Celtic Diary Wednesday December 30: Win Just One For The Gipper

Celtic are in action tonight, and the build up to the live game is becoming intense….over to the official dundee website for a clue as to why no-one bothers with the match day experience any more…

Dundee welcome league leaders Celtic to Dens this evening infront of the BT Sport cameras, kick off 7.45pm.

The match is the second meeting between the sides this season and the first trip to Dens for Celtic.

They come into the match on the back of a defeat to Motherwell at Celtic Park and a draw with Hearts last weekend while Dundee beat Hamilton in our last outing at home but fell to defeat to Ross County last week. Both teams will be keen to put their most recent results right in this meeting.

Subscribers can watch manager Paul Hartley and James McPake preview the match on DEETV now.

MATCH DETAILS
Dundee v Celtic
Ladbrokes Premiership
Dens Park, Dundee
Wednesday December 30th 2015
Kick off 7.45pm 

Maybe the guy who does our PR learned his trade at Dens Park.

Ronny Deiula has a few injury worries ahead of the game, but he will probably be pleased to know that Kris commons is fit and ready for action. Probably. Others, such as Leigh Griffiths, Stuart Armstrong, Scott Brown, Charlie Mulgrew Mikael lustig and Efe Ambrose are struggling as well. Brown and Mulgrew maybe a little more than others, as both now appear unlikely to feature again this season.

Well, oif the manager doesn’t have the balls to field the next generation, then he’s at least got an excuse.

Calum MacGregor and Keiran Tierney have taken advantage of this, and if fit Efe ambrose should be able to prove he’s worth another run. But one or two, Tom rogic and Gary Mackay Steven , for instance, have a bit more work to do to convince some of us they have that extra mile.

Nir Biton is also coming under the microscope. Aye, he’s very good, aye, he can put the ball in the net, but there are oil tankers on the forth that are quicker than he is. He’s either not thinking quickly enough, or not moving quickly enough, but maybe a hot cup of sweet tea before the game might sharpen him up a bit.

And maybe its time to recall Darnell Fisher, who had he not gone out on loan might well have forced his way into the team by now.

It looks like it will be Gordon, Lustig, Ambrose , Simunovic, Izaguirre, Biton, Johansen, Rogic, Commons, MacGregor and Ciftci.

Not exactly inspiring, but it should be capable of scoring the three goals minimum it takes to win a game these days. Although that might not be needed tonight as the defence did look a little better against Hearts, although the scoreline might not suggest it.

Tonight sees Celtic attempt a their first win in three games, a situation almost unheard of for anyone under twenty five, and yet the general feeling is that we are getting better.

The injuries don’t seem to have disheartened the manager;

“The players who are out, there are two of three of them, are experienced players. But that’s football and I think the players showed on Sunday that we can do it without them as well.”

The manager gave the support a further boost when he announced that there will be money available to spend in January, but if I was him I’d maybe shop at a few different outlets, and not listen to anyone who has been recommending anyone to him so far.

 “It’s a tough window because nobody wants to lose their players when they are in the middle of the season.

“It’s always tougher but we did some good transfers last January and hopefully we can do it now as well.

“You have to get signings who can do better and hopefully get us into Champions League qualification. 

“You have to think long term but also short-term.

“Injuries will of course affect the January window but hopefully it’s not anything big.

“But whatever happens we need to strengthen in January and we will work hard on that.”  

He hasn’t said a thing there, has he ?

But he may have said a wee bit more than he intended to here…about his plans this window, and maybe the next one as well..

“I expect that all the young players will get better. If you see the team today there was only one player who played before my time, Mikael Lustig, the rest are players who came in under me or were on the bench or not in the squad.

“And it’s a young team. I know that you have to suffer a little bit when you play young teams but I know in the end they will affect the club and me and it will be fun.

“But in the beginning with young teams you need to suffer because they are a little bit up and down. 

Perhaps we will see a few more leaving than we possibly expected next month.

If Ronny has, as some claim, lost the dressing room, or even encountered dissent among some of the experienced pro’s, then if he wants to stay in the job, then the next few weeks are where he must stamp his mark on the club.

As for bringing players in, a figure of £2m has been quoted in some sources, which is clearly nonsense, as its never been club policy to announce what money is available any more than it has been to say who we are after.

