Celtic Diary Saturday January 25

Its not the biggest surprise of the season, but Mo Bangura who has failed to make the grade at Celtic, no mean feat when you consider the other strikers available, has been told he can go. Manager Neil Lennon told the Express;

“It’s reasonable to say that he doesn’t have a future here.

“It just hasn’t worked out for both parties. These things sometimes happen in football.

“We’ve had no enquiries for him yet but his best bet may be Scandinavia again.

“You’re never going to get every signing right. Every manager, even the greats, has made a mistake or two along the way.

“Mo needs to get out and play because it’s going to be restrictive here.

“Can we pay him up? I’d need to speak to Peter Lawwell about that but we’re not really in the habit of doing that.”

But, not to worry, his place on the bench could be allocated to Leigh Griffiths, as Lennon commented when asked ;

“I can’t say that, but he is highly thought of, put it that way.”

With not much happening on the transfer front, despite all the pre window talk, Lennon has opted to blame the system;

“It’s a pain in the neck.

“Next Friday will be bedlam, absolute bedlam. You try to cram everything into a four-week period and everyone is doing the same thing. So it’s really difficult to get deals done. Then in the last couple of days it starts to get easier as clubs are willing to offload players, to cut their wage bill or players want to go.

“The last two days, you get names thrown at you from all angles. I don’t think it’s good for managers.

“The model’s been around for about 10 years now and I don’t think there are too many people who speak highly of it.”

Calum MacGregor has finally penned a new loan deal with Notts County, where he is top scorer and having the time of his life. He’ll be joined in the midlands by Bahrudin Atajic, who is going to Shrewsbury, which has a nice river in the town centre. Stuart Findlay is going to Morton, where he hopes he can develop his career and become the new Virgil van Dijk;

“I’m playing Under-20 football at Celtic at the moment and not really getting an opportunity with the first team yet.

“My agent told me there was interest from Morton, and I thought it would be a great way to boost my development so I jumped at the chance to come here and play for the second half of the season. At Celtic I’d have to be doing exceptionally well, or just be extremely lucky, to break into the team at such an early age, especially with a guy like Virgil van Dijk ahead of you.

“I’m part of the development squad, which is essentially Celtic’s reserves. We occasionally train with the first team and when you see players like Virgil in training you find out just how good he is.

“He’s the player I look up to the most at Celtic just now.

“He’s everything you look for in the modern day centre-back. The way he plays is the way I’d love to play when I reach his age. ”

Perhaps Morton wouldn’t be the first place you’d think of if thats how you want to turn out, but they did knock us out of the League Cup, so standards probably aren’t that different down in the lower leagues.

Lee McCulloch seems to agree with me, as he told the official Rangers website yesterday;

“Having played in the SPL myself before, I don’t think there’s that much of a gap between the top flight and League One,” said McCulloch.

“And I don’t mean that disrespectfully to anyone.”

Presumably he means he is equally out of his depth at both levels, but that doesn’t seem to be the case;

“It’s a very thin line between the teams in the division we are currently in and the Premiership,” he told Rangers’ website.

“You look at Motherwell and they went out to Albion Rovers in the Scottish Cup this season, who weren’t even at home.

“There was another upset at Celtic when Morton beat them at home and that just shows, if you drop one per cent or hold off half a yard, you’ll get punished.

( neither of those two teams mentioned are actually in League One )

“I think a lot of credit has to go to all our boys and the management for handling that. We’ve been really good this season, albeit we’ve not played every game the way we’ve wanted to.

“That happens every season. I just think with the amount of games we’ve won, we’ve done well and we’ve set a standard in the dressing-room. ”

And that standard will not be lowered ! Not even by 15%.

Celtic captain Scott Brown, asked for his opinion , replied;

“I’ve never played in League One, so it’s hard to know. But, I’d be surprised if it is. ”

Neil Lennon got dragged into this pathetic attempt to keep other events at Ibrox out of the news. His reply was similar;

“Whatever league you win, it’s a difficult thing to do because you have to be consistent, and try to be at your best for 38 games in a season.

“Queen of the South won it [the Division One title] last year, quite convincingly, and they’ve struggled this season.

“So there’s obviously a gulf between League One and the Championship.

“Partick Thistle have come up this year, having won the Championship quite well, and I wouldn’t say they’ve had a brilliant season.

