Celtic Diary Monday November 25

Every now and again comes along a game which is thoroughly enjoyable. Saturdays 3-1 win over Aberdeen was such a match. Drama, excitement, atmosphere-it was all there, and once again that smug grin worn by those who didn’t leave early to avoid the traffic was much in evidence.

Celtic took a while to get going, and it wasn’t until the 35th minute until they opened the scoring. Kris commons rolling the ball past a despairing Aberdeen defence, who had decided to have a lie down.

The dons equalised when Fraser Forster had one of his flapping fits, as he failed to deal with a high ball and then a looping header, allowing the resulting stramash to end in a goal.

Then we had to wait until the announcer said the referee had added on three minutes, and there was a marked upturn in attitude, especially from Georgios Samaras. Two more goals, one from Derk Boerrigter and another from Commons made the points safe, and kept Celtics unbeaten record intact.

There was also a treat from Efe Ambrose, who in the first half, went on one of his mazy runs , beat at least the whole Aberdeen team and a few other bystanders on the way , before shooting just over the top. You cannot help but like the big guy, and I, for one, will be buying the Christmas single he and Fraser Forster will be releasing

Any ideas what it could be called ?

New technology, a little camera on the ball, has allowed us to view Efe’s  shot from the balls point of view. This is the scene from the ball after the shot;

But it was fun, and the defender received a standing ovation, and a complaint from EasyJet, who were forced to reroute the 3.30 from New York.

At half time, two dusky attractive European ladies approached me in my seat at the front of the south stand by the corner flag. They asked me if I would take a photograph of them. They didn’t speak very good English, as they obviously didn’t understand me when I told them to pop their clothes on the seat next to me, so it was just a normal photo in the end, but they seemed pleased with the result.

Although I think I  overheard them say that they thought I was drooling.

Still unbeaten after thirteen games, and yet only five points in front. If only there was a strong Rangers to challenge us and make it interesting. Two defeats, and a consistent Inverness would overtake us at the top.

Scottish Premiership

Pos.	Team	P	W	D	L	GD	Pts
1	Celtic	13	10	3	0	18	33
2	Inverness Caledonian Thistle	13	9	1	3	10	28
3	Motherwell	14	8	1	5	-2	25
4	Dundee United	14	6	5	3	15	23
5	Aberdeen	14	7	2	5	6	23
6	St Johnstone	14	6	3	5	7	21
7	Hibernian	14	4	4	6	-5	16
8	St Mirren	13	4	3	6	-7	15
9	Partick Thistle	14	3	4	7	-12	13
10	Ross County	13	3	2	8	-12	11
11	Kilmarnock	14	2	3	9	-9	9
12	Hearts 14 3 3 8 -9

That hasn’t quite come out right, but Hearts haven’t got any points yet anyway, so it doesn’t matter.

After the game , though, it was a different story.

Demolition work scheduled for the old school on London Road meant that everyone had to do three laps of the ground and catch a couple of buses when leaving the stadium post match, and despite efforts to inform people of this throughout the week, there was still a lot of moanong from fans who complained it had been “sprung on them ” .

It didn’t go to well, and theres always a clue in how the stewards and police are coping when someone is walking round with a megaphone giving instructions-usually conflicting instructions-and the police on duty are drowned out by the excited chatter on their radios.

There were 50,000 at the game on Saturday, there will be 10,000 more their tomorrow, and it might be an idea for the club to start looking at improving things.

Perhaps the Milan fans could be kept in for a while-say a fortnight-and all the gates around the ground opened. Those stairs leading to the old bus park were very crowded on Saturday, and there was a real danger of an accident.

This danger will be compounded tomorrow, as a lot of the support will have had a wee bit more beer than usual. Tempers will be shorter, and patience will be thinner. This needs sorting now, and sorting properly.

Looking ahead to tomorrows game, Celtics disciplinary record has obviously been noticed by the UEFA beaks, who have appointed Cunet Cakir as referee for the game. He is the guy who sent off Nani in a Champions League game between Manchester Utd and Real Madrid, which prompted Alex Ferguson to refuse to do the post match interviews. In his time he has also dismissed John Terry , Steven Gerrard and Gary Cahill from the action, though its encouraging that Mario Balotelli is on that list as well.

He certainly isn’t shy, so lets hope he’s fair. Thankfully, Scott Brown is suspended, so we should finish the game with eleven men.

Celtic will have Anthony Stokes and James Forrest back for the game, but despite this, the real problem is who is going to score the goals needed to keep alive the dream of playing in Europe after Christmas.

Kris Commons scored two opportunist goals on Saturday, but he looked knackered, Samaras is too predictable and no-one else looks like they even know where the goal is.

Any shots either disappear into the sunset or go straight to the keeper. Todays training session should involve aiming the ball at either post from all angles, which gives a fifty fifty chance it will go inside  and count.

Still, we’d all take a dodgy penalty and a 1-0.

Which would mean that both Ajax and Milan would have beaten us on aggregate, and a 1-0 win in Barcelona would actually see us through without beating any of the teams in our group over two games.

Its about time we had one of those little anomalies going in our favour.

CarlJunglebhoys excellent and passionate descriptions of the trial in Amsterdam has set tongues wagging, and may even prompt action over there. He’ll tell you about that when he’s ready, and the man deserves a big round of applause for his work over there, which has put the MSM to shame.

Sundays papers saw a plethora of articles about Celtic, none of which were positive, which shows just how important tomorrow nights game is, and just how embarrassed they are at missing the real story over in the Netherlands.

Away from all that though, one article does merit a mention, from the Herald;

Jimmy Hogan

The forgotten man of football in his own country, revered around central Europe as a visionary.

Hogans advice should be given to our own forwards tomorrow.

” If you’re not sure what to do with the ball, stick it in the net ”

Kenny Dalglish was the young man in Saturdays diary who went on to set  a number of landmarks in the game. Winning the English double as player and manager most notable, but also winning the league as manager with tow different clubs should be given equal recognition.

Speaking of England and its Premiership, could I ask for a round of applause to the genius who thought of calling the SPL the Scottish Premiership ?

In marketing, a distinctive and identifiable brand is essential, so calling it the same thing as a nearby corporate mionster isn’t the best of ideas. But then, it was the SFA, letters which are immediately identifiable as a summation of what those people have done for the game.

Who is this guy, and why wouldn’t he be a favourite with Hibs fans ?