Tag: SPFL

Dundee 0 – 1 Celtic: A desperate display on St.Paddy’s day but we go 10 points clear.

wayofthecass

Celtic took a giant stride towards capturing an eight consecutive league title yesterday with a last gasp victory over lowly Dundee at Dens Park.

To say the least this was not vintage Celtic – indeed it’s difficult to remember the last time we saw anything I’d call vintage Celtic – and we were seconds away from recording one of our results in years but in the end we prevailed with a last gasp winner which is something we’ve made a habit of recently.

For 90 minute we toiled against a Dundee team who were very blatantly set-up to defend, absorb pressure and try and hit us on the break when they could.

Our passing was slow, our build-up play unimaginative and we seemed to lack any real hunger or energy for the game. Considering that we’d had an eight-day rest since the last match and had only played two games in 15 days there really is no excuse for this.

Dundee posed little to no threat and were happy to sit in which we should have expected considering we are 8-0 up against them over our last two encounters and their precarious position at the foot of the table.

They actually had a few decent opportunities in injury time which was a mammoth six minutes. However, both of their breaks led to nothing via poor final balls and indeed with literally seconds remaining it was the men in hoops who prevailed as record singing Odsonne Edouard played a one-two with James Forrest who had rampaged to the byline before cutting it back to the big Frencham to place it home with side foot finish from close range.

I celebrated wildly with my customary St.Paddy’s Day pint of Guinness in hand as we extended our lead at the top to an almost unassailable 10 points with only eight games to go but that acute moment of joy covered up 90 minutes of sheer frustration. We just weren’t at it and that’s been pretty much the case since Lenny’s arrival. The performance mirrored our displays away against Hearts and at home to Aberdeen last week. Insipid and uninspired are just two of the words that come to mind when describing it.

Image result for dundee 0-1 celtic
We toiled but got the result in the end.

We had actually won our previous 35 straight meetings with Dundee and hadn’t recorded two back to back 0-0 results in a decade so if French Eddy hadn’t slammed home late then it would have been safe to put the result in the disaster category.

But it’s done now and we won. There isn’t much more you can say about it.

The international break now looms this weekend and with the Old Firm game taking place the following Saturday fingers crossed we get through the Euro qualifiers with our squad largely intact.

Good news is Callum McGregor was back and for the first 20 mins of the game at least he certainly seemed to make us tick again. He really is a vital player for us now and of that, there is no denying. Big Filip Benkovic also appeared off the bench and he’s a class act and easily our best defender so hopefully, he’s raring to go in a fortnight. Word is that Tom Rogic could also be returning too and all that married to Kieran Tierney’s recent return to regular first team action we should be in far better fettle than we were for the last encounter with the light blues at Ibrox back in December.

Image result for rangers 1-1 kilmarnock
It was another blue day for Stevie G.

Of course, we gained the opportunity to go 10 points clear due to Rangers’ latest slip-up as they made it no wins in three via a 1-1 home draw with Kilmarnock.  Literally, in the space of eight days, their season has imploded thanks to draws at Easter Road, a cup exit at home to Aberdeen and yesterdays result. Steven Gerrard continues to try and deflect via claims that his players need more protection – as do the Killie players also it would seem going by Connor Goldson’s scything late challenge on goalscorer Conor McAleny – and a hammering against us at Celtic Park in 12 days would really turn the screw.

That aside the likes of Aberdeen and Hearts continued to slip up throwing away the chance to close the gap on the Ibrox men and improve their chances of European football next year in the process.

Anyway, the first Euro match for Scotland comes at 3pm on Thursday in the footballing hotbed that is Kazakhstan and in the surroundings of Astana a ground we are pretty familiar with having played the local team there a few times in Champions League qualifiers in the past few years. Fingers crossed the national team transfer their Nations League form into the qualifiers and that our Bhoys get out unscathed.

 

St. Paddy’s Day preview and what did I miss?

wayofthecass

Just back from a holiday in a far-flung place with poor internet connection where you could forget trying to upload blog updates.

