The little doubts that had begun to creep in around recent Celtic performances were grabbed by the wizard of aus Tom Rogic yesterday and thrown aside in a 4-0 win over Ross County.
There was no European hangover, although the omission of a couple of key players meant a freshening of the side, and there were signs that the manager had had words with others.
Rogic stood out simply because he was the best player on the field, and this in turn may be because he has had time to recover from globe trotting with the international team.
Leigh Griffiths was aided and abetted by the return of Moussa Dembele, who managed to score, but credit has to go as well to James Forrest, who has been consistently good this season, as he showed no signs of huffiness and scored another two goals, taking his total to the season to, er, more than two.
Sinclair, Roberts, Tierney and Ntcham didn’t start, and perhaps they all did need a wee rest.
It worked, and Rodgers was happy enough with the way things turned out..
“It was perfect,”
“The players deserve a huge amount of credit. “I said to the players, ‘We take our medicine, we learn from it’, and this is what this group is very good at doing.
“We remain very positive, press the reset button and we go again. “They were excellent in training on Thursday and Friday. We tried something different today in the shape of the team and I thought as the game went on we got better and better. “It was a mark of a good side that you can respond, score four goals and keep a clean sheet. It was a really good performance.”
Someone else who would have done his confidence no harm yesterday was keeper Craig gordon, who made a tremendous double save. As good as any you’ll see this season.
Which clearly annoyed Jim McIntyre, the County manager..
“It was fantastic, especially the second part of it. It was an incredible save, but he is a top keeper.
“The sign of a top keeper is when you don’t have a lot to do and then you have to produce when it matters and he certainly did that.
“We had a good chance before their third goal when Michael Gardyne has a shot but we have three-on-one at the back area.
“All of a sudden they counter-attack and we are done and it is 3-0 rather than a good chance to make it 2-1. These are the key moments when you come to places like this.”
This weekends round of results means that Celtic have pulled two points clear of Aberdeen at the top of the table.
After that there’s little to choose between third and eighth , with a number of clubs having a mixture of good days and bad.
Rodgers has also added Kolo Toure to the coaching staff, something that has largely gone unnoticed by the media..
“This is great news for Celtic that we are able to bring a man of Kolo’s experience into our coaching team. In everything he does, he is quite simply a fantastic example to anyone.
“He has worked at the top of the game for so many years and he has all the qualities which any player of any age should aspire to. He is a fantastic role model for our younger players and someone who has a level of experience and knowledge which can only be invaluable to our established players.”
“We are delighted that we will benefit from this experience and I know will make a real contribution to the club in this role.”
We’ll need him, we’re about to embark on a tricky run of games..
The next league game is a visit to plucky newcomers “rangers ” at Ibrox, led by perfectionist manager Pedro Caixinha.
The Portuguese, in his own words, had the bets squad in scotland last season, but as they failed to win anything, he got rid of nearly all of them in the summer and brought even better players to replace them.
There have been a couple of teething problems, but the club almost managed a third win in a row for the first time under his stewardship against Partick on Friday, but despite a display of total total football, a level up from the famed style of the great dutch sides of the seventies, Partick managed to hang on for a draw.
The Ibrox boss will see the game as a chance to pull to within two points of the leaders, and issue warning that this time he is offering a serious challenge..not that anything he says makes sense.
Apparently, he didn’t watch the PSG game, as he wanted to watch the Benfica game, to get his side ready for a friendly they have with them, and instead he watched sporting Lisbon, at least I think thats what he’s saying..
“Celtic will not play the same way they did against PSG.
“Do you think so? I don’t think so.
“I wanted to enjoy a game without working and to see how the Portuguese teams were doing. I watched the Sporting game because I couldn’t catch Benfica against CSKA, which was maybe more important as we are going to play them on October 6.”
“I will have just two days.
“We play Tuesday, we will be off on Wednesday.
“That’s the plan, I’m not going to change anything in my plan, my vision, my way of seeing things.
“The boys who are playing on Tuesday will need two days to recover so until I arrive there, I need to collect a lot of information. I’ll have time to think about it.
“I cannot stop the noise around this game but I can avoid it getting on my mind.
“I just focus on the games and the process.
“I don’t care about the circus that surrounds the game. You need to know how to manage it.
