Celtic flew out to Astana yesterday for the return champions League play off match, and despite a healthy five goal advantage, the players will not be taking the foot off the pedal.
Manager Brendan Rodgers will keep them focused..
“We will go over there to win,”
“That is our plan for every game. It will be no different going to Astana. We will be in a different state now compared to a year ago when we were there, as we were at home.
“We expect a tough game again but we plan to win every one we play. I think you saw that at Kilmarnock on Saturday, there is confidence in the players and how they understand the game, so on Tuesday we will be looking for an equally good result
“There is a huge amount of pressure on them. They will know that if they open up and press the game, we have the speed and mentality to score goals. We will have a clear mind. We know what qualification brings and the team have been really impressive up to this point. Now we have one more stage to go and let’s finish the job.”
So far, in the five games of the campaign, Celtic have won four, including both away legs, drawn one, lost none , scored twelve and conceded none.
Thats a hell of a campaign so far, and credit must go to everyone at the club for hitting the ground running, as reallistically, we couldn’t have hoped for a better start.
Last season, Roy Keane criticised the players for celebrating as though they had won the champions League, and he was rightly shot down as he hadn’t taken into consideration the effort and the tension that was involved in reaching the first of the new managers targets.
This year, the bar has been set higher, and consequently, the side has performed at a consistently higher level.
Should qualification be achieved, as expected, there won’t be a repeat of the celebrations, just a few handshakes, a couple of pats on the back, and back on the plane to get ready for the St. Johnstone match.
You see, last year, we wanted to qualify.
This year, we expected to.
Little things like staying on British summer time whilst out there, despite the five hour time difference locally, mean that the players will be encased in their own little bubble whilst over there, and kept away from any distractions.
That way, when the game is played it will fell like an 11.30 am kick off, which isn’t too far away from the weekend away fixture programme, and therefore won’t be as much of a shock to their systems as it could have been.
The professionalism instilled in the squad by the manager when he arrived last summer is beginning to bear fruit, as he explained..
“It’s not really hard to keep their feet on the ground,”
“Complacency is something we tend to avoid. We want to get through, there is this final game to go and we want to achieve that. The fundamentals in the team will be the same.
“That’s why we don’t concede a lot of goals. In all our competitive games for far we’ve conceded once, and that was right at the end of the Hearts match.
“So the team tactically is set up to press, be aggressive, not to be beaten easily, either in one-versus-one duels or collectively, and attacking-wise we know we have the game to score plenty of goals.
“So it’s one where lots of people will be thinking about all the conundrums but, for me, I only think about winning.”
The players are all thinking of nothing else.
Well, most of them..
I suppose we’d better cover the transfer speculation, even if most of it that appears in the press can be
Anyway, at least it saves me from making stuff up. There’s a whole industry out there doing it for me.
What I have tried to do is pick out the more credible ones, which is why there don;t seem to be very many..
Nadir ciftci reminded us all that he was still at Celtic this week when he appeared in stories linking him with a move to Plymouth Argyle..
According to the Plymouth Herald…
Good morning and welcome to today’s blog where we will bring you all the latest news from Plymouth Argyle.
The Pilgrims have been linked with a loan move for Celtic striker Nadir Ciftci this weekend with the Turkey youth international expected to complete a season-long loan move to the Westcountry this week.
Will that be Derek Adams’ final piece of transfer business before the window shuts next week, or will there be more incomings at Home Park.
Read more at http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/plymouth-argyle-live-celtic-striker-linked-transfer-rumours-and-speculation/story-30489997-detail/story.html#fO9u2ixPiZQ7xQlm.99
I’ve left that link on there in case Nadir himself is reading this and wants to know whats happening.
Erik Sviatchenko could be heading back to Copenhagen, though why they would want to spend millions of Euros-okay five millions of Euros-on a player who is often injured and is injured now is a bit of a mystery.
The Daily Express offered an explanation that made even less sense than their usual stories…
Copenhagen need a new central defender because Erik Johansson was ruled out for up to nine months with a serious knee injury after they sold Mathias Jorgensen to Huddersfield Town this summer. (Daily Express)
Sviatchenko is injured. Are we pretending he isn’t so we can sell him ?
Jozo Simunovic is wanted by Burnley.
Its nice there.
Its got all sorts of things you can do in your spare time, such as wander along to try and work out what this fucking thing is…
They are ready to pay upwards of ten million pounds for Jozo, having sold someone called Michael Keane for £25m.