Although there are many, many rumours of deals done, deals nearly done and deals about to be done, reallistically the only player I’d be fairly confident of joining Celtic is Martin Odegaard.

And believe me, that will be a coup.

Ronny is on record as saying he “should have come here” and maybe now the Norwegian playmaker will finally listen to his old mentor.

Aside from that, though, there is a need to identify weaknesses and deal with them now. If the rebuild is to continue, or some might argue, start, then strengthening has to be done.

Trouble is, telling agents what we want and then sorting out the best of them from a series of video clips isn’t the way to do it,and that may be why we’ve landed so many donkeys of late.

Lets go back to the old fashioned way of watching someone play, in all weathers, and note how he reacts to all circumstances during the game. Get a couple or three opinions.

And none of them from agents. He might leave out words such as “injury prone ” and “fucking useless ” in his written assessment.

I had a crack at that once, watching Crewe v Port Vale, many many years ago. A Vale scout asked me to watch number six for Crewe, but also note if anyone else caught the eye.

No-one did, which could have seriously altered the career path of a young David Platt. but then again, I lost concentration when I realised by the time the game finished I’d be limiting my beer intake quite severely for the evening, which brought me out in a rash.

Tonights game is live on BT Sport, and although there are concerns about the weather, it should go ahead, as the rain is scheduled to stop around threeish this afternoon, though  the wind should stay a bit urgent until about April.

Elsewhere, the party tunes ( Keith Jacksons description, not mine. I certainly don’t go to many parties where they sing about wading through my blood, ) sung at Ibrox have made some of the papers, though not all, well, not many , come to think of it, so it appears matters have been taken into our own hands.

As it stands today, the authorities  are awaiting the report from their delgate, as to whether or not he reports it.

Then they will footer about for a bit deciding how to interpret the report, before finally appointing a commission to look into it.

In the meantime, sponsors will be looking on with interest, if not to withdraw their money, but certainly with an eye to renegotiating.

Unless something is done quickly, and there cannot be any shirking of tough decisions, then the old Rangers, through the medium of its new entity, will have succeeded in taking the rest of us down with them.

As far as I can see, the way to deal with it is simple.

Arrest a couple of hundred of the choir, who can be identified via cctv, and located through their season book numbers. fine them and warn that the procedure will be repeated every time the songs are sung. with different seat numbers each time, of course, which will lead to self policing.

The onus is on the club to do something about it, as McCann did with his bhoys against bigotry campaign, and this will most likely be how the authorities respond. By shifting the responsibility to the club, who will then blame the company.

Meanwhile, there was advice from a St. Mirren fan which was probably the most revealing oif all, and whilst Celtic supporters often claim to be whiter than white, its worth noting how others see us…

With all eyes and ears likely to be attuned towards Dens Park tonight, maybe it would be an idea if everyone sung hymns, which would certainly confuse the godless.

Or we could just leave the Irish folk tunes to one side, and keep them for the bus.

Like most of us do.

Perhaps the story most likely to raise a few eyebrows broke today as well.

El Hadji Doiuf, once of Liverpool and then Rangers, and now obscurity, told French magazine So Foot.

 “I didn’t know Neil Lennon but saw his face and have always hated him. He was at Celtic and I was at Rangers and the two clubs were at war with each other. He is a d***head and I’ve never liked him.” 

At the end of the Liverpool-Celtic game in the UEFA Cup he asked me for my shirt but I never gave it to him. I would still not give him it today. 

to be fair, it was during the great toilet tissue shortage of that year, and Lennon would only be making sure his, er, ass was covered.

God only knows what Diouf  thinks of Scott Brown…

Any excuse, really. any excuse to pput that picture up.

Still, if Diouf thinks Lennon is a dickhead, its hard to argue with the opinion  of an expert in such behaviour.

Rememebr that controversy around the miss universe contest last week, when the results were read out wrong ?

Well, apparently a lass from Kinning Park way is asking for the selection procedures to be reviewed, as she feels she was overlooked unfairly.

Todays question concerns a picture I came across -I assure you thats not the case with the one above-earlier this week. Its not Celtic related, but it is football related.

Who is this guy singing on a cruise ship, before he entered the world of sport , where he helped to bankroll one of the finest teams of the eighties and nineties ?