Scott Brown, Celtic captain and chief practical joker in the dressing room, has taken his sense of humour and put it out there so the rest of us can enjoy it.

Clearly bored out of his skull in Dubai, where the pubs don’t so much shut early as not open at all, he’s decided to wind up the reporters based around the training camp.

SFA just need to watch Brendan Rodgers for vision of

brighter future, says Scott Brown.

Trust me, the SFa are watching Brendan rodgers, but with a growing sense of alarm, and not with the admiration and respect the Irishman deserves.

Brown, now a lean, mean footballing machine under the new boss, reckons we should share him with all the other clubs as it would help grow the game in Scotland, something which doesn’t fit in with any of the plans currently in action at the SFA.

“I think if everyone could come along and watch our training it would be fantastic. They’d learn so much, not from the players but from the gaffer and how he sets our sessions up, It’s the same with Gordon who was so far ahead of his time when he was at Celtic.

“Back then he wanted to play 4-3-2-1 and people didn’t even realise it, just saying the formation was a 4-5-1. So we’ve had some great managers here. We’ve been lucky enough to have the gaffer here at Celtic, with his coaching staff as well.

“Someone like John Kennedy will tell you he’s learned so much from working with Brendan. His reputation will only be enhanced from working with our gaffer.

“But it would be great if everyone could go around the clubs and work all together rather than everyone being individuals. 

As you can see, he’s obviously at it.

“We have Tommy McIntyre with the Under-21’s and he’s trying to do exactly the same thing the gaffer is doing. Our younger players are learning the way Brendan wants us to play in the first-team. Tommy is putting that into different styles and different shapes, putting his own stamp on it too, as well as the gaffer’s. But it’s good for Tommy to learn from the gaffer too.” 

Celtic are blessed with a fantastic coaching team, thats evident from the current crop of youngsters, with Tierney, Henderson, MacGregor and O’Connell all featuring for the first team, despite the large squad size, and would it be too much of a sin to allow others to gaze upon the wonders of Lennoxtown ?

Probably not, but the SFA don’t like to employ people who have worked with Celtic, the only exception being Gordon Strachan, and they certainly won’t take too kindly to being told what to do by a man who , in their view, has turned his back on his country to give his attention to his club duties.

Unless you are Walter Smith, that is, who ten years ago walked out on Scotland to steer Rangers towards liquidation and groom Ally McCoist to be the manager he is today.

Then again, maybe Brown is being serious, because the SFA haven’t got a clue how to run the game, they just look elsewhere and try to copy others…

“That’s what it’s like, ‘the Belgians are doing great, let’s get him in.’

“I tell you what, if I was Brazilian,”

“I look at what we’ve done through in Edinburgh with the Orium and all the pitches. But maybe we should put some money into the SPFL as well and improve the pitches there as well.

“The better the pitches we have the better chance we have of playing better football. When you go into January and February the pitches have no mud and grass on them then it’s hard to pass the ball.

“Don’t get me wrong, you like a nice little 50/50 now and then.

“But nobody wants to see that for 90 minutes. I think the pitches in England are half-and-half hybrid pitches between grass and astro an d that’s what keeps the pitches good. It’s the way forward. 

“Maybe we should be looking to do something like that.” 

There’s that phrase the SFA hate-“the way forward “. Sometime next week the Regan will thank Brown for his time in a Scotland jersey and declare that the team are moving forward…

All this has added to the fact that Stewart Regan, having lost his communications chief Daryll Broadfoot , has been in the news again.

Broadfoot, according to our man at the SFA ( Aye, that surprised you ),  failed to deal properly with Resolution 12, his remit apparently to kill it stone dead, and he’s been mutually consented. Not surprising really, when you look at the shoddy attempt, via Grant Russell, to alter the content of a UEFA letter, and via David Conn, who refused to publish the advert for the cause in the Guardian.

Well, it’s certainly something to think about, and although I had difficulty keeping the fellow awake, he intimated that the SFA are beginning to believe that this isn’t going to go away, and they are are quite rattled by all the attention.

All it seems to need now is a little bit more of a push and the whole lot might just topple.

Which reminds me, sign it, share it, and sign it again…

petition-link

Our man, who probably isn’t from the SFA at all, but he was wearing a blazer and talking shite, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt, points to Grant Russell fortuitously being in place to chase the Celtic company secretary for a comment on the SFA Res 12 statement, almost as though he knew a statement was going to be made, though I’m sure it was just a coincidence.

As for Conn, he was told by someone at the  SFA that there were, in fact, unpublished documents showing that HMRC had agreed to a postponement , which may have cleared Rangers to play in the champions league, yet he didn’t check them, choosing to merely accept what the SFA told him.

Since the drunk in the blazer may not be from the SFA after all, this is only speculation, but Grant has my phone number, and I’m happy to talk to any of them to clear this matter up.

After all, what harm can it do to get to the bottom of all this before the end game begins ?

He means me, bless him.

Anyhow, back to Regan and his Project Brave.

