Celtic Diary Friday July 1: Rodgers Out!

Thats’s “Rodgers Out “, before any of the players go drinking and forget to put things away after they’ve been to the toilet.

Celtic shook away the summer slumbers with a 2-2 draw against Celje in slovenia last night, and the word on the street is the new manager he has until the end of the tour to sort things out.

That saves the media saying it, I suppose.

The game was what it was. A pre season amble and a chance for Rodgers to say it was only a friendly.

Perhaps the sense of disappointment comes as a reaction to the sense of anticipation pre match.

I missed it due to traffic on the M6, but got a text around about half time saying “Rodgers Out”, which was a little surprising, but I managed to calm down the sender, and he sent me a selfie in reply..

This after his somewhat ludicrous attempt to show he’s still capable of picking out a good player before anyone else as well. tut tut.

That picture, of course, is a fake. It’s not him at all. Its someone else.

As we know, Peter often uses a double to offer the perception of omnipresence.

Nadir Ciftci managed two goals last night-his first and his last-for the new manager, with Tom Rogic getting the other.

First and last. Tee hee. And thats no matter how many more games he plays.

Its not for me to comment on the game, as I didn’t see it, so we’ll leave that to others..

Manager Brendan Rodgers..

“It was really nice to see the boys pulling on the kit for the first time,

.…getting back in the changing room and on to the pitch. 

“As a manager you look to see that relationship you’ve worked on in training in a game.

“We need to develop our football fitness but there was some positives with the young players who came in. They showed they have the nerve to play.

“Yeah I thought it was excellent. We are obviously just a week or so into it, so to get the game this early doesn’t normally happen. But I thought our application was very good.

“Second half was better than the first because it was a quicker game. We pressed much better and showed a good mentality even though it’s a pre season game.”  

Hang on, who writes this stuff ?

Rodgers continued the Deila soundalike with his assessment of Nadir Ciftci’s contribution…

“I thought he was excellent. He has worked very hard in training and has taken on board that the striker needs to be able to press and work how we want him to play.

“We saw that, he was pressing the centre-half and the goalkeeper. He got in a good position to score. He held the ball up really well, so I thought he was excellent.

“I need to assess him. I’ve seen a lot of players for the first time but I had seen him as a young player.

“I remember him at Portsmouth when he was really young against my son who was at Chelsea, and he was a talent then.

“He was mobile, if we can get that mobility back into his game he’s got a good idea for football. He has talent.

“He’s worked very hard and it’s good for him to get the goal.”

I think maybe I’ll look for someone elses opinion on the game.

Anyone elses , in fact.

It appears Kristoffer Ajer started the game -at centre half, showing that Rodgers has the English mentality of playing the big guy at the back no matter what else he can do.

If its the case that we had no one else who could play there, then we will have a real problem on our hands in a fortnights time, when the qualifiers begin..

Come to think of it, even if we sign someone ahead of the game, we’ll still have a real problem.

Remember Gordon Strachans comments in his book about the fullback who had never met his team mates before the game ? That ended well-for Artmedia Bratislava.

Playing Ajer at centre half made no sense. There must be a youngster that can play there, if the rest are injured/out of contract/shite.

An hour and a half of football and i have my doubts already, not based on the peformance-I didn’t see it-but on the selection.

In the interests of balance, lets have a look at the official websites match report…

CELTIC manager Brendan Rodgers has praised his side’s mentality after they came back from two goals down to draw 2-2 in their opening pre-season match.

The Scottish champions kicked-off their run of games in Slovenia tonight (Thursday) at the Arena Petrol against NK Celje and went a goal behind shortly before the half-hour mark when the home team’s captain, Danijel Miskic, converted with a first-time shot from a low corner.

The Celje skipper then made it 2-0 with a sublime free-kick after the break but after shuffling the pack entirely at half-time, Celtic eventually found the net 10 minutes into the second-half through Nadir Ciftci.

The Hoops striker did well to spark the fight back with his well-placed header from Stuart Armstrong’s cross before an exquisite piece of skill and an equally impressive finish from Tom Rogic drew the Celts level.