Of course, there was still enough bandwidth to stay abreast of results so after Hibs picked up a surprise 1-1 draw with Rangers a week ago yesterday after being a goal down for most of the match it was pretty disappointing to see us fail to take advantage and extend our lead at the top to a more or less unassailable 10 points.

Aberdeen have been in pretty sensational away form all season and have also been tough opponents for us every time we’ve faced them this term but having won three from three against them as well as having won every home domestic game this season it was a bit of a shock to see it end 0-0.

I’ll also admit I was pretty frustrated at this ongoing nonsense of playing Oli Burke up front as a lone striker when he’s clearly a winger whilst two recognised strikers in record signing Odsonne Edouard and PSG-loanee Timothy Weah languish on the bench. This started under Brendan Rodgers and has continued under Neil Lennon and it continues to mystify me. If Burke was scoring goals for fun then fair enough but he isn’t and has proven far more adept playing in his preferred wing role and setting up strikers for goals.

Image result for celtic 0-0 aberdeen
Lenny got the team selection wrong. 

I also wasn’t too impressed with the ‘mental fatigue’ excuse which Lenny came out with during the post-match interviews. The players had a weeks rest and if they are mentally fatigued in mid-March then that doesn’t bode well for a title run in and our efforts to capture an unprecedented treble-treble.

Just accept you should have started with a recognised striker, don’t make the same mistake again and we’ll move on.

As for this weekend we, of course, visit Dundee on St.Paddy’s day. As I actually write this our nearest title challengers are currently losing 1-0 at half time at home against Kilmarnock. Of course, if things stay that way then we can potentially put ourselves in a dream position going into the next Old Firm game on March 30th. It’s already a must win game for our opponents given the current points deficit and the fact that they were eliminated once again from a cup competition by Aberdeen through the week. But it will be a potential ground zero scenario if they fall further behind and we can go 14 points clear if we beat them which with only seven games left which makes it increasingly likely we can win the title against them at Ibrox, something which the authorities will be desperate to avoid.

Image result for steven gerrard rangers
Reality bites for Stevie G as the honeymoon period with the press ends.

For the first time, Gerrard is under the microscope as it has become apparent that his team generally blow the big games and that most of his personnel changes have been duds. Eros Grezda anyone?

Anyway, there is still 45 mins of football to play over there and the referee Greg Aitken will most likely be getting an itchy trigger finger soon as the game draws to a conclusion.

We should win at Dens Park tomorrow but Dundee will be throwing everything at it as they fight tooth and nail to stay up and we are not the same team without Christie and McGregor who remain sidelined along with a raft of other impact players. Hopefully, Lenny sees some sense, puts a striker on and we go out and do the business making it a happy St.Paddy’s day in the process.

Below is one of my fondest memories from the Patron Saint of Eire’s day back in the day.

The infamous and glorious ‘St.Patrick’s Day Massacre’ of 1991.

Enjoy:

Hearts 1 – 2 Celtic: Lenny is back with a bang.

wayofthecass

So ‘Neil Lennon: Celtic Manager’ the sequel kicked off last night and in some fashion.

Almost inevitably the follow up to the original which departed theatres back in the summer of 2014 was to get its big premiere at Tynecastle stadium, the very arena which has saw the Lurgan man pelted with a coin, assaulted by a fan who ran onto the touchline from the stands and where he has also recorded many a fine victory down the rough the years including a 7-0 Scottish Cup mauling back in December 2013.

Right from the get-go, the Jambos were in our faces with Jamie Brandon, in particular, kicking anything in green and white that crossed his path.

Image result for hearts 1-2 celtic fans
The Celtic fans continue to back the Bhoys.

Both sides had some decent passages of play and chances but it was Celtic who opened the lead with a wonderful break on 36 mins which saw Sinclair break down the left wing and feed it through to Burke who rather than go for goal himself passed it through to Forrest who placed it into an empty net due to Hearts keeper Zlamal’s attention being on big Oli instead.

On 44 mins the aforementioned Brandon got a straight red for an outrageous aerial clattering of Toljan and with that it looked all over bar the shouting.