“So there is a gulf between League One and the Championship, and there is another gulf between the Championship and the Premiership.”

So, what events at Ibrox are they trying to deflect from ?

Someone has cashed in their shares-around 2 million of them, and by a remarkable coincidence Financial Director Brian Stockbridge has had his contract paid up by mutual consent and is away to join his old pal Charles Green in a competition to see who can laugh loudest and longest at the poor saps who have just handed them millions of pounds. Happily, thats a game we can all play, and over the coming weeks there will be other chances to join in as well.

Stockbridge was one of the original consortium when the leeches first moved in and set up the new club, and he’s the last to leave. His shares will probably end up at the faceless hedge fund and asset stripper Laxey Partnerships, who specialise in selling stadiums and leasing them back.

Well, they might not specialise in it, but they are certain to get a bit of practice soon.

We said a few days ago that the tide of opinion in the press is turning against Ally McCoist, the Second Rangers first manager, and this from Glenn Gibbons, in the Scotsman could be the head shot that starts the uncontrollable bleeding. Which may be a poor metaphor, but a fantastic image.

EVEN the most fervent of Ally McCoist’s apologists might be persuaded to agree that the Rangers manager was the subject this week of the most ironic headline of this 13-year-old century.

“Football Is Keeping Me Sane – Ally” sat above an article that proved to be simply the latest in a seemingly endless series that has consistently reinforced the view that the job at Ibrox has long since disabled his capacity for rational thought.

This most recent rumination on the trials and tribulations of Scotland’s most aberrant football club focused on his worry that off-field shenanigans would interfere with his players’ effectiveness against part-time, semi-pro opponents in Scottish League 1. He opened with the baffling observation that “the boys have been terrific with the way they have gone about theirbusiness. It’s to their eternal credit that they are getting criticised for only winning 1-0 or 2-0. That’s how far they have come”.

But, more strikingly, McCoist’s crediting his players with a sensitivity to Rangers’ reputedly waning financial robustness confounds a truth with which managers and directors have been familiar almost since the introduction of professionalism to Scottish football in 1892.

It is that players basically could not give a hoot how a club is run, who is in charge (from boardroom to manager’s office) or the state of their economic affairs as long as their wages are in the bank on the due date every month. This is an eternal verity of which McCoist himself gained first-hand experience just days before, when his squad delivered a unanimous and unconditional rejection of the very suggestion of accepting a wage cut in order to reduce the crippling expenditure of a business on the slide.

Moreover, the manager adhered to his recently-acquired readiness to undermine and embarrass his own employers in public by declaring that, in rebuffing the overtures of chief executive Graham Wallace, the players had his full support. This followed his actions of just a few weeks earlier, when he handed the voting rights of his substantial tranche of shares in Rangers to a supporters’ club in advance of an annual meeting at which the sitting directors – that is, his own paymasters – faced a potentially troublesome election to remain in power.

Given McCoist’s almost relentless exhibitions of unfathomable outbursts, as a consequence of which he has been almost invariably exposed as guilty of unsound judgment (if not outright mischief-making), it is hardly surprising that he should be the most divisive figure at Ibrox.

His unparalleled success as a striker ensures an imperishable esteem in one area, while his eccentricities since succeeding Walter Smith as manager have raised serious concerns among many of the club’s followers over his suitability for the job. Some of his most ill-advised utterances and actions clearly sprang from an urge to play the populist card, but were so flimsily-based and hastily-executed that they backfired.

His notorious demand for the publication of the names of the members of the SFA judicial panel that reviewed Rangers’ case in the early days of administration and liquidation (“we want to know the names of these people, Rangers fans want to know the names of these people”) became deeply embarrassing when it was revealed that he knew their identities from the start.

His inflammatory language was widely thought to have been a factor when committee members were threatened by agitated Rangers fans. Similarly, when he demanded to know why Rangers had been fined over their financial irregularities, while Hearts and Dunfermline (comparable cases) were not, the SFA sighed and let it be known what McCoist already knew: Rangers were fined because they asked for a financial penalty to avoid the alternative.

But, on legal grounds, McCoist’s most prejudicial reaction to press probing was his denouncement of the torching of the garage that housed Rangers’ new £500,000 luxury coach, his unambiguous implication that the arson had been deliberately carried out by fans of a rival club. It was a speculation that was revealed by police investigators to be utterly without foundation.

