One of the Glasgow radio stations, named after the river that flows through the city, asked listeners the other day if Celtic were in a slump. Or something like that. It’s what they do to stir up debate and claw back some of the listeners they have lost.

Celtic fans, myself included, can’t help themselves, and so they returned to their tried and trusted method with this latest vomit of nonsense.

The slump, as they referred to it, continued last night as a wiser Partick than the previous meeting had a go at Celtic and as a result, kept a nervous crowd nervous until the 1-0 win was secured. Scott Sinclair, returning from the assassination attempt on him by the Catalan TippyTappers swept in the only goal of the game, and although it was the only goal, and there was still over an hour to play, it was worth three points, as opposed to some goals this season which haven’t even merited a point on their own.

After returning to play his part in the  12th straight win for the team, the goalscorer said;

 “It felt longer than three weeks with the run of games we’ve had and the amount of games I’ve missed but it’s always nice to come back and get amongst the goals as well, so it’s great and hopefully I can keep building game by game again.” 

“It was heart-breaking because I haven’t been in a cup final for so long. The last one was five or six years ago when I got promoted with Swansea and that was just promotion, it wasn’t really silverware, so hopefully now I can look forward. We want to win as much silverware as we can.

“I still felt more involved because I played in all the games leading up to it and it didn’t feel as bad as it would had I only played a few. On the other hand, it’s great that we got the cup.”

It’s hard not to feel a little sorry for the guy, being stuck at home when he could be out there working.

He continued…

“It was a little bit of a grind ( He means against Thistle, not his spell at home with the wife )and we didn’t really play as well as we normally do,” he said, “but we just go away and look at the positives and negatives and then go ahead game by game.

“It’s always going to be there. If we can keep playing the way we’ve been playing then hopefully we can keep going with what we’re doing and that’s winning games.” 

There was a debut for young Calvin Miller, who although a striker, came in at left back, and in doing so played well enough to prompt his manager to compare him with an England international, Ryan Bertrand, whoever he is.

: “I was delighted for a young player who has just moved position. I thought he did very well and he wants to learn and develop.

“I did a similar thing with Ryan Bertrand when I was at Chelsea. We took him in from Gillingham to Chelsea and he came in as a left-winger and in the same team was Scott Sinclair, who was a striker.

“I moved Scotty wide and put Ryan to left-back and he went on to play with England and won the Champions League with Chelsea and is now at Southampton and he’s an outstanding player.

“I see similar sort of traits in Calvin, where he can do that one position behind but he’s only 18 so he needs time to learn that position and role but he’s got some outstanding qualities and can offer the club something going forward.”

Shame he couldn’t see something in Dorus de Vries that would turn him into a goalkeeper.

All in all, its another three points in the bag for Celtic, and the relentless surge toward the title continues. It may not have been the most impressive performance of the season, or even the week, but it showed that players such as Miller, Henderson and MacGregor can come in and do a job when needed. Even Christian Gamboa semed to look a little more settled, and if I was an opposition manager, i’d frankly just take a big white towel with me to face Celtic, and hope it injured someone when I chucked it at them.

No doubt some in the media will see this single goal victory as a sign of this slump, but thats to be expected with a game against their favourites looming. After all, Scottish football needs a competitive “rangers ” to survive, and by saying that Celtic are doing badly, and their blue shirted boys are on the up, it might generate some interest amongst neutrals, when in fact there will remain very little.

Viewing figures suggest that the game doesn’t hold as much appeal as the one it replaced, and you can;t blame a desperate media for attempting to prove themselves right with their stubborn refusal to actually examine the facts.

One newspaper even offered two tickets to the Old Firm game as a prize in one of their competitions, and for any of you thinking of entering, should you in fact win, you can borrow this to get to the game in.

Another paper “understands ” that Robert Snodgrass won’t be given the chance to play out his childhood dream in the hoops, as although manager Brendan Rodgers has been alerted to the fact the player is ready to take a pay cut, he won’t be offered a contract.

