Celtic continued their excellent recent form by putting Hamilton Accies to the sword in the early kick-off on Saturday.
A beautifully worked move from a corner on 13 mins saw McGregor play it short to Edouard who backheeled it back to him and McGregor passed into the path of Ryan Christie who stroked it home sublimely.
Chris Sutton said it was a school ground move that Accies should have seen coming. I’ll be honest I spent 12 years at school between primary and secondary and can’t ever remember ever seeing such a move executed during lunch or either breaks on the school pitches but maybe Chris’s school was different.
This all came after a wonderful one-handed save from defender Matt Kilgallon in the box during the opening exchanges that was made even better by Accies defender’s pretending it had hit his face immediately after. It all seemed pretty clear to me and everyone in the stadium and watching at home but referee Don Robertson was clearly taken in Kilgallon’s performance and waved play on.
There should have been more goals for the away team in the first half and my second half viewing was interrupted by having to attend a school Christmas fair but I recorded it and watched upon my return at 3.30pm.
Incidentally, what is it with Christmas fares in November? Was it like that back in the ’80s and ’90s? I genuinely can’t remember. Seems a bit early but I guess that’s a topic for another day and indeed an entirely different kind of blog.
Anyway back to the football and it was plane sailing for the Bhoy in the second half as an innocuous Scott Sinclair header was backheeled into his own net by the hapless Scott Martin on 68 mins and then the returning Leigh Griffiths came on for his first appearance in seven weeks and drilled home a low struck freekick from the edge of the box on 82 mins.
Celtic fan Scott Martin is about to love every fan’s dream.Â
Ryan Christie nearly made it four before the end but his attempted neat finish was deflected onto the post for a corner late on and that’s all she wrote as Hamilton offered little in the opposite direction and Celtic cruised to an easy three points and retained their spot at the top of the league.
Only two points behind them are Rangers who overwhelmed Livingston 3-0 at Ibrox though the men from the Tony Macaroni Arena had their moments in the first half.
Elsewhere Hearts complete and utter capitulation of the last six weeks continued as they collapsed meekly 2-0 in Paisley against St.Mirren who recorded their first win under new manager Oran Kearney and Hibs also still can’t buy a win as they threw a 2-0 lead away to the bottom of the table Dundee in a 2-2 draw at Easter Road.
St.Johnstone and Kilmarnock are both almost neck and neck in the league sitting just behind Hearts and showed how close they are with a 0-0 draw at McDiarmid Park. The Saints are now unbeaten in six with five wins since we thumped 6-0 on their home patch back in early October and are only five points off the top which is pretty incredible. Killie meanwhile have only suffered one defeat in nine and sit one point above the Perth side as their equally incredible run of form under Steve Clark continues.
The big shock of the weekend though was Aberdeen – our opponents in next weekends League Cup final – getting battered 3-0 at Fir Park by Motherwell. The Dons had been on a four-match winning run which included wins over Rangers and at Kilmarnock and had only conceded one goal in that time. Motherwell meanwhile were coming off a 7-1 trouncing in their last league match against Rangers a fortnight ago.
Needless to say, we’ll start heavy favourites against the Dons next Sunday.
But between now and then there’s a pretty important match against Rosenborg in the Europa League that we must navigate and has to be our priority.
So finally the SPFL have come to an agreement over the new TV deal something which has been getting discussed far and wide across the Scottish footballing spectrum for the past 18 months or more.
And the winner is…….Sky. That brand that we all know and love with wonderful coverage being provided by the gorgeous Hayley McQueen flanked by the stunning pairing of Kris Boyd and Kris Commons.
Dream Team
Safe to say it isn’t the winner we wanted. By we, I don’t just mean Celtic fans but all of Scottish football. A recent online poll found that 90% of Scottish football fans surveyed would prefer BT to win the rights as they generally provide superior coverage with far more in-depth analysis and passion for the game up here.
The likes of Chris Sutton, Steven Craigan, Michael Stewart and Ally McCoist might not be everyone’s cup of tea – each one’s popularity usually depending on what team you support – but they sell the game as opposed to Sky who’s coverage often borders on apathetic to the point of disrespect.