“What is important is that we prepare all the games to win. This one is the same.”
The last time Celtic visited Ibrox the hoops came away with a 5-1 win. Is Caixinha worried about a repeat ?
“I had enough reflection on that game at the time so I don’t want to remind myself of that.
“Different moment, different games. I won’t use it as motivation either. It is part of the past.
“What matters is we have competitors with passion to win and the passion to represent this massive club.
“The team now is in better shape to do the very best.”
What may alarm him, and his teams supporters, is that there is not a single player in his squad that would get into any of Celtic’s two first teams.
Even more alarming…or poignant…why isn’t he wearing official club merchandise at press conferences ?
There are stories of discontent in the Ibrox dressing room, itself a surprise. That they have a dressing room. I thought that after a game their owners brushed their fur, cleaned their hooves and put them into a cage until the next game, but apparently I’m in the wrong.
Should one set of players resent the manager, they may well not perform at their best for him during the high profile derby game next week. More worryingly for the hordes…how will they notice ?
They have no great eye for detail at the best of times..
Before that, Celts are in League cup action up at Dundee , and Neil McCann, serving his apprenticeship for the Ibrox job, claims his side will not park the bus, making it tricky for them to get into the dressing room.
“I am really looking forward to going up against Celtic, a really hard game and test for us in a quarter-final,”
“It’s an opportunity to get into a semi-final, so I will need to come up with something that’s strong, that allows us to be hard to break down against a very good Celtic team.
“But also, when we have it, I will be the same – I know it sounds weird off the back of a 4-1 from Rangers – I still want the guys to have the freedom to play.
“Because football is boring if you just think: ‘I am going to try and frustrate for 90 minutes’.
“Somewhere along the line you will come undone against a side like Celtic, so you have to be prepared to play as well.
“We must come up with something that suits us, that allows us to be solid, and try to reduce the spaces that Celtic like to operate in.
“But when we have it I will not just ask them to smash it up the pitch.
“That’s not fair to the fans, and I don’t think it’s fair to the players, because we’ve got good footballers here.
“I don’t want to play like that.”
He was talking to Dundee based newspaper the Sunday Post, and what he said to them was almost word for word what he said before the 34-1 defeat by “rangers “.
Fortunately, for him, Sunday Post readers don;t have much of a short term memory, and the biggest issue in that paper is usually along the lines of what to do with German prisoners of war and the introduction of the new , fiddly little five pence piece, still seen as the biggest threat to the economy on the northern town.
Whereas other papers concern themselves with the impending exit from the European union, Post readers are still debating whether or not to join it, and if decimalisation will mean the end of the traditional pint of beer and two ounces of soor plooms.
Elsewhere, and Hibernian fans showed their displeasure with chariman Rod Petrie, who came out against a review of the actions of Rod Petrie during the shady days of the SFA…
The Scotsman newspaper seems to have broken rank with the propaganda ministry running the SFA defence when they published a poll online…
The fans who go to games this weekend and pay for the privilege of seeing their team deserve to know that the game is being played fairly and being run by a capable governing body.
Do they not deserve to know without doubt that the rules are being upheld by the governing body which is open and transparent?
We talk of improving the game, improving grassroots and building for the future with more coaches, better facilities and better stadia, but by driving fans away by ignoring their wishes, how can this be achieved?
A truly independent review offers a unique opportunity that would not only provide closure over an exceptionally controversial chapter of Scottish football but would repair much of the damage that has already been inflicted.
The simple fact is that if a review was to be held, we do not not know what would happen or be revealed, but at least fans and clubs would have answers and a line could be drawn under a sorry saga in Scottish football.
In their statement, the SFA said that one of the “key learnings” that has been addressed in the last six years has been the “bolstering the duty of good faith”. The reaction of many fans suggests that faith in the integrity of the SFA may be in short supply.
The SFA claim to have fixed things, yet will not hold an enquiry to draw attention to what it is they have fixed. Which, in turn means that as no one trusts them now, how can we be expected to believe they have fixed anything, or, indeed , found anything that they feel needed to be fixed ?
The diary didn’t surface yesterday, so its back to Friday…
And what a terrible image this answer conjures up…
big hauns says if thats a durex stick it on yer tongue before ye lick ma arse chubby a dont want ye infectin ma piles
Today…