Simunovic himself hasn’t commented on the possibility of being known as Simunovic ( Burnley ) , presumably because he’s not a man who contemplates failure.
Keiran Tierney is now being linked with a move to Tottenham, who want to replace someone called Danny Rose, who wants to leave the London club as they are only paying him slightly abive minimum wage or something.
Tierney was also linked with Stoke City, as Charlie Adam had recommended him to them, but an approach was met with a demand for £20m from Celtic, which the Potteries club figured was too much for a twelve month loan.
Had Celtic been less than five goals ahead of Astana, and to be fair to the creative minds behind some of the stories out there, they probably expected tomorrows game to be a little more tense, with the possibilty of disrupting the squad a little higher than its turned out to be.
Still, they haven’t let all that research go to waste. They’ve printed it anyway.
Moussa Dembele hasn’t featured much thus far, so , along Boyata Back To Belguim, Lustig Leaving, Griffiths Going and Browns Buggered Off, we can only wait and wonder at what tales of the expected will be foisted upon us this week.
Meanwhile, the stories about players coming in-or about to knock us back, also continue.
With the papers saying anything up to four new faces this week, there is a feeling that they may be making things up, in order to prompt criticism at the club should signings they have never said they will make fail to materialise.
Nevertheless….
Patrick Roberts.
We still don’t know if its a loan or a permanent deal.
Neither does he.
Boban Krkic is still sulking. He wants to come to Glasgow, and indeed has asked to travel to games with the local Celtic supporters club in the Stoke area, but he hasn’t paid his membership yet, and has a habit of mumbling incomprehensibly, so apart from the mambership fees, he’s met all the critiera,
Keep an eye out for this guy being mentioned.. as part of some new arrangement between Celtic and Borussia Dortmund…
Christian Pulisic
His unique ability to literally fly down the wing has attracted a lot of attention, and he may well be arriving at Celtic on loan.
Though he did score a great goal for Dortmund at the weekend, and this does seem like one of the more , er, silly stories we’ve heard.
The Rivaldo Coetzee story has appeared again.
He’s injured as well, but according to the Record will fly to Scotland this week to sign for Celtic. Presumably no one told him the manager is in Khazakstan…
Here’s what the Daily Record found out about him…
Coetzee has made 22 appearances for his national side since making his debut in 2014.
He was his country’s youngest ever player, before that was later broken by striker Fagrie Lakay.
and here’s his wikipedia page…
Club career[edit]
Ajax Cape Town[edit]
Coetzee is a product of Ajax Cape Town‘s youth academy. He made his first team debut during the 2013—14 season.
International career[edit]
Coetzee made his international debut for South Africa in an African Nations Cup qualifier against Congo on 12 October 2014 making him the youngest player ever to represent the country, aged 17 years and 361 days – a record that was later broken by Supersport United forward Fagrie Lakay.[3]
Research. Its what journalists do.
The fact is, and remains, the media have no idea who Celtic are looking to bring in.
The success in securing the likes of Forster, Wanyama, van Dijk , Ki Seung Yeung, Moussa Dembele and more recently Olivier Ntcham means that scouts are out there wathcing our scouts, and as with any other multi million pound global business, information is tightly guarded.
Thats why we have to make stuff up, apart from the ones we get right, which are worryingly increasing in number, and surely its about time the media admitted they make stuff up as well.
After all, football is primarily an entertainment business.
Where else can you find entertainment such as this, a new quiz show based on football from the BBC.
They’re jumping on the bandwagon of using “internet bampots ” to say what they are afraid to say with a panel based game called “Stop Taking The Piss ”
The host asks a series of questions, to which only one the bloggers must all stand up and shout “Stop Taking The Piss ”
We’ve been given a sample of this type of question…..
Just why did Ronald de Boer choose Rangers over Manchester United?
Elsewhere, there was an explanation offered as to the cause of one mangers inane and confusing ramblings…
Addiction is a terrible thing, and many a good man has succumbed to the temptations of the drink.
We wish him well.
Perhaps his befuddled state explains the signing of Calros Pena, who is attracting attention for all the wrong reasons.
Or is there yet another reason.. ?
Of course not.
Don’t be silly.
Speaking of that club..things are looking up..
Oh wait, can you get Deja Vu twice ?
Level 5 PR pointing out there that if the cheque isn’t here by Friday they’ll just reprint old pieces…
Yesterday, we showed this picture….
Young Davie Weir on the left showing his legendary sense of direction in his early years.
And today we have this one… entirely fake, but interesting…
