Ajax winger Derk Boerrigter is officially a Celtic player. He signed for four years yesterday, and goes straight into tonights squad for the Elfsborg qualifier, where he is expected to score three or four times and conduct the singing at half time.
All this depends on international clearance arriving in time, but in reality, he is unlikely to feature.
Lennon said of the new bhoy;
“He is the type of player we have been looking for, for a while. “He is a very fast, direct, left-footed player who has goals in him with his left and right foot.
“He is also very powerful. He has good experience and he has played at a high level for the last two or three years.”
And so to the Elfsborg game. Swdish defender Mikael Lustig, a consistent performer in Europe for Celtic, has had his say;
“We want to show the people we aren’t just a one-off after what we did last year in the competition,”
“We want to do it again. For all the boys, it was one of the biggest things they achieved in their career so far and we all want to repeat that.
“Of course, it’s always good to go back and play in Sweden and I want to see Swedish teams do well in Europe because it’s good for football in the country, but obviously this time I only want Celtic to go through in the tie.”
“Elfsborg are a good team with really good footballers who want to play football on the ground,”
“Their pressing is also good and they want to play good football. They also have a very good home record.
“It’s really important to get a good first result. We want to get a good clean sheet at Parkhead as we know how important away goals are.
“You don’t want to think too much about it but it’s our home pitch and we want to go and attack as well.”
This time last year it was Helsingborg who faced Celtic, and with the way the Champions League is set up these days, it could well be that the match between the champions of the two countries could become a regular feature.
Hibernian also faced Swedish opposition last week in the Europa League, well, actually they didn’t face them, more sort of turned around and looked away as the Swedes inflicted a heavy defeat on the Edinburgh side, and this has sounded warning bells for Celtic not to take Elfsborg lightly.
There shouldn’t be any reason to take the Swedish champions lightly, except possibly the fact that they have on loan Celtic misfit Mo Bangura as their main goalscoring threat, but he does appear to be doing a job for them, which is a surprise to most of us. Even more of a surprise is the fact that the job he is doing for them is actually on the pitch. So, predictably, they want him to play. He is eligible, and no-one at Celtic thought of a clause to prevent what is truly an awful situation for the striker.
This was compounded when an SSN reporter asked him a few times for his thoughts. Bangura refused to talk about it, and eventually an aide pushed the reporter away, so obviously the forward is troubled by the scenario.
Some might say that Bangura is not really a threat, as if he was any good then he’d be at Celtic. Whilst its totally different circumstances, There would have been a few Chelsea fans thinking the same had they been forced to line up against a Chris Sutton inspired fporward line had Celtic drawn their club a few years ago.
Bangura shouldn’t worry us, but he shouldn’t be taken lightly either.
So , what do we know about Elfsborg ?
- Founded
- 1904
- Address
- Ălgårdsvägen 32
506 30
Borås - Country
- Sweden
Sat 06/07/13 ALL Elfsborg 0 – 1 Åtvidaberg View events More info Sat 13/07/13 ALL Elfsborg 2 – 2 Halmstad View events More info Wed 17/07/13 UCL Elfsborg 7 – 1 Daugava Daugavpils View events More info Tue 23/07/13 UCL Daugava Daugavpils 0 – 4 Elfsborg View events More info Sat 27/07/13 ALL Åtvidaberg 1 – 1 Elfsborg View events More info Wed 31/07/13 UCL Celtic 19 : 45 Elfsborg More info Sat 03/08/13 ALL AIK 15 : 05 Elfsborg More info Wed 07/08/13 UCL Elfsborg 18 : 45 Celtic More info Sat 10/08/13 ALL Elfsborg 15 : 00 Kalmar More info Sat 17/08/13 ALL IFK Göteborg 15 : 00 Elfsborg More info
This guy looks aloof…….is it Jimmy Hill?
Johannes Edvaldsson (though I don’t remember him with a ‘tache)???
Surely he must be the 1st presenter of the American version of ‘Wheel Of Fortune’ or some other cheesy 70s quiz show?
I find the Kelvin Wilson situation with Forest and the orange chipmunk quite extraordinary given their handling of the last 6 months of Kelvin’s contract whilst he was last there. I know it appears he may be homesick and missing his family but why on Earth would he want to play under tennis ball chops again after that?
I would hope for a good turn-out tonight as I ‘m sure a large noisy crowd would definitely have an adverse effect on Elfsborg who certainly ain’t used to, erm, large noisy crowds. This is our first real test of the season thus far so get along to Paradise and cheer the Bhoys to a 2 or 3 goal victory to take to the return.
Mo Bangura WILL score tonight, but it will be in Elfsborg’s goal and he will peel of his Elfsborg top to reveal the new Hoops and run to where the old jungle was. ‘Arry Redknapp told me that’s what is going to happen and he is such a diamond geezer I trust his every word.
Billy Davies was in Star Wars –
Billy Davies!
Brilliant!
Kelvin, stay with the good ghuys and steer well clear of the darkside. You know it makes sense.
For the London Bhoys out there The Famous Three Kings in West Kensington is showing the game tonight(apparently) . Cracking pub for football. I’ll be there!
http://www.f3k-london.co.uk/FindUs.aspx