Tag: Motherwell

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.

 

Celtic 3 – 0 Motherwell: Back to the top we go.

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Celtic cruised to a pretty routine 3-0 win over Motherwell at Celtic Park last night.

The game was all over by halftime with Celtic going for the jugular early and it was great to see young right back Anthony Ralston getting his first start in a very long time. I actually think we haven’t seen him in a Hoops jersey since way back in September 2017 truth be told.

Motherwell held out until almost the half-hour mark when Edouard played through Ralston who put it through the ‘Well keepers legs to score his first ever goal for Celtic. James Forrest was then scythed down only four mins later by a reckless Charles Dunne challenge in the box and Scott Sinclair stepped up to put us 2-0 up from the spot. That’s actually the first pen we’ve scored in four attempts so good to put an end to that unwelcome stat. Unfortunately, French Eddy had to depart the scene with an apparent groin injury but his replacement young Mikey Johnstone came on and rattled one in on the stroke of halftime and that was pretty that.

Olivier Ntcham should have done better with an effort in the second half but by then the visitors were just playing to keep the score down.

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Brendan and the players take the acclaim. 

I was initially really puzzled by Motherwell’s approach to the game. This was our third outing in six days and on the back of two defeats and with several key players missing you would have thought that the Lanarkshire side would have smelt the faintest trace of blood. Instead, though they decided to drop five players from their surprise away victory on Saturday against an in from St Johnstone with star men David Turnbull, Allan Campbell and strikers Curtis Main and Danny Johnson all benched.

It would appear manager Stephen Robinson had written the game off with Saturday’s home tie against lowly St.Mirren prioritised. Fair enough and to be honest with you pretty welcome considering our recent exhausting schedule which clearly showed at Easter Road on Sunday.

What can’t be ignored though is the number of absences we now have. With Leigh Griffiths out for an unspecified period of time and Edouard’s departure early doors last night, we are now literally left with no recognised striker. The big question is how long will the Frenchman be out for?

Kieran Tierney and Tom Rogic were rested last night as they were on Sunday and Ryan Christie, Dedryk Boyata and Mikel Lustig are also being given as much time as is required to make full recoveries. There’s a good chance we’ll see them all back over the coming nine days as we face three league matches.

But news has just come down that the Australian FA has selected Rogic along with three players from Hibs for the Asia Cup next month which means they may not be allowed to be involved in their respective clubs derbies on December 29th. Hopefully, that can be resolved in our favour as I would feel much better about our chances of turning over Rangers once again in their own stadium with Tom with us, as opposed to being without him.

Talking of the men in blue they were held to a 0-0 draw by Hibs at Easter Road last night. Hibs were in our faces all day on Sunday but were rather standoffish last night in a game which generally saw them under siege and on another day Morelos could have scored a hattrick. Alas, a combination of Hibs keeper Adam Bogdan as well as the Colombian’s poor finishing saw the Leith men hold out for a draw and in doing so our victory propelled us back to the top by one point over our city rivals with a game in hand.

So back to the top we go and even with a slightly weakened side you’d think we’ll be too strong at home on Saturday against a struggling Dundee side who were hammered 5-1 at Pittodrie on Tuesday night by Aberdeen leading manager Jim McIntyre to promise a major squad overhaul in January. So it won’t be a very Merry Christmas for some of the Dens Park men this festive period as they look for employment elsewhere it would seem.

Some job Neil McCann did up there.

 

Midweek analysis: Punishing schedule begins to show in Celtic’s weary legs.

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Celtic played their fourth game in eleven days last night and it showed.

Coming hot on the heels of a vital win in Rosenborg only six days ago which was followed by a League Cup final victory over Aberdeen on Sunday to secure seven consecutive trophies Brendan Rodgers decided to aptly make seven changes to the first team with regular starters such as Tom Rogic, James Forrest, Odsonne Edouard and Scott Sinclair dropping to the bench and Scott Bain handed back the number 1 jersey to Craig Gordon in goal. Added to that both Dedryk Boyata and Mikel Lustig were ruled out through injury.

In came some impressive replacements such as Scott Brown, Olivier Ntcham and Leigh Griffiths as well as big Jozo Simunovic and there were even starts for Cristian Gamboa and Johnny Hayes both of whom have been so far out of the picture recently they’ve been rumoured to be training at Barrowfield.

Our opponents Motherwell have been a bit embattled this season as manager Stephen Robinson struggles under the weight of expectation created by reaching both domestic cup finals last season whilst contending with a long injury list and the realities of losing some of their best players in the past two transfer windows such as striker Louis Moult and defender Cédric Kipré.

The club recently posted pretty stunning annual profits of nearly £1.75 million at their recent AGM  but as nice as that sounds it’s on the pitch where the results really matter and the Lanarkshire club have found them hard to come by this term as they have generally floundered just above the bottom three at the foot of the table all season as well as exiting the League Cup at the quarter-final stage.

