Celtic will get to train on the pitch ahead of tomorrows crucial second leg qualifier against Qarabag.
There have been all sorts of stories coming out of the east concerning health and safety, or just gamesmanship from the Azeri club, but the reality, as confirmed by assistant boss John Collins, is simple. The game will go ahead, and the pitch will be poor.
“At this level you expect the pitch to be of a good standard but if it isn’t we’ll just have to adapt our play I don’t think the game is going to be in doubt but the pitch doesn’t look to be in such a good state.
“I have never heard of a game being put off or cancelled because a pitch is bumpy so it’s highly unlikely.
“The pitch is the same for both teams and if it is bumpy then we might have to be a bit more direct. We have to adapt.”
Ach, lets face it, the passing of late has been dreadful even on good surfaces, so we’re probably as well just hoofing ti up to ciftci. well, maybe not Ciftci, but you get the point.
UEFAs match delegate decided the pitch was playable before the Celts flew out yesterday, as the rules stipulate, and so therefore it will take place. It’s that simple, and hard to see what all the fuss is about.
The doubts came from, and grew with word from a “source 2 who told the Daily Record;
“Obviously the situation is far from ideal but a decision has been made today that the match will go ahead as planned. The surface is not in a good condition at all but unless it gets worse between now and Wednesday night it will be playable and there will be no issue with safety.
“UEFA are coordinating things in Baku but as a result of the problems, both teams will be asked to train at different venues on the night before the game.
“Obviously if Celtic are unhappy about this then there may be more discussions. They could still be given the chance to come to the stadium and to look at the pitch, to see it for themselves, but the feeling is they should not be allowed to train on it.”
Manager Deila accepts Celtic may not be able to play his usual way;
“We will have to adjust the tactics according to the pitch.
“In the Champions League you expect quality pitches but we just have to deal with it. We will check it when we get there and maybe have to modify the tactics. We want to play total football but we need to use our brains as well.
“You have to be very careful on a bumpy pitch. You don’t want to be passing it around. It will be stupid to ask the players to play passes in their own half on such a bumpy surface.
“But it’s the same for both teams. It will affect them because they are a football team which we saw in the first game at Parkhead.”
It’s just like the old days really, when Celtic would fly behind the iron curtain and have to play army teams on red ash pitches and try to get the game finished before it went dark. ( are you sure sure -Ed ? )
Deila seemed happy enough when he got there, but thats because he’d left some contraband in someone elses bag during the flight for a laugh and couldn’t wait to see what happened as they arrived in Baku.
Qarabag have said that they will carry out a bit of work on the surface before the game, to try to bring it up to scratch, and have hired a couple of expert horticulturists looking at the problem;
There may have been a clue in how Celtic will approach the game in Nir bitons terse reply to a hack who warned him that supporters won’t allow the pitch to be used as an excuse for defeat, in that time honoured way that Scottish hacks get behind the hoops in Europe.
We won’t accept that either. There are no excuses for us. We just need to go through, and to do that we need to play our game.
“We will be playing in the same conditions as Qarabag. The most important thing for us is that we keep the clean sheet that we need to go through. If we play as a team defensively, then we can do that. It’s about working hard as a team, and if we do not lose a goal, everything will be good.”
And the heat ?
“I used to play in this heat. It’s been two years now that I have been in Scotland, so that experience is all gone!
“No, it doesn’t matter how much you are used to playing in temperatures like this, it’s difficult when it’s 35 degrees – especially for the Scottish guys! The foreigners will find it tough also – it will be difficult for me – but, like I say, there are no excuses.
“The weather and the pitch condition doesn’t matter. We just need to do our best and play in the way the gaffer wants us to play.”
Will Celtic be adopting the park the bus method ? Biton is right, keep a clean sheet and Celtic go through.
hopefully not, because that’s not going to work. An hour and a half of sitting deep will not keep the Azeri’s out. Especially on a bumpy pitch. Celtic will have to score at least one tomorrow, and possibly more.
