and thankfully no injury fallout from Saturday as Celtic played a pretty much full strength team apart from Tierney.

I’ll have an article up about that tomorrow.