Commons was a wonderful servant to the club but he usually gets lost in his own analysis and Boyd wavers from boring to confusion then onto anger and all in one sentence. Either way, both are pretty limited pundits and would be blown out of the water by the BT guys.
Hayley does her best to fit in what she can from her meagre surroundings in the blink and you’ll miss it introduction and post-match analysis segments and there is a general air of disinterest about the whole thing. The general impression is that they can’t wait to get back to their beloved English Premier League
BT, on the other hand, are fronted by wisecracking Darell Curry who is often required to act more like a referee as opposed to a presenter in order to reel in the often hilarious quarrelling that occurs between Sutton and the rest of the panel. Added to that every game no matter how seemingly inconsequential it might appear in the grand scheme of things is given a worthy amount of build-up and analysis so in other words…..respect.
The BT boys delivering the goods.Â
So bearing all that in mind it’s come as a surprise that BT was so easily outbid by Sky and not only that have lost all rights to the Betfred League Cup as well.
That means that BT will in just over 18 months have literally no relationship with Scottish football at all which is pretty shocking considering the effort they have put into promoting the game during these past five years.
Now as much as I would have preferred BT to have gotten the rights the facts are that they refused to put their money where their mouth is. The deal has now been unofficially confirmed as being worth ÂŁ160 million over a five year period beginning the season after next with Sky Sports having inclusivity to all 48 top flight live matches.
I can’t mention my source but all I will say is that he is a board member of a Premiership club. All members were asked to take a final vote yesterday at around 2pm and the decision was unanimous. Some had earlier baulked at Sky’s offer believing the rights could be worth somewhere in the region of ÂŁ40-50 million per season but the facts are that BT’s preference was to continue the current carve-up between themselves and Sky whilst individually investing less and that the likes of Amazon, Eleven Sports etc when sounded out just weren’t really that interested. Sky’s offer of just over ÂŁ32 million per season was by some distance the best financial package and an initial offer of three years was actually negotiated up to five to give extra long-term security. The deal was apparently brokered by a consultant who had been involved in the English Premierships’ last round of TV contract negotiations and he was keen to point out to the members the fact that TV sports rights in the UK across the board are generally decreasing in value as opposed to increasing.
The EPL themselves have seen their own rights tumble pretty dramatically from ÂŁ5.1 billion for a three-year deal to ÂŁ4.775 billion which begins next summer. That’s a drop of ÂŁ325 million, around about ÂŁ108 million a season. Even then those figures are pretty optimistic with some sources claiming the drop was nearer the ÂŁ500 million mark.
The final two packages available in the first round of bids back in February actually went unsold and weren’t negotiated until six months later when Amazon and BT picked up what was left. Not long after Richard Scudamore announced he was stepping down from his role as the EPL’s Executive Chairman which he had held (though previously called Chief Executive) since 1999. Coincidence? Hardly.
As much as I, like just about everyone else it seems, prefer BT’s coverage the facts are that they were have thrown the kitchen sink at both Champions League and English Premiership TV rights to such an extent that they have hardly any money to invest in anything else. So it shows where their priorities lie. The SPFL is not the only rights they failed to retain as they have also lost the rights to Serie A, UFC and NBA with all being picked up by the new player Eleven Sports.
This unsurprisingly goes hand in hand with the departure of chief executive Gavin Patterson who back in 2013 led BT’s assault on live sports rights. The hope was that impressive sports packages would also entice new broadband customers but this strategy has failed dramatically as the number of new subscribers each quarter having apparently collapsed. As a result at the time of the announcement about Patterson’s future, or lack of, BT’s share price had fallen around 14% over the previous four weeks alone with full-year results showing a 1% drop in revenue, not helped by the company dealing with the aftermath of an accounting scandal at its Italian division, which resulted in a ÂŁ530 million write-down and a major fall in its share price last year.
Neil Patterson in more affluent times.
Shareholders at BT had wanted Patterson out for some time and with the news, any hopes of BT being capable of competing with other major providers for sports rights renewals went with him.
The new deal will see 48 matches – a reduction from the 60 shown previously between both Sky and BT – all appear on one format each season along with six playoff matches and kicks in the season after next. We can only hope that in that time Sky takes on board the feedback and improve their coverage to match a significantly increased investment.