McCoist, of course, is not the first football manager to have demonstrated a penchant for idiosyncratic behaviour. Players in the charge of the late Brian Clough, for instance, would testify that he was “daft as a brush”, but knew how to get results.

For anyone attempting to assess McCoist’s capabilities as a manger, however, there is the unavoidable impression of fickleness, a willingness seemingly to indulge in whimsy without a moment’s thought and, probably least promising of all, a consistent failure to apply proper appraisal and consideration to the most momentous issues to come within his scope.

This inability to recognise imperatives and take appropriate steps to accommodate them may prove to be most damaging to himself and his club in the area of manager/board relationships. Innumerable members of McCoist’s profession have discovered (or been advised of) an ancient maxim: the first thing any new manager should do is make the owner, chairman, chief executive or controller of the corporate purse his best friend.

The late Tommy Burns, an extraordinary man in every other way, failed lamentably to heed the counsel, even though his was whispered by none other than that giant of Celtic lore, Billy McNeill. The former captain and manager told Burns on his first day in the job that he should ensure a sound and productive relationship with Fergus McCann.

McNeill recognised that the old dictum was even more important in the case of McCann, since he was one of a new breed of boss, the owner/managing director, a hands-on executive who was looking after his own money. Inevitably, the collision of personalities was irretrievable and there could be only one winner. In such an event at Ibrox, it won’t be Ally McCoist ascending the podium. ”

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With Gibbons, its unlikely to be part of any hidden agenda, he’s just decided that this is the right time to remind everyone of Mccoists persona, and it makes fantastic reading, and although its maybe a little late, its out there now, and may well waken a few people up as to whats really going on.

But, as ever , the sleekit one has his pals, and who better than the first lord of the Radio Clyde intelligentsia Derek Johnstone to defend him. I’ve added a few points of clarification in brackets, largely because i don’t think I’ve ever seen such a ridiculously inaccurate and badly written article in my entire life. ( Apart from one or two of my own, that is )

“THE decision to take Rangers to a four-star hotel to prepare for the SPFL League One game against Forfar hit the headlines this week.
The Ibrox club is, of course, operating at a loss, and chief executive Graham Wallace has embarked on a series of cost-cutting measures.

But I still think Ally McCoist was exactly right to prepare his side for the game at Station Park in the manner that he did.

Remember, this is Rangers Football Club we are talking about here.

( Er, no it isn’t. Rangers Football club is in liquidation. You’d think someone would have told him. )

The players have to prepare for each game they play as professionally as they can. They have done exactly that for the last 141 years.

( Which makes the average age of the players somewhere in the region of 160. )

Unless the chief executive, or somebody high up on the financial side of the business, says not to, then the manager should continue to do that.

( The manager is a major shareholder, so that makes him high up, if not clued up, on the financial side. )

The best preparation for the Rangers players was to go for a meal and then have a rest before heading off to the game. They have done that for years and years.

If Ally had been told Rangers needed to leave Ibrox at 4.30pm on Monday afternoon and go straight to the game at Forfar then he would have done that.

( sure he would. )

Until Ally is told definitively that, because of cutbacks, he cannot do that, then I do not see anything wrong with continuing to prepare in the most professional fashion.

Ally will always try to do what is best for the players. And the club is nothing without the players.

They need to receive the best treatment before a match to perform at their peak.

( Because some of those plumbers, brickies and electricians will be at theirs. )

Anyway, I have no doubt that if it got out that Rangers had headed straight to the Forfar game then they would have been criticised for not preparing properly or for taking the opposition lightly.

Players at Rangers need to win every game they play whether it is home or away. Anything less than victory will result in flak flying in their direction.

They are undefeated in the league this season and their fans are still giving them stick. Their performances recently have not, it must be said, been great.

( hang on, he might actually be in the real world for a minute here )

But they are so far ahead in the league – they moved 20 points ahead of Dunfermline after their 2-0 win the other night – that motivation must be a factor.

I know people will say: “But look at the money they’re getting paid! What do they need motivated for? That should be enough motivation for them!”

But everybody needs extra motivation to perform. Across the other side of the city, Celtic have also not been at their best because they are so far ahead in the league.