Hopefully Celts will be working on set pieces, especially with the news that Charlie mulgrew hasn’t made the trip. We will need someone to tee the ball up for Boyata and van dijk, who will be our main threat up front, because Ciftci hasn’t settled yet, and appears to be delegated to bring others into the game as opposed to scoring himself.
One thing that does offer env=couragement is the fact that Celtic will be going into the game with more or less a full strength squad. There have been no strains or knocks of note picked up pre season, with the exception of perhaps Mulgrew, and this is down to the changes Deila made to the way players are looked after at Celtic Park;
“Everything we do with treatment and planning is to avoid stupid injuries. Charlie is maybe the first one where we’ve had an over-use injury last season. It makes it harder for me if it is (going to be) like last year.
“We didn’t talk of this last season because everyone had to play, as we had five or six players out all of the time. Now we have zero. It made it harder for me. The level in training better and everybody is getting better when they can train consistently.
“We have added people to the medical and physical side. We have also changed the way we train and prepare to train, how we have treatment and everything else. It has totally changed from last year.
“We had a lot of improvement to do there because we had way too many injuries – pulled muscles and things like that. The numbers now speak for themselves. Players are in the right way and doing the right things.”
“If you lose your best players to injuries, that can be the difference between success and failure,” he said. “If we had Scott Brown available last season, maybe it would have been a different story for us in the Champions League.
“It is something we have done over the season. It is about getting in knowledge, about developing everybody in the right way, so everyone is thinking in the right way and the same way. It is about good planning and good treatment, to always get people ready for training and matches.”
Education and development is important, and as long as they are in the right proportions, the players cannot fail to benefit;
There’s no doubt that has made a difference, although I keep hearing the words Mikael and Lustig as a warning that maybe theres still work to be done.
The Swede, arguably Celtics best defender when fit, hasn’t really got going this season yet, and looks to be in pain at times. Hopefully, he’s getting better with every game, but the fact he’s playing when not completely fit is a worry, and it flies in the face of everything Deila is saying.
It wouldn’t be a big European game if the papers weren’t selling our key players, and one paper claims that Southampton are keen to land Virgil van Dijk before the English season starts, whenever that is.
And they are prepared to, or have already , put either £7m or £8m on the table for him. ;
Express Sport can reveal the English Premier League club have now opened the bidding for the Dutch defender.
The offer was made before Van Dijk and his team-mates flew out to Qarabag for the second leg of their Champions League qualifier.
Southampton were prepared to let Celtic get the tie out of the way but would want a deal done before their league opener with Newcastle this weekend.
How many times ?
As long as Celtic are in the Champions League, he isn’t going anywhere, and there is no desire to go to a mid table English side when he does eventually go.
And not for that sort of money either.
Craig Gordon provided a little light relief at the airport yesterday, when he saw the Scottish National Orchestra were around;
Yet when I do that, it’s a night in the cells and the clip above is called “evidence “.
Celtic have been criticised for not doing enough to make supporters want to attend the games, but there have been moves by the board to implement a couple of things that will encourage supporters not to leave early, which i suppose is a step in the right direction;
Jimmy Johnstone was giving his opinion of the press after a Scotland England game back in the day, and this came after his high jinks on the clyde where he forgot to make sure there were oars in the boat before he set off on his trip doon the watter.
One of footballs great mysteries , to me, at least, is why when scotland were needing to beat Yugoslavia in the final group game of the 74 world cup finals, why johnstone was on the bench.
His reputation in Yugoslavia, on the back of one or two club performances, notably the “I don’t have to fly ” romp against Red Star Belgrade , was fearsome, and just the sight of him on the pitch, or even warming up would have terrified them.
Oh well.
Whats going on here ?
Alright, the caption tells us where, but why ?
So the three bears have become two, only to be expected, farewell Douglas Park, whose next?
Big Jock telling the support to calm the naughty songs?
Big Jock went into the crowd to tell supporters to stop acting like huns and behave like true Celtic supporters HH
JOck Stein in the stand singing The Broad Black Brimmer of the IRA with the rest of the Celtic support, while the prawn sandwich munchers near choke on their half time
….Bovril.