It’s not only the league games though that BT failed to retain. They’ve also let the Betfred League Cup slip through their fingers and into the hands of Irish broadcaster Premier Sports. Again their coverage there was spot on and they played a big part in changing the format so that it would feature regional league matches played in the summer by teams not competing in Europe. This coverage came at a cost of a measly ÂŁ8 million over four years but was by all accounts much better than the previous deal in place with the BBC. Premier Sports offer whilst apparently better wasn’t significantly so but BT once again failed to invest and just as with the league games their coverage will cease to exist from the summer of 2020 onwards.
The Scottish Cup rights are a whole other kettle of fish with Premier Sports and the BBC sharing them with Sky letting them go, and of course, the BBC has also renewed their deal with the SPFL which will see them retain league highlights as well as showing 20 live Championship games per season starting in a few months, on a new channel, to be unveiled next year.
I’ve seen some people unfavourably comparing the deal to the new one signed by the EFL down south which is a ÂŁ595 million contract over three years. The thing about that is it covers 130 matches per season across three leagues and 72 clubs and also includes League Cup games so actually in the grand scheme of things most English clubs have got a poorer deal than the SPFL.
All in all, it’s more money. How much more is difficult to quantify but we do know that it was widely accepted that the total pot of TV income was ÂŁ21 million last season with ÂŁ17.5 million of that coming from the league TV deal alone. This new deal secures at least ÂŁ32 million per season and could be more when factoring in a new foreign TV rights deal with beIN sports as well as the new Scottish Cup and League Cup deals.
Is it what we wanted? No. But is it the best deal we could get……yes. And just like in every other aspect of life money talks and there was no way Scottish football was walking away from an extra ÂŁ10 million plus per season.
I like BT. We all like BT. But the fact is they obviously don’t like us as much back. That and the fact that they are skint.
I took in our game on Sunday from the Dolphin pub in Partick, a good Celtic boozer if you have never been. The green and white sign with the ‘EST1888’ above the door should be a giveaway.
Anyway there with a few friends, I witnessed our match with league leaders Hearts at Murrayfield in front of a crowd of over 60,000.
Due to Hearts pretty incredible results since the start of the season – which has seen them win 13 from 16 matches with two draws and only one defeat – combined with our own patchy form since the start of the term this had been built up as a near 50/50 encounter with many favouring the Jam Tarts.
Indeed they had already defeated us 1-0 earlier in the season at Tynecastle and bounced back from their only defeat of the season so far against Rangers at Ibrox three weeks ago with wins at home versus Aberdeen and away to Dundee to maintain their spot at the top of the Premiership.
But the Celtic side that lost to Hearts back in early August has fairly ramped up the performances levels since then, especially in the past month, and with the capital side also without long-term injury absentees Christophe Berra, John Souttar and Uche Ikpeazu I was personally quite surprised at how close so many thought it was going to be.
Still, that meant that interest had peaked for it and led to not only a magnificent attendance at Murrayfield but also a large crowd in the pub which would be otherwise unusual for any normal national cup semi-final involving us and anybody but Rangers.
A packed our Murrayfield sees green smoke.
The first half was pretty scrappy stuff with Hearts veteran striker Steven MacLean grabbing all the headlines via standing a mile offside as he placed the ball into the Celtic net only for it to be flagged and also grabbing a handful of Eboue Kouassi’s testicles into the bargain. He’s since been cited for it and according to his ex-St. Johnstone teammate James McFadden on last nights Sportsound he’s known for it so I’d imagine he’s facing a ban. Then again Morelos got his red card rescinded for trying to volley Scott McKenna off the ball at Pittodrie earlier in the season so who knows.
Hearts talisman Steven Naismith also walked off early doors with a knee injury and you sort of suspected any chance they had of beating us walked with him.
That aside Scott Sinclair had an excellent effort saved by the Hearts keeper but by in large it was competitive but uninspiring stuff to such an extent the guy sitting beside me announced he’d had enough and staggered out leaving a full bottle of Peroni and an untouched whiskey chaser behind him. Outrageous.