Actually, lets not. It’s a load of bollocks created to give the papers something to write about that doesn’t contain the words “corruption ” , “collusion ” and “bunch of cheating , lying bastards. ”

We had a Diary this week that looked at the stuff you won’t see in the papers, and it was refreshing to see a great article about Brendan Rodgers and Celtic in one of the papers that gave a balanced view of whats happeneing under his tenure…of course, its not the SMSM, but the Gulf News…

Dubai: Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers has a problem.

No, honestly.

Nineteen points clear of rivals Rangers in the Scottish Premiership at the winter break and unbeaten domestically with just one league draw? Tick.

A comfortable 3-0 Scottish League Cup final triumph over Aberdeen in November that earned the former Liverpool boss his first major trophy as a manager – and keeps Celtic on course for a treble in his first season in charge? Tick.

Earning Celtic Champions League qualification for the first time since 2013/14 and achieving two draws against Manchester City in the group stage? Big check there too.

And signing a striker, Moussa Dembele, from Fulham in the summer for pounds 500,000 whose form has been so impressive – 19 goals, including a double versus City, with five of his 14 domestic strikes against Rangers – that he is now valued around the pounds 30 to 40 million mark. In the financial backwater of Scottish football, there’s a very big check – or indeed cheque – there too.

Therein, however, lies the problem, as Rodgers readily admits during a breather from Celtic’s winter-break training in Dubai at Al Wasl Club earlier this week.

“If you finish bottom of the Premier League you get pounds 100 million,” Rodgers, Anfield manager from the summer of 2012 to October, 2015, says.

“If you win the Scottish (Premiership) you get pounds two million.”

“The only thing that Celtic doesn’t have,” Rodgers adds, “is the propaganda that is the Premier League. In every other aspect of football Celtic is a huge club – fan base, stadium and history. They have a fantastic history. What they don’t have is an opportunity to play in the Premier League.”

“The bigger battle for the club will probably be convincing him to resist the seduction of ‘Premier League propaganda’ for the satisfaction of local bragging rights.

Celtic’s history was made in the days when they were European elite. The first British winners of the European Cup, in 1967, Celtic also reached the final in 1970 and semi-finals in 1972 and 1974. Since the inception of the Champions League, however, Celtic have reached the last 16 just three times.

And having finished bottom of their Champions League group this season – Barcelona took seven off them at Camp Nou, though the City results and another draw in Germany against Borussia Monchengladbach were encouraging – Rodgers is very honest when asked how far away Celtic are from being a last 16 team once more.

“We still have a bit of work to do,” he admits.

“It’s very difficult. You could be a fantastic team and still not get through. But what’s most important for me is building and growing the club – and what’s important first and foremost for that is qualifying for the Champions League. And to do that you need to win your league.

“It comes hand in hand, but Champions League year in, year in is what we strive for.”

Along with other former elite names of European football such as Ajax who have been heavily impacted as teams from the ‘Big Five’ nations get ever richer, that’s easier said than done. Coming from lowly Uefa-ranked Scotland, Celtic currently have to progress through three qualifying rounds before the group stages – and potentially four come the revamp of the competition.

“The No.1 target is to win the league in order to have a chance to qualify and then qualification second – then third is to get out of the group stages,” adds the Northern Irishman, who Celtic reportedly made the highest paid manager in Scottish football history.

“It’s never easy because of the finances and everything else involved. But it’s a fight and that’s excitement for us.”

With Celtic chasing six Scottish league titles in a row, a great opportunity exists to exceed the nine crowns won successively in the 60s and 70s. A record matched by Rangers in the 80s and 90s.

The fight for domestic dominance and Champions League progression may excite Rodgers, who grew up supporting Celtic, but despite that, the bigger battle for the club will probably be convincing him to resist the seduction of ‘Premier League propaganda’ for the satisfaction of local bragging rights.

This after all, despite the social media mirth directed at him towards the end of his time at Anfield for the “great character” post-match comments, is the man who has by far come the closest to winning Liverpool a league title in 27 years.

He actually mentions ‘Liverpool’ first in the interview with local media, commenting it was “important for me when I left a club like Liverpool to have a breather but then in my next job I needed pressure – and there’s a pressure at Celtic. It’s a huge club, there’s an expectancy to win every game.”

But further probing about his own spell – and everyone remembers Steven Gerrard’s costly slip against Chelsea, the draw at Crystal Palace and the crushing conclusion to the 2013/14 campaign – is met with: “I’ve nothing to say on that.”

He concedes slightly to discuss his replacement Jurgen Klopp’s current crop.

“Yeah, yeah, I do, I do,” Rodgers replies when asked if second-placed Liverpool can win the league this season.

“Brilliant club, fantastic club.

“I had a great time there and obviously with playing one game a week that helps you. I had that there myself when we just finished runners-up. But it’s a tight competition between six teams, so it’ll be interesting to see how it goes.”

While “Chelsea, Liverpool, Tottenham” have particularly impressed him, he has “no favourites for it”.