Given the high level of accuracy in the Scottish MSM, we can confidently predict he’ll be house hunting in Bothwell well before the clocks go forward.

Despite what their “source ” says-and we believe their source is entirely free of the aroma of urine, so he can’t possibly be any good.

 “Snoddy has never hidden his desire to play for Celtic and he would have taken a massive cut in wages to make it happen but if he’s not wanted then there’s nothing much more he can do about it. The dream was to end his career playing for Celtic and winning trophies with them. But the word is that Brendan Rodgers simply is not interested so that is that.

“As much as Snoddy is a Celtic fan at least he knows now that the option of playing for the club is not going to be on the table. He can plan his future accordingly.”

Notice the player is referred to as “Snoddy”, to indicate the source knows the player quite well. Truth is, they chose this nickname instead of “Grassy ” because then we’d all have thought we were signing Lee Wallace, which in turn would have led to a few “rangers ” supporters jumping onto spiky railings again.

And probably a few tims as well, come to think of it.

Middlesborough are apparently desperate to offload Jordan Rhodes, which some think makes him a cert for Celtic and regular football, but as with Calvin miller, unless Rodgers sees him as a goalkeeper or something, there won’t be a move for him until Moussa Dembele leaves, though with the Frenchman now playing as though he’s had one of those phone calls from his agent telling him not to hurt himself and start looking for a new car, I wouldn’t write the idea off just yet.

Elsewhere, one of the iconic features of Scottish football has returned, casting suspicion that another icon hasn’t gone away, with this news…

Mark Warburton jets out to meet Jota as Rangers step up bid to land Spanish playmaker

The fabled Jet is back in business, presumably already swooping down on its target.

I misunderstood the headline, thinking the Chapeau’d chap had been flown out to Spain to collect his jotters, which would have explained why they are always skint.

Though there could be good news for Warbsy though, as the England under 21 job is up for grabs, and Level %, the official news agency of Glasgow, claims he’s on the short list, just behind Mike Bassett , England manager,

and slightly ahead of Mike Batt, who wrote the Wombles songs.

The demand for Celtic and “rangers ” to include their under 20 sides in the senior league set up continued yesterday, and both clubs could agree to it as it means they won’t have to play the Motherwell under 20’s, who demolished their Aberdeen counterparts 9-1, and proved that it should be ability that counts, and not financial muscle.

Or, in the case of “rangers ” , financial desperation.

The article mentioned in yesterdays diary about the quest for the deadliest striker at ibrox was put into perspective when League sponsors Ladbrokes updated their goalscorers chart..

Only one of the four musketeers got a place, and he’s scored less in the league than any others on the chart.

Another wee goalscoring related fact is that if you add up all the positive goal differences in the league, together they amount to less than the goal difference of Celtic.

How good would we be if we had four strikers of that calibre instead of the ones we’ve got ?

Not very.

Two more wins before the long awaited Ibrox clash would put us on 55 points, and I wonder if those chaps at the Green Bigade could come up with some sort of banner to reflect that…I’ve seen a quite catchy logo somewhere, but it seems to have disappeared of late.

Ah well, soon be Christmas,and I’ve a works do tonight, complete with food and a free bar, but its important not to  forget those less fortunate than ourselves at this time of peace and goodwill.

The battle for Christmas number one in the Hit Parade is underway, with Celtic fans backing “Grace “, the heartbreaking ballad about Grace Plunkett, who married her man just before he was executed for his part in the 1916 rising, and “rangers fans backing the Dave King Five with their classic, apparently in honour of Joe Garner, who runs around and falls over for them. Its Called Glad To Fall Over, or something.

According to St. Leonard, on twitter, theres another battle between the bookies favourite, the all girl cabaret combo “Little Mix ”

as “rangers ” supporters have confused them with Republican band “Little Micks ” who have an entirely different songbook

Caption competition now, and yesterday we showed you this..