But a suicidal pass from our keeper Scott Bain in the second half led to Ajer giving away a penalty which was converted by Oliver Bozanic.

It looked like it would be two points dropped and the heat really on as Rangers were pounding hapless Dundee 4-0 at Ibrox but a nicely dinked ball by Scott Brown from outside the box deep into injury time evaded the head of John Souttar and fell kindly for the ‘Eiffel Rifle’ Odsonne Edouard and he buried it accordingly.

It was kind of surreal seeing Neil Lennon leaping around in joy over at the touchline and you’d be forgiven for thinking he had a DeLorean parked outside so retro was the whole picture but hopefully, this is a sight we become accustomed to over the next few months that being Lenny celebrating.

Image result for hearts 1-2 celtic neil lennon
Guess who’s back……?

We needed that win last night after the events that had transpired only 24hrs before with the sudden departure of our manager to a mid-table club down south but Neil Lennon really needed it. If we’d dropped any points then the press would have been surrounding him like harbour sharks.

There was some irony in that it was the slow build up play from the back which Brendan Rodgers had been so insistent on during his time at the club which almost undid us.

Lennon now has a chance to get onto the training pitch and implement some of his own ideas which I hope will include ditching this mentality that Brendan introduced of the ball having to be constantly recycled at the back and any direct routes to goal being called off limits no matter what the circumstances or the opposition.

The victory means we retain our eights points lead at the top of the table with ten games left.

Anything other than a win last night would have given encouragement to our rivals – of which there is only really one left now in the title race – and would have fed into the narrative that we were a club in crisis and imploding from the inside.

Not just the win but the nature of it were important almost beyond words and this was a great way for Neil Lennon to reacquaint himself with both the players and the fans. The outpouring of joy amongst the faithful and from the team was universal.

Of course off the field much is being made about ‘sectarian chanting’ from our end and another idiot throwing a coin. Strange that they don’t mention the ‘pedo’ chants from the honourable Hearts fans or the other bile that usually emanates from the stands at Tynecastle which is trumped only by the hymn sheet at Ibrox in its venom. Yes, let’s all just pretend this a west coast of Scotland problem shall we?! Total and utter nonsense.

Anyway, now move onto another vital game – let’s face it they are all vital at this point in the season – against Hibs in the quarter-final of the Scottish Cup on Saturday evening at Easter Road.  Our hosts are a team that our new manager – well newish anyway – knows well as he was managing them up to only four weeks ago.

They themselves are going through a purple patch under their new manager, the unfortunately titled Paul Heckingbottom, and have won three games on the spin including a 2-1 win last night at McDiarmid Park against St.Johnstone where they came from a goal down and a sending off to take the three points.

It isn’t going to be easy. Certain players in the Hibs team will have something to prove to their ex-manager with Florian Kamberi, who was the alleged instigator of the supposed player revolt against Lennon at Easter Road, in particular, likely to be going the extra mile.

But the Treble Treble is within our grasp and at the helm, we have a man who lives and breathes the club and clearly has some idea of what he’s doing considering he had a 70% win ratio from 227 games the last time he was in charge so let’s continue to pull behind him and onto victory.

Celtic 2-0 St.Johnstone: Six points clear one month into the new year plus transfer deadline day talk.

wayofthecass

In the last update on the blog, I wrote that it was three wins on the spin since the return from the winter break. Well, I guess we can make that four now as Celtic coasted home to a 2-0 win over St.Johnstone which makes it 12 goals scored and four clean sheets too.

At the top of the table we remain and now we’re six points clear with a superior goal difference as well. Not a bad eleven days if you ask me. Incredible to think we’ve already played four games in that time.

Celtic dominated the first half with Saints keeper Zander Clark making a wonderful save from a point-blank Scott Sinclair header. Later on, in the half,  Olly Burke produced a curling effort from the left-hand side of the box which zipped just past the far post. But that aside the visiting side kept it tight and remained encamped around their box for the whole 45 mins with only Rangers legend Michael O’Halloran looking any kind of a threat on the break.