Hmmn. Was he doing research for an article in Hairdresser’s Weekly on typical hairstyles of the Early 70’s?
CJB, can you stand in for Ralph when he is on his hols as your comments / observations always make me LOL!!!
‘Listen up Bhoys, I’ve got 2 extra tickets here for the bay city rollers concert, who wants them?’
Diverting attention from the Huns, as they’d just signed someone and thought they’d have all the headlines to themselves.
A great man who had seen bigotry and its evils from m the other side and did not want this cancer to invade the club he loved.
Is it the Q for the Barbers?
Ralph
Many thanks for calming my nerves with that confidence building report. I thought butterflies in the stomach days before a game were a long gone emotion but today they are reeking havoc with my intestines. It is hellish when you feel you should or could but do not have the complete confidence you will. So, once gain, TA!!
Yes, the now infamous attempt by Big Jock to get our fans to realise that Celtic’s Irish roots had nothing to do with any armies or terrorists and that singing about them is not in our ethos. Once more, though, it provided a bigoted media with evidence that one is as bad as the other rather than a manager highlighting in a pretty dramatic way, his and the club’s feelings on the matter.
H H
Great Diary as usual. Just a wee observation: there were oars in the boat wee Jinky was in on the Firth of Clyde. The problem was that the boat had no oarlocks…
They are training in 1 hour same time as kick of tomorrow. Just been told that it’s 40 degrees. An that they have been told that the pitch is just sand. Should hopefully be sent a pic before they start training so I will upload it if it comes
I don’t care if the ball becomes an icicle tomorrow as long as we do not lose a stupid goal or the officials try to get involved with some dodgy decision making.
pensionerbhoy….relax, we’ll score at least 1 goal….my prediction is still 4-0 for Celtic..how’s that for confidence?
Everybody keeps talking about how comfortable and tidy Qarabag were on the ball, and that is true…but what did they create with all that tidy play? Zilch! And remember it suited them to pass it around since the onus was on us to attack on our home ground. Now the boot’s on the other foot, they must come forward looking to score and we can exploit the spaces that were not there in the first match. I honestly don’t see them stopping us from scoring.
As for the second paragraph of your post..100% spot on. H.H.
Ah yes, big Jock’s ill judged Brian Clough like attempt to calm the lads down. Allowed the Scottish media a field day of muck raking over Celtic’s Irish roots and many supporters sympathies for civil rights in the six counties – 72 was a tough year to live in Derry or Belfast on the pointy end of the RUC or British Army not to mention the rest of the population.
P.S. Cometh the hour, cometh the man…Ciftci to score!!!
I WAS AT THAT GAME AND STILL REMEMBER SEEING A MAN KNOCKED DOWN BY A BUS OUTSIDE THE STADIUM.
Ha,Ha,Ha,Ha,Ha !
“Qarabag have said that they will carry out a bit of work on the surface before the game, to try to bring it up to scratch, and have hired a couple of expert horticulturists looking at the problem;”
That above the pic of the two most expensive ‘gardeners’ in Glasgow.
Absolutely brilliant !
Was the ‘education’ poster borrowed from them too or from the Big Jock Wallace school of football maybe ?
Keep it up, please !
Can’t wait for tomorrow night.
COYBIG
Burnt grass and sand. No pics though I’m afraid. And close to 40 degrees in the stadium. Tomorrow night will be the hardest game we play qualifying
Jock went into the crowd on a terracing behind a goal at Annfield, Stirling. I was at the match with my old man and would just be off picture in that photo.
…am sure that’s ma brother in the back ground wi the speck;. Glaikit enuff.
MON THE HOOPS.
Clean sheet. Boom.
I’m still nervous. I know how crap refereeing can play a part in away results. We need to keep 11 on the pitch and be canny. I think we can grab a goal or two. An early goal from us would be ideal. Overall? 2-2 aggregate we go through.