( Oh no, he’s gone again. )

They have played well in their last two games and have won both of them comfortably. But in the three games before that they only won 1-0.

Neil Lennon’s side is so far ahead in the SPFL Premiership that it is difficult for them to raise themselves every week, too.

The crowds are also dwindling at Parkhead. The fans know it is a foregone conclusion who will win the league. The players see that as well and it is hard for them to get themselves going. They know if they are beaten it is no big deal. They are still going to win the title by a comfortable margin.

( His editor removed the words “the bastards ” from the end of that line. and told him to go and have a lie down before he continued )

I think the quicker that Rangers can win the league the better. Then the players who have not been featuring in the side will then get a run in the team and the chance to show their manager what there are capable of.

They will be fighting for their futures. Having meaningless games to play at the end of the season will allow Ally to field these guys and help him to make up his mind on them.

( Make up his mind ? He hasn’t got one )

David Templeton is one of the players who needs a run in the team. He has admitted himself his confidence is low. He has been injured and has been out a long time.

But he showed the quality he has with his late goal at Forfar. It was the first time he has shown what he is able to do for quite a while.

( Love that line-showed his quality with a late goal at Forfar- scored when the opposition , who had been at work all day, then straight to the ground , might just have been a little tired )

But David has not been featuring in the team regularly. It is very difficult to make an impression on a game if you are just coming on for the last 10 or 15 minutes.

Against Forfar he cut in from the left, beat a few rival players and unleashed an unstoppable shot into the net. That is what, on his day, he is able to produce.

( As long as the opposition have been at work all day etc…)

He is in exactly the same position as Dean Shiels. If he feels he should be playing regularly then it is up to him to go and speak to the manager and ask him: “Am I in your plans?”

( Like McCoist has plans )

A few players at the club, the likes of Jon Daly, Lee McCulloch and Lee Wallace, for example, are pretty much guaranteed a place in the side every week if they are fully fit. But the vast majority are not.

( and the majority is vast. They have fifty six players on their books, and only one has been released in this window. )

If Templeton feels he should be playing and he is not getting a regular game, then it is up to him to decide what he should do.

( He could sit on his arse and continue drawing his fairly decent wage. The like of which  he would not get elsewhere. )

But the bottom line is that, like a few of his team- mates, he has got two years left on his contract and is on good money. No other club in Scotland will match it apart from Celtic.

( Er, I don’t think that Celtic would match it either, and the implication is there that Templeton would get a game for Celtic. Which is unlikely. )

He may well decide that he needs to be playing football every week if he continues not to feature. Everybody reacts differently. Some players go in the huff. Some will ask to leave.

But I think the manager would like to see David continue to take his chance, like he did the other night, and show him that he deserves to be starting matches.

( I don’t think the manager gives a toss. He’s just waiting until its his turn to cash in his shares and disappear over the horizon. )

Derek Johnstone is on the radio most nights, despite howls of protest from advertisers.

But, back with the big league, and Celtic travel through to Edinburgh tomorrow to face Terry Hibernians Butchers , which is not a misprint.

Butcher has already said that his team will fight us on the beaches, in the car parks and in that wee alley by the train station, so tomorrows game could be a cracker.

Passion is essential in football, and if the Butcher fires up his players, then the visitors may have a game on their hands.

Which actually means I’m looking forward to this one.

Celtic haven’t conceded a goal in nine consecutive domestic games, and theres no reason to see that run ending tomorrow. Hibs are not noted for being a free scoring side, and have only scored 21 goals in their 23 games to date in the league.

Interestingly, they have conceded just twenty three, and have already taken points from Celtic this season at Easter Road, with a 1-1 draw.

Statistics point to a Celtic win, maybe just 1-0, with Kris Commons scoring in the opening ten minutes. I’d also put a few quid on a high bookings or sending off count.

You can thank me later.

Or hunt me down when it finishes 5-0 after another Tynecastle like performance. With Efe Ambrose scoring a hat trick and Fraser Forster with two late headers.

John Glass was the man in yesterdays picture. As Andy ut it in the comments section, Brother Walfrid may have had the vision, but Glass put it all together.

Today, this guy was a legend for a while, when he performed beyond the call of duty when the chips were down. Who is he ?