A query on his thoughts on the big-name managers now in charge of top Premier League clubs is met with the response: “Yeah, it’s difficult for British coaches. “Maybe we don’t jump about so much – run up and down the touchline so much. It’s ever-changing both from a playing and managing perspective the Premier League.”

Rodgers insists he is “not really worried, not bothered” when asked if he envisages going back to the Premier League.

“Football is a global game,” he says.

“I’ve been there and I’m happy not to be there now, I’m enjoying a new experience at Celtic, a huge club. If I go back there one day, great. If I don’t there’s no drama. It’s a global game.”

Spain then, perhaps?

“Yeah, in football I’ll be coaching for maybe 20 years so I’ll enjoy the travel and see where it takes me,” the Spanish-speaker says.

That’s a nice problem to have then.

And for now Rodgers’ biggest problem is a trip to a store to find a mantelpiece big enough to take the weight of all the gongs coming his way.

The far weightier problem is finding the way to return Celtic to the mantle that he and many others believe they belong.

Quite liked that…thats why I’ve reproduced it in full, as most of you wouldn’t have clicked on a link.

Fabrice Ondoa ? No, I don’t either.

He’s no Dorus de Vries, which is why he is worth a look…. and why we’re looking at him, I suppose, as the board pluck up the courage to allow Rodgers to choose  another keeper.

Another drunk told us that Celtic are going to exploit the African market, but not in the way the British Empire did, which should come as a relief to our more, er, traditional supporters…

With “rangers ” in financial trouble over on the other side of the city, could it be that Celtic are building up a new club of their own to take their place…all we have to do is buy their ground, their assets and their history, and then we can claim well over a hundred titles…

Might explain why we’ve got about forty first team players…

Although Mark Warburton has been using his contacts book again, and got himself two more serial loan players to tide them over until the summer, when the cheque from Dave king is expected to clear.

And the defiant “rangers ” manager isn’t going to splash the cash to bridge the gap…

Not because he hasn’t got any, but because it would be “reckless”, and after all, thats what killed the old club.

Has anyone else been told he’s in line for the Scotland job when Strachan hangs up his boots ?

Oh….maybe that guy wasn’t from the SFA after all…

Anyhoo, I’m rambling.

Warburton told the assembled press poodles, after first checking with the fat controller, why he won’t be spending big..honest, he did…

Rangers boss Mark Warburton vows never to spend money

the club don’t have to catch Celtic.

Quite a headline, from the Record.

Sort of stating the obvious that you can;t spend money if you haven’t got any. Yet somehow Warbs is due credit for that…

I tried spending without money  in a bar once, and ended up on the pavement quite swiftly.

“In the current market, you can’t afford to buy your way out of trouble, spending money you haven’t got.

“That’s not derogatory towards the club, far from it. But we’ve got to be very prudent in what we do going forward. 

This follows advice from the legnedary (sic ) boss Walter Smith , who says they should take a gamble and spend, showing conclusively that Smith , now showing signs of his advanced age, has completely forgotten what happened to the club when he followed that advice.

Warbs continued with what appeared to be a prepared statement from the fat controllers Ministry of Information….which allowed me the chance to practice what i would ask in a press conference should i ever have my brains scooped out and join the SMSM…

“If that means a bit of frustration, I’m sure the majority of the fans will understand that.

They don;t even understand their club died -how can you expect them to understand this ?

“From where the club has been to where it needs to get back to – everything has to be done in an astute manner. 

It’s only been in the lower leagues, is that where you want to get back to ?

“The club was in a very perilous position. The chairman has come in with the board and steadied the ship. 

The club-or the company ?

“We’ve moved forward and after the experiences of the last four or five years, we have to move at a pace appropriate for this club. 

Is that becuase Clint Hill can’t keep up ?

“We can’t be impacted by events or performances away from us. We have to look at Rangers. I think the fans have patience.” 

Speaking of patients, any news of Joe Garner ? Has he made it past the triage nurse yet ?

One of the most honest men in the game died this week, and I’d like to send my condolences to his family.

Graham Taylor suffered terribly at the hands of the media, the Sun in particular, and it would be fitting to his memory of this is how he is remembered, and not how they portrayed him…

Yesterday, I published a link to enable those of you who wanted to to donate to the Macari centre, which didn’t work, but the bold Voodude, who is also doing the sleep out, helped me out.

I can;t wait to spend eight hours in the freezing cold sharing a conversation with him and other Lennon members.

Despite travelling up the road for games together for nearly twenty years, this will be the longest time we’ve ever been sober in each others company, by about seven and a half hours, which should be interesting.

And probably dull.

Here’s the link, and thanks for your support.

Lennon CSC sleep oot.

Macari is doing a fantastic job , and while we were in there the other night, we heard of more success stories, where people are getting back on their feet, and its all down to the work of the former player and manager and his staff.

Yesterdays caption featured the NHS staff raising money by selling cigarrettes, showing how much times have changed.

The bastards make you go out in your pyjamas to get your own these days..

Although there was a better interpretation…

This one might take some explaining, though…