Apologies if this tome is a little tardy this morning, but she had a couple of errands for me to run, which involved sitting in traffic from around 7.30 onwards. Which meant my mind wandered, and all I could keep wondering was if someone tried to shoot Donald Trumpo, would his bodyguard shout “Donald duck ! ” ?
Culdn’t get out of it either, as she had given me a list and the postcodes of where I was going. Otherwise I’d have just come back with a cheesegrater or something, which would have meant another few years before she asked me to do anything again, happy enough to revel in my role as “bloody useless “.
She’s probably sussed me out by now i guess, and I’m no longer the silver tongued romantic who carved our initials in a tree on our first date all those years ago, to let her know I had a knife.
Northern News outlet the Press and Journal says Aberdeen are closing in on midfielder Ryan Christie as Brendan Rodgers continues to loan out the players he wants to keep, presumably so that they get a realistic idea of how good things are at Celtic, and if they don’t work hard they’ll be stuck at another club.
Dons boss Derek McInnes is close to finalising a deal for Celtic midfielder Ryan Christie, according to reports.
The 21-year-old former Inverness star has struggled for regular first team football in Glasgow since joining in 2015.
Hoops boss Brendan Rodgers is understood to be keen to hang on to Christie but a loan move could be an ideal opportunity to further the youngster’s development.
Rodgers said yesterday players could leave during the window and with Aberdeen missing out on a further loan switch for James Maddison, McInnes will be keen to secure more midfield options.
With the league more or less won already, Celtic want to see a few of their players get second place medals as well, so Aberdeen and Hearts will both be sniffing around Lennoxtoen, as there are players there who could make a significant difference to their campaigns.
The other second placed hopeful, “rangers ” won’t be able to get a loan of anybody, as Celtic have done a credit check, which is necessary where any loan is sought, and , well, i think you know how that turned out..
and so, presumably , does everyone else as that club hurtles once more beyond the cliff edge…
In fact, there’s been some interesting developments with one or two of their subsidiary companies that i’ll go into a bit more tomorrow because they are a little, er, odd.
New Celtic signing Kouassi Eboue, tipped to overtake Dedryk Boyata as the most mis-spelt player mentioned in the Etims diary, has missed a training session with a suspected bout of malaria, although it turns out that it wasn;t that, he was just not very well, which can happen this time of the year.
Manager Rodgers said;
“I’ll always have that belief; the more you play, the more you improve,”
“It’s been my first proper season playing men’s football. I did a bit at Fulham, but I was in and out, the same at Man City, so coming here, the manager before [Ronny Deila] played me a lot and Brendan’s [Rodgers] been really good with me as well.
“It’s been good and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. I came here to improve, to win trophies and score goals.
“Hopefully at the end of the season I can take that back with me to City and have a good go there. It’s been a great experience and I’m thankful for that.”
We asked Pep Guardiola if he was looking forward to having him back, but he hadn’t got a clue who we were talking about, so we left it at that.
Has it been that long ?
Scott Brown is cruising towards 400 appearances for Celtic, putting him in with the clubs greatest servants..and it only seems like yesterday we saw him square up to Neil Lennon at Easter Road and wondered if we were seeing one of those student and teacher moments…
Come to think of it, it was yesterday. I found it on You Tube.
Brendan Rodgers paid tribute to the all action captain…
“He has been outstanding domestically and in the European games he was first class If you seen his stats and numbers in relation to his passing qualities.
“There were enough people who said that wasn’t his strength, that he could just run about and kick people.
Thats not true, and I resent that. what I actually said was he runs about like a dog chasing a ball on the beach, which is entirely different.
“But, I think he has shown he can channel it in the right way. He has shown to me a high level of technical and tactical ability to play the game. And it is improving all the time.”
But Brown is underrated, and now he is being managed properly, he may well go on to earn a place in the hall of legends. Maturity comes into it as well, and Brown, like a lot of us, may just simply have turned into an adult and accepted responsibility.
Anyway, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather see lift a tenth consecutive title, especially if its at Ibrox..
“But, I think he has shown he can channel it in the right way. He has shown to me a high level of technical and tactical ability to play the game. And it is improving all the time.”
Brown will reach 400 tomorrow should he lead the team out in Perth, which is always nice this time of year, to look at anyway, and I have to admit to being impressed by the new “Get Around Town scheme they’ve introduced..
He needs to watch out, as someone else who isn’t quite given the credit he’s deserved is out to stop Celtic and spoil the unbeaten run…
And unlike other managers plying their trade in Scotland, this one knows his stuff…
“What has impressed me about the current team is the tempo they play at because they put you under pressure when they have the ball.
“But even more than that, the way they press you and the work-rate when they don’t have it is massively important.
“The key for is this week is keeping the ball,”
“Hopefully we’ll stay well organised and difficult to break down, but it’s what we do when we’re in possession that will determine how we get on.
“Celtic will have a lot of the ball, we know that, but when we do get it we’ve got to make sure we keep it.
“That’s where I feel we could have done better in the game we played against them at our place.
“There was no doubt Celtic were the better team that day but we restricted their clear cut opportunities.
“But we kept giving the ball away and that allowed them to keep asking questions of us.
“When that happens fatigue comes in, physically and mentally, so it makes it more difficult.
“So this week, I want us to be better when we’re in possession.
“If we retain the ball better this time we’ll hopefully give ourselves a platform to cause them problems.
“Staying solid is also important and the good thing is that with this squad we have a few options to what we can do tactically.
“They are a very good side so you have to come up with something to make life difficult for them.”
One of the drawbacks in playing sides four times is that when they have a decent manager, he will try different ways of getting a result. fortunately, that type of manager is rare in Scotland, but Wright is the exception.
There’s no pressure on him, and anything he gets is a bonus. If everyone did that the league would not be so easily dominated, but thankfully Scottish football believes its own publicity about the two team structure, even when one of them is painfully weak.
Elsewhere, and despite pretending he wasn’t, Daryl Broadfoot, communications guy at the SFA, has quit/been mutually consented by/sacked by the SFA . He goes to work in the lucrative PR industry, having apparently been a little less ruthless and effective when it came to quashing the Resolution 12 story, which amounted to a clumsily doctored copy of a letter fed to Grant Russell to pretend UEFA didn;t regard “rangers ” as a new club, which was a surprise to the Res 12 lads, as they’d never asked about that.
He’s not the first casualty of the Res 12, issue, which as it becomes broader to highlight more SFA inefficiences will take a few more scalps, because of course, the first casualty was truth…
As it always is when there’s a war on…
In other news, Ryan Mason, the unfortunate victim of a head injury whilst playing for Hull, is in hospital with a fractured skull, and our media-don’t know which one this time-has excelled itself with their analysis..
Journalism is dying, and as a proper journalist said to ne at the weekend, its a horrible time to be a journalist. No wonder, if idiots like Joshua Nevett are sullying the reputations of the few good ones that are left.
Yesterdays picture,
happily provided us with a number of excellent explanations of Obamas wee note to Trump…
Caption: We’ve seen your taste in fixtures and fittings, so we’ve installed a golden shower in the wet room for you.
Caption: Dear Donald, The revolver is in the top right hand corner.
Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.
For those of you who don’t see your posts appear for hours after replying, its a little gremlin somewhere in the system. Pensioner bhoy did have some advice for those who get caught up by it, and I wonder if he’d consider telling us what it was again, as I’ve forgotten.
today, see if you can get around the little chap with your thoughts on this…