In the second half, we got a spot-kick after Ryan Christie went down under a Ben Garrucio challenge – hardly a stonewaller but the type of incident which is given all the time these days – and Sinclair stepped up to smash it home. Then the Herts keeper Zdenek Zlamal tried to gather a speculative Rogic drive which escaped his grasp and trundled over the line before he clawed it clear. James Forrest was on hand though to bury it and put to bed any necessity for the linesman to make a call. And just in case there was any lingering doubt Ryan Christie capped off a fine few days in a Celtic jersey following on from strong display away in Leipzig on Thursday night as he buried a 25-yard piledriver past the despairing Zlamal on 72 mins.
Thereafter it was a bit of a turkey shoot as Celtic rained down wave after wave of attack on the Jambos goal but a combination of Zlamal atoning for his earlier error plus some last-ditch defending kept the score respectful. Though one of my mates was gutted as he had us to win either 4-0 or 3-1 with the bookies. A sore one indeed.
All in all, it was a professional performance and Celtic have now won 21 consecutive cup ties and have booked their place in their fifth consecutive cup final in doing so. The ‘Treble-Treble’ now really is on plus we also got to shut-up serial moaner Craig Levein who despite his pre-match defiance saw his side ultimately check out with a whimper.
Of course, this was all pretty much night and day compared to Thursday night’s display away in Germany where a toothless Celtic side limped to a 2-0 defeat to Red Bull Leipzig.
Having the suspended James Forrest back was undoubtedly a factor – as was the inferior opposition of course – but also returning was the imperious Tom Rogic and central defender Filipe Benkovic both of whom hadn’t made it for Thursday nights game. No one is really talking about it but personally, I’m a bit disappointed that Sunday was clearly given precedence over an away tie in Europe and one which I honestly think would have been very winnable against Leipzig’s second string if Rogic and Benkovic had been involved. The notion that they suddenly returned to full match fitness in the space of 64 hours is, of course, total bollocks.
Europe now does seem to now be firmly regarded as a pipe dream with domestic success being given the superior status based on decisions like that.
Anway we’re in another cup final on December 2nd so the question is who would we be playing?
That game, of course, took place later on that evening at Hampden Park where Steven Gerrard’s apparently rejuvenated Rangers would battle it out against Derek McInnes’s toiling Aberdeen.
Even with their only real striking options out for this one just about everyone I knew made the Govan side the clear favourites with most regarding it a mere formality.
It proved to be anything but as the Dons produced a classic smash and grab performance that ex-Rangers manager Walter Smith himself would have been proud of as the nephew of Barry Ferguson headed home the winner on 79 mins. He’s called Lewis Ferguson by the way and he won me a not unsubstantial amount of money as I found the long odds on the reds to be too tempting not to indulge.
Even with over 10 mins plus injury time remaining my money looked safe as the toothless light blues failed to breach a pretty rock solid Aberdeen defence and 1-0 is how it finished.
Stevie G congratulates Goldson on their loss.
So it’s Aberdeen in the final in five weeks. I must admit to being a tad disappointed as an Old Firm final would have been far more appetizing and despite undoubtedly impressive results at home and in Europe, the Stevie G project looks decidedly shaky anytime it’s taken out on the road with Sunday being a perfect example of that.
What with them out of the first domestic competition of the season combined with sitting only joint fifth in the league I wonder if rumours will now abound of an unsettled dressing room, player fallouts and acrimonious relationships between the manager and the board? Or is that only reserved for our manager? I think we all know the answer.
Oh, and what happened to that Richard Wilson’s tweet from Thursday evening which claimed that after Sunday was out the way there would be ramifications due to the performance and result on Thursday night? It’s Tuesday and still nothing. Maybe it will all kick off tomorrow. Or maybe it was all bullshit to start with.
A depleted Celtic side were easily dismissed by a more or less second string Red Bull Leipzig.
For 30 mins Celtic looked okay and Odsonne Edouard nearly even scored but thereafter it was the usual as we were battered senseless in the last 15 mins of the half conceding two goals and it could have been more.
In the second half, Celtic played to keep the score down looking passive and content with it staying at two-zip. Leipzig accommodated us by and large barring a Konrad Laimer run where he skinned half of our team whilst running from midfield before shooting just past the post and a moment when Augustin cracked a long-range shot off of the same stick.