At halftime, you started to wonder if it just might not be our night but five minutes after the restart any such fears were allayed when Callum McGregor had acres of space to advance towards the opposition box after being fed in from the right by Mikel Lustig and he unleashed a storming drive that gave Clark no chance and ended up in the bottom right corner to give the men in Hoops the lead.

A mere two mins later it got even better and the points were pretty much signed, sealed and delivered when the advancing Lustig again fed a ball in from the right, this time to the edge of the box where Ryan Christie left Saints captain Joe Shaughnessy for dead and proceeded to curl the ball spectacularly past Clark high into the far corner to make it 2-0 and more or less game over.

Image result for celtic 2 st johnstone 0
It’s a beauty from Christie. 

Odsonne Edouard made his long-awaited comeback from the bench and almost scored before Clark made a wonderful save from McGregor minutes later. Then right at the end, Ricky Foster produced a blatant handball whilst sliding in the box to prevent a cross from James Forrest after the Celtic winger had played a cute one-two with Lustig but the referee and the linesman had already decided Celtic had scored enough for the evening so chose to pretend they didn’t see it.

So that was that. As comfortable as you like with the Celt’s keeper Scott Bain a virtual spectator.

That’s our 13th win in our last 17 league games now, 16th win in 20 domestic games and our 12th win in 12 home league games this season.

We now visit McDiarmid Park on Sunday to face the same opposition again and let’s hope for more of the same or better still a repeat of the 6-0 hammering we dished out to them back in early October. Hard to believe that’s four months ago already. I remember it well. It was pretty much the performance that kick-started our season after a, to say the least, tepid start.

Tomorrow is, of course, the final day of the transfer window. By Celtic’s standards, it’s been a pretty active January with most of our business done uncharacteristically early via the signing of striker Vakoun Issouf Bayo and the loan deals for attackers Timothy Weah and Olly Burke. There were of course hopes of a right back arriving though rumoured interest in Atalanta’s Belgium internationalist Timothy Castagne was kiboshed by a price tag of somewhere in the region of ÂŁ10 million.

Scott McKenna was also linked with some social media sources even going as far as to proclaim that a ÂŁ6.5 million fee with Aberdeen had been agreed and that the big centre back was en route via a taxi all the way from Dubai. It was of course baseless. Aberdeen have got the player tied up until 2023 and have already said they think they can get an eight-figure fee from a club down south this summer. Being that they are in rude financial health these days they are under no pressure to sell and can name their price. That price is likely to be too rich for our blood especially when you consider that McKenna is far from the finished article.

Image result for scott mckenna celtic
Perhaps the closest Scott McKenna will ever get to wearing a Celtic jersey.

The latest name to be linked is Borussia Dortmund’s Jeremy Toljan, a right back who made 27 appearances for the current Bundesliga league leaders last season but so far none this term. Brendan was quick to dampen any hopes though prematch saying that there’s nothing in it.

Who knows what will materialise over the next 24 hrs.  But with Filipe Benkovic out until at least March suddenly central defence is a concern again.

That aside defender Jack Hendry and midfielder Lewis Morgan continue to be linked with loan moves away for the rest of the season. Considering the improvement we’ve seen in Ryan Christie since his return from a loan stint at Aberdeen I’d say such moves would be good for both young players. It would also trim a very bloated squad that at his way too much dead wood with Gamboa, Hayes, Eboue and Mulumbu other worthy candidates for the dispatch box. As for Marvin Compper, well, they’ll need to carry him out.

All of this and more will be answered in the coming hours. Of course, it could be that nothing happens at all.

As is always the case with a Celtic transfer deadline day………….expect the worst…..hope for the best.

 

Weekend review: Celtic keep rattling them in, managerial heads tumble and them from Govan invade the pitch.

wayofthecass

Another weekend and another victory as Celtic made it three on the spin since returning from the winter break.

As predicted in my last article it really was like shooting fish in a barrel as Hamilton offered only slight resistance en route to being beaten 3-0 going on six.

