With the international break ahead of us, and a truly mouthwatering clash against England on the horizon….ah, bollocks, I’m not fooling anyone,
Celtic play host to the only side to have taken points of them tomorrow when Inverness Caledonian Thistle make the journey south. There can be no complacency after the splendid performance in Germany, as the “rangers ” are coming and we need to be on our toes.
With competition for places in the side now more intense than it has been for many years, its unlikely any of the tarting eleven will put in less than a decent shift, which doesn’t augur well for the visitors.
They have to be. The success of Moussa Dembele in the hoops has shown others like him that they don’t have to hang around in England where all the foreigners have come over and taken their bloody jobs, and that they can move to glasgow, committ for a few seasons and develop their game at a higher level.
Brendan Rodgers, the Celtic manager, says he has already had one or two enquiries about any jobs going in Glasgow..
“Moussa is a great catalyst if you are an agent now and I have had a number of conversations where people now see the example of Moussa,”
“It really has lit up their eyes to what the possibilities are. Here is a guy – who was a talent – but he was playing in the Championship in England and now he is one of the most coveted strikers – never mind young – in Europe, and his platform is here in Scotland.
“He is a great advertisement for what we are trying to do and he is enjoying his time here. There is talent out there. It is the right ones at the right time.”
Theres obviously a shift in recruitment policy, which explains the mutual consenting of John Park, and perhaps the plan is to be a little less scattergun in the approach, and to target the ones the manager thinks are worth it, as opposed to the ones their agents think are worth it.
Rodgers went on to explain his thinking…
“…. That is the notion that I have in terms of looking at building a structure here that allows more of them to come to here.
“But for every Dembele there is, there are others who aren’t like that. Moussa was coveted by lots of teams in Europe but chose to come here to develop further and learn the game and hopefully play at Champions League level.
“Some players will be happy playing relegation football but earning more money. You can’t blame them because it’s a short career. It’s just the type.
“But we always have to look to find a way and that’s what we’ll do.”
We know all about the ones who aren’t like that.
The problem with this is that it means its unlikely players will stay once they have made a name for themselves and their selling price makes Peter Lawwell and the rest of our board reach for the paper tissues.
Although Rodgers may well have foreseen this and already dealt with it..and he isn’t just building for the future, as some players, he says, are needed now;
“Of course it’s not nice to lose your best players, but the more experience you get, the more realistic you are. Of course we want to fight to keep the players here for as long as we can.
“That’s the key. When they are enjoying it, even more so. But what’s below that is important, having a stream of players set up to come in and replace them. That’s the key, having that pipeline waiting. “The beauty of it is if you know the profile, you save yourself wasting time, money and effort. If you’ve got a structure, with things in place, OK you’re disappointed if you lose one, but if you have one to come in, that’s key to it.”
“You can bring a 25-year-old in and still develop him,”
“If he moves on you can still get value for the club. For me coming in here, I wanted to ensure that we were a team that had power, had speed, has creativity and isn’t predictable.
“Of course, you want hungry player but Kolo Toure is hungry at 35. For me there is no age limit on it. If you bring in a 19-year-old and he develops like Moussa then of course if he then does move on then there is naturally a big resale value but also it is what can be done for the team now. If that player is 29, he is 29.
“Scott Sinclair’s career has flown by and he finds himself now at 27. You look now at the age of between 22 and 29 being the asset age of players but now because of fitness that 29-35 is the next and final part of your career.
“All the studies now of players hitting their peak tend to go towards 29 so Scott comes here at 27; if he has two seasons here and scores 40 goals I will tell you now that we will be getting our door knocked down in the Premier League for teams that want him because managers want goals, they want creativity. So, yes, he is an older player but he is hungry.”
Rodgers is refreshingly open and honest about what he is trying to do at Celtic, which is a far cry from previous managers, and this will lead to the support backing him in ways that no previous incumbent will have had, simply because he is treating us like adults.
Clearly not a style he has copied from the board, who still see the support, and the minority shareholders as a sort of occupational hazard, and do their best to try not to step in us on their way to their comfy seats.
Tomorrows game should be another three points, and we need to get them, becuase Danny Wilson, another one of those promising youngsters who are about to make their mark on the game, this time from ibrox, has blown the trumpet for the orcs to rally..
“I think it’s important to go into the Celtic game at Hogmanay with momentum behind us, Every game between now and then is going to be important for going into that.
“We’re already too many points behind them, so we don’t want to be any further behind. If anything, we want to close that gap points-wise going into that game.
“I don’t think we can really afford to drop too many more points going into that.
“It’s been disappointing to lose the first two Old Firm games of the season, but we’re looking forward to the next one.
“We’ve got a lot of games before then, but if we can put some points on the board and try to keep the pressure up and try to get wins on a more consistent basis, then we’ll see where that takes us.
“We always believe we can win these games, and especially with the game being at Ibrox we’ll be confident of getting the three points.
“I think confidence is starting to build. We’ve been a bit stop-start, getting a couple of good results and then a not so good one, and it seems like we’ve been stuck in a wee bit of a cycle.
“But we got a good performance on Saturday, and hopefully the boys can build on it and we can get some more wins on the board.
