Celtic Diary Wednesday February 27

The run in towards retaining the title continues with the short trip down the M74 to Motherwell. The family club have had an up and down season this time round, and have tried to raise interest and passion by re-signing old icon James MacFadden. They haven’t won any of the two games they have played since he joined, but there are hopes that he will boost crowds and merchandise sales. Presumably he’ll be buying some shirts and bringing his mates to the games.

He is in the frame to play tonight, but Well manager Stuart McCall says other people are as well, in what was a fairly in depth and thought provoking interview.

Motherwell have recovered from the embarrassing early League cup exit to Third division minnows Rangers, and although currently fourth in the league, they are just a single point behind second place Inverness.Mind you, they are only three ahead of ninth placed Dundee United. The league split this season will interrupt what has been a healthy , competitive season for the vast majority of the top flight clubs, which needs to be taken into account if any reconstruction is attempted by those who say its needed. By keeping all twelve playing each other, the interest would have remained high, and as a result crowds and media interst would have flourished..

Celtic will be without Scott Brown and Mikael Lustig for tonights game, which manager Neil Lennon has described as one of three which will be season defining.

Brown is still awaiting results from a hip specialist on his abductor problems, while Lustig has bone bruising to the thigh. Charlie Mulgrew is rated as doubtful due to a glute problem, and am I the only one who hasn’t got the faintest idea what two of those injuries actually are?

Whatever happened to real football injuries, suffered by guys like Bert, Alf and Stan, who broke their necks or backs while working down the pit before turning up to play ninety minutes in fog, snow and hurricanes?

With St. Mirren in the Cup and Juventus in Europe next week, Lennon will try to juggle the squad in the hope of succeeding on all fronts. He said;

“We want to win our remaining ten games and finish the season strongly. I think the points total is important, we had 92 and 93 in the last two seasons so we would like to get up around ninety again and we still have a bit of work to do to reach that target”

Then he got to the significant bit;

“I want these young players to keep progressing and try to adapt to any environment or challenge that is put in front of them”

That means there is some kind of  intensive programme at the club, which is focussing on the players, rather than on just winning games, and settling for domestic dominance.

Speaking of the European campaign, Barcelonas recent defeats to Milan and last night, Real Madrid, were not all that surprising. Both sides played the Catalans exactly the way we did, forcing them wide and not allowing the lightning moves through central defence. Lennon can take credit for finding a way to beat them, which has been copied by two of Europes biggest clubs, and for his next challenge, he is going to show us how to overcome a three goal deficit away from home.

Daft? Unrealistic?

Maybe, but for poor decisions in playing Ambrose and Lustig-who Lennon later admitted wouldn’t last ninety minutes, the outcome against the Italians could have been completely different. And with a decent referee….

Maybe its the green tinted glasses again, but whilst not confident, there has to be a reason for the optimism that I’m feeling when I think of that game next week. And thats without considering that Chelsea, who haven’t had a new manager for weeks now, are rumoured to be looking at bringing in Antonio Conte as their next boss.

Then again, what do I know?

The Times seems to know something that the Scottish press and television aren’t sure about. Have a look below at last nights games

Makes them sound like a schoolboys team in the local five a side league. Actually, not too far away an assessment. They’d better get someone else to open their mail down at the offices of the Murdoch flagship. Ian Wright, in another Murdoch rag, has made noises about Celtic and Rangers joining the English set up, and with Murdoch also owning the tv rights to the English league, maybe there are moves afoot to have us playing football against wigan, Stoke and West Brom at ridiculous times on ridiculous days.

However, no kick off times will match those given to Sevco Rangers, as the tv watchdogs are now demanding their games are to be shown after the nine o’clock watershed.

Incidentally, thousands of Sevco shares changed hands yesterday. Someone must be buying them. Or at the very least, moving them around to keep the price high.

The new club drew that game 1-1  last night, in front of a “muted” (surely “mutant”?) crowd. Manager Ally McCoist was at a loss to explain his sides poor defending from set pieces;

“Its something that we are aware of….Its not a lack of bravery. And I don’t believe its a lack of organisation, because we work on them long enough and hard enough, I can guarantee you that. Its maybe just an inability to do your job at the right time.”

It wasn’t clear if the last sentence was about his defenders, or just a statement on his own capabilities.

Anyway, enough of them. Back to the big boys football.

Celtic have turned down an offer to play Liverpool in a testimonial for Steven Gerrard, citing a busy schedule in august as the reason. As the game was due to be played at Anfield, some cynics have suggested that it isn’t far enough away for a mid season friendly, and Celtic are holding out to play a Venus XI on the cloud covered planet, to boost shirt sales in the area.

Talkshite radio host Adrian Durham, a man whose purpose in life is to make ridiculous statements and sit back to wait for a reaction has been at it again in the Daily Mail. He reckons that Scottish football is a joke, because the “second best team” are in division Three.

Maybe something got lost in the translation from Lalaland, because by no stretch of even the most over active imagination could Sevco Rangers be classed as the second best team in Scotland. They aren’t even the second best in Glasgow.

Perhaps he’s looking for a job with them, as he is probably the only person who could keep up with Charles Green in the “empty vessels make the most noise ” stakes.

Against Kilmarnock, on 18 April 2004, and against Hearts on 5 April 2006 , Celtic secured their earliest Premier league titles. On both occasions there were six games remaining, meaning Pensionerbhoy has finally triumphed in the quiz!

Gary Hooper is 4/1 to be the first goalscorer tonight, and thats worth a shiny pound of anyones money. Which goalscorer scored the most goals in a season for Celtic, how many , and when?