Ntcham broke through on goal late and if he’d passed to his right to McGregor it was a certain goal but he went for glory and cannoned it off the keeper’s legs. Even if it had gone in there is little to no chance that we’d have equalised as the Germans would have just switched on again.
Right from the off all looked lost as we were without the suspended James Forrest, injured Scott Brown and in the days leading up to the match, Tom Rogic and Filipe Benkovic were also ruled out. Added to that Leigh Griffiths still isn’t available and Mikel Lustig was deemed not fit enough to start.
This meant starts for forgotten men Cristian Gamboa and Eboue Kouassi as well as the rarely seen Lewis Morgan and serial bench warmer Ryan Christie.
All that combined with our long-standing, pretty atrocious away record on the content meant that our chances were pretty much slim and none and slim had just left town.
Leipzig themselves were without their injured midfield playmaker Emil Forsberg as well as star striking duo Timo Werner and Yussuf Poulsen who were rested on the bench but still had far more firepower on the pitch.
Of course, we helped them with an awful attempt at a clearance from Kouassi resulting in a fresh air miss so bad it also confused Boyata whose own attempt also missed and it fell to Matheus Cunha who couldn’t believe how much time he had to control it and lash it home.
The second saw Marcelo Saracchi dart down the wing after a wild suicide sliding tackle from Gamboa was skipped over with ease and his resulting cross saw another woeful attempt by Kouassi to clear once again befuddle Boyata and resulted in Bruma lashing it home.
A familiar sight on the continent as our players trudge back to the centre circle after conceding another goal.Â
It really was comical stuff. Kouassi had a blinder in just how bad he was though incredibly John Hartson labelled him as one of our better players at halftime. I actually kept an eye on him and he was passive throughout with his shoulders dipped and looked lost. Basically a carbon copy of his display earlier in the season against Hearts.
Boyata was also awful in the centre of defence. In the second half, he needlessly gave the ball away on numerous occasions, something he’s well known for, and was left in the wake of the rampaging Laimer when he nearly scored which saw a pretty pathetic attempt by Boyata to stop him.
That aside just about everyone in a Celtic jersey struggled with McGregor, in particular, going missing for much of the game.
It’s really all we’ve come to expect away in Europe under Brendan. Nothing changes tactically and his record now reads 4 wins from 19 away games with 10 defeats and an incredible 38 goals conceded.
We can’t keep a clean sheet away from home against anything resembling quality from the continent and outside of Edouard don’t to appear to have much of a goal threat on the road either.
The loss of some of our best players was definitely a factor and was felt sorely but it somewhat negated by Leipzig resting so many of their top performers yet still looking streets ahead.
The mistakes at the back happen time and again and the players brought in are clearly not good enough. Not only that but most are also Brendan’s signings.
Tactically we are way too open and the moment we concede panic sets in and our shape collapses.
Leipzig visit Glasgow in a fortnight and it literally is a must-win game. If we lose and Salzburg win in Norway as expected then we are out. That’s right we’ll be out with two games still to go from Europe’s second-tier competition. That’s the same competition where Rangers have gone unbeaten in 11 straight games so there really are no excuses.
Inevitably in the fallout, more rumours have surfaced about Brendan’s relationship with the board which seems to be par for the course after we record a negative result.
One of the main fuels to the fire was this tweet by BBC correspondent and self-confessed Rangers fanatic Richard Wilson:
If there’s any truth in this then next week should be interesting. I mean what else could ‘serious upheaval’ mean other than heads rolling and whose heads would they be?
Thes semi-final of the League Cup on Sunday against Hearts now takes on even more importance as a negative result will likely lead to further rumours of things coming to a head.
There seems to be an attitude prevalent amongst Celtic fans that Sunday was the priority which I found a bit incredible considering Europe is where we want to be but maybe shows the mentality that has crept in in recent years. That being that Europe is perceived as a pipe dream where making any significant progress is fanciable and we are almost willing fodder for the big clubs.
Anyway onto Hampden we go and on and off the pitch I think we can expect some fireworks in the coming days. Should be interesting at least.
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.Â
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.Â
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.
....Always A Tim! 