“We’re up to second now, but we want to be pushing even harder to get even more points on the board. We always carry an expectation being at this club of winning games and being successful, but we know that no team is just going to give us a victory.
“When we play against teams they are usually very well-organised and difficult to break down, and they’ve got their professional pride so they’re not just going to roll over and let us win the game.
“So we were fully expecting it to be as difficult as it has been, but we’ve got that expectation to win, so we have to find a way to do so.”
Proof there that the players are just as far removed from reality as the fans are.
They’ll have to do it without Joey Barton, who is now being forced to train with the under 20 side, presumably an attempt to get him to walk out so they don;t have to pay him.
That I can understand, if not condone, but its a little unfair to leave lit cigars around the place with wee notes saying that such and such called you a tosser, joey.
If thats not constructive dismissal, then I don’t know what is.
so to make sure that the “rangers ” don’t creep any closer to us than neccessary-after all, its bad enough getting a flu jab this time of year, so we don’t want to add any more vaccinations than we have to-Celtic must put out their strongest possible side tomorrow, so expect the same starters as we saw against the German team, but with Lustig restored to right back, and Simunovic alongside Sviatchenko.
Meanwhile, according to Sports Witness, Celtic have already fended off one possible suitor for Karamoke Dembele, the player who is likely to remain thirteen for at least another few years to help piss poor journalists with their sensationalist stories
When you’re 13 and you make your debut for the U20s in a club as big as Celtic, you’re going to make headlines, and that’s exactly what Karamoko Dembélé did.
Since then the (very) young forward has made an appearance for Scotland’s U16s, making more headlines, and following criticism in Italy towards Celtic’s decision to hand him a start, there’s now a transfer update in Spain from Sport.
The Catalan newspaper claim that Barcelona had the chance to sign Celtic Park’s youngest prodigy, but decided not to for fear of being handed another transfer ban.
They say that after much scouting, the player ‘was ready’ to play for the La Liga champions, who pulled the plug at the last minute.
This appears to be an achievement in itself considering Sport make it clear Celtic are being very careful not to let anyone get near the 13-year-old, with Manchester City and Manchester United ‘crazy’ about him.
They say Barcelona were ‘the first to move’ and ‘got there at an opportune time’ before backing away.
Of course, signing for Luis Enrique’s side might happen in the near future, especially if he develops as well as most expect him to, but for now, he’s stay in Glasgow with Celtic.
Expect a similar story to appear, courtesy of Level 5, in a couple of Scottish red tops about billy Gilmour-I think thats his name-the Fleckalike currently wowing their development squad . One story that deserves more coverage today and tomorrow is the latest Green Brigade foodbank appeal..
These are the things the foodbank would like you to donate.. notice that its not just food, but some of lifes other essentials..
At the start of the Diary, i mentioned the mouth watering clash with between Scotland and England, which will take place on Armistice Day next week, which is when people solemnly remeber the dead of the two total wars of last century. Recently, this has been expanded to include any war, anywhere and possibly even the odd streetfight and playground scuffle.
FIFA, who do not allow political statements during their events, have told England and Scotland that they cannot have poppies on their shirts.
You’d have thought, from the outcry, that they had also demanded that every citizen should execute the first born in every household.
Even the Prime minister, whatever her name is, has jumpoed on the annual bandwagon of poppiness, which has now become compulsory to wear unless you fancy being branded as some sort of yellow bellied lilly livered lollygagger, or at the very least some sort of religious fanatic who blows up airports in his spare time.
James MacLean, the footballer from Derry, never wears one, as he grew up in a city which saw first hand the damage caused by an occupying army, coincidentally the British one, currently fighting abroad either in defence of some government or against it, we are never quite told which, or , indeed , if the war was won, lost or forced into a replay on neutral ground.
so anyway, MacLean was the subject of a Daily Record poll when he didn’t wear a poppy.
Presumably the next poll, and indeed the next vicious campaign of nationalisitic drum beating should be fired in the direction of another “unbeliever “-England manager Gareth Southgate..
The bastard. whats he thinking of, etc, etc….people gave their lives for him and so on and so forth…
The simple fact is if you want to wear a poppy, then wear one. If you don’t, then don’t.
Thats the freedom that was fought for in the two big wars, and the sacrifice by the conscript army must be remembered, but we shouldn’t be forced to.
Largely because we don’t need to be. We all know what they did, and we all know why.
It’s Friday, so that means its time for
Knob Of The Week
We’ve seen some spectacular winners in the past, but this week we have someone special…albeit anonymous
Somewhere , deep in the bowels of Manchester City council, this person has a position of responsibility.
Someone who sent this out to ascertain someones nationality…
apart from asking why the recipient didn’t have a “Geek “passport….
Whoever sent this, wherever you are, you have achieved what many others, despite the best of efforts, have failed to do.
You are this weeks Etims
Knob Of The Week.
There was no caption competition yesterday, so we go back to Wednesday to name the last winner…
Caption: Man City fans watch the CL game from their usual seats
Courtesy of Moo on Twitter, here’s an interesting incident which may well prove the existence of time travel for todays caption competition.
Elsewhere on the site is a petition to the SFA. Sign it, and we’ll send it to them. They must be held to account for their actions, and one way or another, we’re going to do that.