That being said they were able to a pull a 3-3 draw out of the fire at home against Rangers back in late August as well as winning their last two home games which included a 3-0 hammering of a pretty decent Aberdeen team only 11 days ago.

In the first half, we didn’t play particularly well but either did our hosts and we looked pretty comfortable without posing any real threat before Ryan Christie continued his incredible recent vein of form as he was fed a ball through by Tierney on 13 mins which saw him glide into the box and finish beautifully with the outside of his left foot across Motherwell keeper Mark Gillespie. That was his sixth goal in his last seven domestic outings for us.

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Ryan Christie just can’t stop scoring.

From there on out you thought we might be on easy street and that looked validated when Benkovic cracked home a wonderful left foot finish in the box from a corner into the exact same spot that Christie had found earlier before it was chopped off by referee Kevin Clancy. The reasons remain unknown to everyone including to Clancy himself I’d imagine.

Just before halftime, Christie was felled in the box by a clumsy challenge from Andy Rose and we were gifted a chance to go 2-0 up. Up stepped returning striker Leigh Griffiths but his strike whilst powerful lacked any real width and was parried away by Gillespie.

Griffiths cut a pretty forlorn figure all night and had two free kick opportunities in the game both of which were in what looked like a perfect position for his striking talents. Alas, both failed to get past the wall and he really isn’t looking himself at the moment.

The second half was a pretty tame affair with Celtic dominating possession but not creating much even with the introductions of Rogic, Sinclair and Edouard but still, it looked like the three points were ours until Motherwell striker Danny Johnson emerged late on and lashed home an equaliser from the left-hand side of the box on 88mins. Gamboa might have been fouled in the build-up but it wasn’t given and credit to Johnson who finished with aplomb.

Fir Park continues to remain a strangely difficult place for us to get a result under Brendan. Our last three games there have been tight draws and the one before that saw us rescue a 4-3 win via a 90th-minute strike from Rogic having been 2-0 down at one point.

Celtic looked very weary and lacked any real spark or fluency. Of course, the latter is almost impossible to achieve when you make so many changes but it’s hard to criticise Brendan when you consider the number of games already played in such a short space of time combined with the number of games we have coming up. Players such as Callum McGregor look like they are running on empty and Tierney is also lacking a bit of dynamism most likely due to the punishing recent schedule.

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Contrary to some reports Ntcham did actually play. 

Between now and our visit to Castle Greyskull on December 29th we have a pretty relentless schedule which will see us play seven games in only 21 days.

The first of these is on Saturday at home to Kilmarnock who incredibly are top of the table with 31 points after a 2-0 home win last night against Livingston as their meteoric rise under Steve Clarke continues. They’ve lost only once in their last 11 league games with seven wins. That run actually began with a 2-1 win against us at Rugby Park back in late September which saw them triumph via a last-second headed winner by former Celtic defender Stuart Findlay deep into injury time.

At that point, we were enduring a mini-crisis but since then have gone undefeated in 11 domestic games – eight in the league and three in the cup – with nine wins so it really is the two form teams in the country meeting each other.

We scuppered the chance to go top last night as the draw sees us sit one point behind the Ayrshire side – though we have two games in hand – however, Saturday presents us with another such opportunity. It’ll be tough and it doesn’t get any easier as five days later we entertain Red Bull Salzburg in our final Europa League match needing at least a point to progress to the last 32 and European football beyond Christmas & New Year which is always a bonus.

Managing the game on Saturday will be difficult. I presume Forrest having been rested last night will come straight back in and the likes of Rogic and Edouard will also have to start if we are to give Killie our full respect which considering their lofty league position they definitely merit. But in saying that our league position can always be rescued throughout the month whereas we only have one chance to get it right against the Austrian Champions on Thursday.

Personally, I’d prioritise Salzburg.

The squad players that come in though must do better. Ntcham and Griffiths for a start should be contributing much more and Sinclair continues to look a shadow of his former self. As for Gamboa and Hayes, I don’t really expect much considering their efforts thus far in a Celtic jersey and neither fail to disappoint in that respect.

After Salzburg we are away at Hibs the following Sunday – usually a tough game but Neil Lennon’s side have capitulated in the past five weeks – and then it’s two must-win home ties against Motherwell and Dundee in the space of three days before a trip to Pittodrie on Boxing Day and then the much awaited pre-New Year’s all Glasgow battle against Steven Gerrard’s temporary table toppers.

For now, I hope the players are resting and then raring to go for Saturday.

Whoever would have thought you’d see a top of the table clash featuring us versus Kilmarnock halfway through the season?

It really is a mad, mad, mad world out there.

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.