As the clock ticked down the Bhoys remained in the ascendancy but Celje held on for the draw and afterwards the Celtic manager praised his team’s resilience for battling back into the game.

“It was an excellent work out for us,” said the Celtic boss after taking charge of his team in match action for the first time. “The overall agenda of the game was to develop our fitness, and there certainly was that, so I’m very pleased.

“In the second-half the game was much quicker but we’re only just over a week into pre-season and normally the games don’t come so early but I was very pleased with the overall attitude.

“Even though it’s only a friendly and the result isn’t the most important, when you’re 2-0 down it’s still good to show that mentality to come back.”

The match was the first opportunity for the manager to truly put his players under the microscope and he took full advantage, fielding two separate teams in each half.

The side which started the game more closely resembled last season’s league title-winning squad but it was in the second-half that the Bhoys prevailed and worked their way back into the game with a young defence and Ciftci leading the attack.

The Turkish striker spent a year on loan in his homeland but made a positive impact on his return to action for Celtic and the manager praised him for his overall play.

“I’ve only joined the club and this is only my second week with the players so a lot of them I haven’t seen play before,” he explained. “I know a lot of the players and have seen some videos but until you get them under your eye first hand and see them in a game situation then you can judge better then.

“It was a good game for our fitness, they were a good side, bright, lively on the ball, but I thought in the second-half we were excellent.

“I thought he (Ciftci) was excellent. I thought he held the ball up really well, he pressed the ball and we ask our strikers to have that ability to press the game and the goalkeeper and I thought he was very good.

“His hold up play was excellent, he brought others in and obviously it was good positioning to score his goal so I thought he was very good.”

Oh bloody fuck.

He’s still on about Ciftci.

Are there forces at work here, in the current climate of political shennanigans, telling him all the wrongs things to say, with a view to getting him sacked ?

This could all go tits before the kids are back at school..

I think I’ll get my new match day t shirt out

With the Champions League about to start, there is a need for familiarity among the players, a sense of spirit to carry the body, which is not quite ready for the high intensity of these games, and the mind, which will will have to be equally sharp, through the crucial weeks ahead.

So its good to know that at least one thing is familiar….

Celtic midfielder Scott Brown trained on his own yesterday.

Brown has picked up a knock, and although his injury problem is not expected to be severe, the Bhoys did not want to task any risks with their captain.

Brown missed much of the back end of last campaign after picking up an injury, and Brendan Rodgers wants the Scotland international to be fully fit for the start of next campaign. 

Brown was, therefore, forced to train on his own yesterday – as Celtic’s coaches put him through his paces. 

Thats fom the Daily Mail, so there might be nothing in it, but -and perhaps if i’d seen the game i wouldn’t be so worried-theres a few alarm bells ringing and a few butterflies fluttering.

Mind you, thats how its supposed to be, isn’t it ?

The Europa league qualifiers began last night, with Hearts and Aberdeen in action. they both won, and so the co-efficient is alright, but their rustiness was evident as bith sides struggled initially-at least according to twitter updates.

In fact, Aberdeen were level until the 93rd minute, before scoring twice in injury time. The unusually long period of added on time helped, as it seemed bith clubs got stronger as the games went on, and Celtic’s management needs to take note of this, and adapt. Maybe play a friendly in the afternoon or something.

There now follows a short musical interlude, while  go for a fag….

Lisbon Lion posted this on twitter, and despite having a number of cds with old tunes on it, I’ve never heard this one. How does it go ?

Speaking of twitter, I spotted an important survey on there you might like to enter…

Right, it’s Friday, and that means its time for

Knob Of The Week  

sometimes you don’t need to do a lot, or say a lot to win the most prestigious award on the web, and this week just three words, presumably uttered when his guard was down, or his mind elsewhere, have helped secure a first, and hopefully last victory for one man…

 “Nadir was excellent. ”  

I say helped because , again in the face of highly credible opposition, it wasn;t quite enough to win, but he compounded it earlier in the week by wearing this..

Congratulations Brendan Rodgers, who becomes the first manager of Celtic to be the Etims Knob Of The Week  . 

Caption competition now, and yesterdays picture, drew several chuckle raising responses.. but a clear winner again