Young Ryan Fulton in the away teams goal had both a great game and a calamity at the same time as he produced some fine stops to keep the men in green and white out for 40 mins before letting a Callum McGregor shot straight at him squirm under his body and into the net.

His indifferent form continued in the second half as he made more good saves only to spill the ball at the feet of Ryan Christie on 77 mins with the Celtic man duly obliging to increase the lead before Scott Sinclair headed home his seventh in five games ten minutes later to give a more realistic final scoreline to proceedings.

Easy peasy and Celtic maintained their lead at the top whilst for the Accies this was their 11th defeat in 15 games of which they have only won two. It’s the kind of form that would usually see you cut adrift at the bottom but luckily for them both St.Mirren and Dundee have been equally awful this term and they actually still sit 10th and above the relegation zone.

Still, it was no great surprise to see their manager Martin Canning sacked this morning. In fairness, he’s operating with the financial equivalent of a pea shooter in the transfer market and Hamilton are a club who have punched well above their weight to stay in the Premier league since coming up via the playoffs in May 2014. This season reality seems to be really biting though and Canning has paid the price.

Image result for martin canning sacked
Times up for Martin.

For Celtic, that’s 10 goals with none conceded in the past three games and the break certainly seems to have re-energised them with an opportunity to extend their lead at the top of the table when they play St.Johnstone at Celtic Park tomorrow night as we finally play our game in hand.

Elsewhere Rangers avenged an earlier season loss to Livingston at the Tony Macaroni Arena putting them back up to second spot, a victory of such significance to the hordes in blue that they invaded the pitch in exuberant celebration. Pitch invasions for beating 8th placed Livi eh? They’ve come a long way alright.

In a clash between two of the chasing pack at Pittodrie both Aberdeen and Kilmarnock played out a disappointing 0-0 draw with the only highlight being Krois Boyd receiving a straight red. For Aberdeen, that means they’ve only lost once in eight games and remain in fourth spot one place behind Killie who have only lost once their last eleven league games.

Hearts inconsistent form also continued as they bounced back from a surprise 2-1 midweek home defeat to basement dwellers Dundee by defeating in form St.Johnstone comfortably 2-0 at Tynecastle which sees them leapfrog Tommy Wright’s team and go back into fifth place.

Over in Leith all hell kicked off on Friday night as Neil Lennon was suspended for an apparent bust-up with his squad and in particular striker, Florian Kamberi who he ironically brought to the side in the summer after a successful loan spell last season.

Image result for Neil Lennon suspended
Lennon and Flo Kamberi in happier times. 

For some reason, Hibs haven’t actually sacked him yet though it’s 90% certain it’ll be made official sometime this week. The exact details of what happened are of course sketchy but Lenny is prone to outbursts and combined with poor results this season which have seen his team win only seven from 22 games then I guess it was the perfect storm.

Still, it’s disappointing to see. Lennon has been good for Hibs winning the Championship to get them back up in his first season and then guiding them back into Europe via a fourth-placed finish last season where they were also in contention for the second spot right up to the last few weeks. Considering his squad was decimated in the summer due to the departures of his entire central midfield in McGinn, Allen and McGeouch it’s not really a surprise they have floundered so badly this term. The incredible job being done by Stevie Clarke over at Kilmarnock with no money has undoubtedly put extra pressure on him also.

Into his place stepped youth coach Eddie May on Sunday and despite the chaos around Hibs they still inflicted more anguish on poor Oran Kearney with a 3-1 win at New St.Mirren Park.

Kearney really must be wondering what the hell he’s got himself into having come over from Northern Ireland with lofty ambitions only to have tasted the cold hard reality of trying to compete in the SPFL Premiership on a shoestring and a with squad decimated from last season by the ill-advised summer transfer antics of his short-lived predecessor Alan Stubbs.

This latest defeat keeps the Buddies bottom only a point behind Dundee who lost 1-0 at home to Motherwell. The bottom three are now trapped in a little min-relegation league of their own with ‘Well now 13 points clear of them in 9th spot and looking up the table after two back to back league wins.

Never a dull moment in the good old SPFL.