They never stop, do they ?

Ange Postecoglou ‘discussed’ by Wolves with Celtic boss among potential Bruno

Lage replacements

The Molineux club slipped into the relegation zone after losing to West ham and are now searching for a new manager 

Predictably, this is from the Record, written by a chap called Ross Pilcher, formerly the Digital Media Executive at Hearts, now the assistant live sports editor at the paper.

As usual, it’s just speculation about whether or not another English club are speculating about making a bid for Postecoglou.

……and the Telegraph reports Postecoglou is one of a jumper of candidates being talked about by club powerbrokers due to his impressive achievements north of the border with the Hoops. A Scottish Premiership title win during his first season in charge as well as a Premier Sports Cup win playing the style Celtic do has seen admiring glances cast from England. 

What really stands out is the excitement and nervous energy behind the piece, especially the bit where he claims that

Postecoglou is one of a jumper of candidates  

In his excitement he forgot to read what he had written…..

As for Wolverhampton Wanderers, I wouldn’t worry too much. Even if they do make contact, that ridiculously unintelligible Black Country accent will make any offer unfathomable and since Ange has now adjusted to Glaswegian he’ll have put the phone down long before the caller has established what he’s on about.

With deflection away from John Beaton pretty much the narrative until Celtic face Leipzig, there was another story doing the rounds, concerning Joe Hart, who has been “accused ” of cheating, but only by the halfwits who ring the Record Hotline, a radio phone in type show that at least spares us the sound of stupidity….

Referee John Beaton was seen in a heated chat with the keeper after some fans accused him of ‘acting injured’ against Motherwell. 

This piece was written by Robbie Copland, a Live Sports editor, presumably having been promoted from Inert sports Editor….

Joe Hart has been the subject of debate on social media after he was accused of going down too easily against Motherwell. But it seemed John Beaton was having none of it as the two were spotted in a heated discussion afterwards. 

There was plenty of drama on the Parkhead pitch so one moment involving home keeper Hart largely went under the radar in all the post-match debate. It came early in the second half with Motherwell on the attack as Hart comes out to deal with a cross. He finds himself in no man’s land, his attempt to clear the ball initially foiled by Sondre Solholm, before recovering and glancing up at the defender. He then recovers and moves towards him, and after his head brushes the Norwegian’s ribcage, he takes a step back before collapsing in an unnatural direction. 

One fan wrote:: “He flapped at the cross was out of position and moved into the geezers armpit, saw he was struggling and couldn’t make a save so went down and feigned an injury.”  

There are two ways to look at the incident, and you’ll notice the journalist doesn’t even consider the one that is most likely…that Hart was complaining that the referee didn;t stop the match, as he is supposed to when a player receives a head knock, which Hart visibly did, whether or not he meant to do it, or was feigning it, is irrelevant.

Beaton , by not stopping play had endangered a player that he has a duty of care towards.

And i love this line….

collapsing in an unnatural direction.  

I’m not quite sure what the natural direction would be… downwards ?…but given that collapsing in an unnatural direction would be an indicator of serious trauma, then it seems that once again the hack is getting a wee bit excited about his story rather than actually thinking about what he’s saying.

The only other thing I can find out about him is that he penned this piece for 90mins, a magazine largely about English football for people who find The Sun hard going.

And to be fair to the fellow, this is comedy gold, and in no way should be used to , er, dismiss anything he ever writes again

How can Celtic recover after harrowing Champions League

collapse?

By Robbie Copeland

Jul 30, 2021

Celtic knew for months that their first Champions League qualifying tie was coming in July. So it genuinely defies belief that they were so underprepared to face Midtjylland in Denmark on Thursday night.

The team Ange Postecoglou put out was nowhere close to being ready for a Champions League tie. In their starting XI were two teenage centre-backs with less than ten senior games between them, a right-back who played once last season, Scotland’s fourth-choice keeper and a 19-year-old just signed from Israel.

Those desperate circumstances are of course no fault of the manager’s, and the fact that he was forced to field such a disjointed, inexperienced team explains why his tone after the game was mostly positive. They weren’t near ready, but they still faced up to a tough tie and took it the distance.

Postecoglou will feel that, given time and some more new signings, the only way to go is up. The problem is that Celtic, the club, don’t look capable of progressing forward.

They’ve been an unmitigated shambles for the last 12 months, crumbling at the first sign of a genuine challenge from Rangers then having no clue how to respond once their nine-year stranglehold on Scottish football was broken.

They were indecisive on Neil Lennon, they were indecisive on Eddie Howe, and now Postecoglou is in the door, they have been ponderous and hesitant over new signings. That’s what has cost them their place in the Champions League for the fourth straight season.

There’s no doubting that they are going to get better on the pitch in the months ahead. New centre-back Carl Starfelt and Japanese attacker Kyogo Furuhashi look like serious upgrades, while Portuguese right-back Aurelio Buta looks set to replace Anthony Ralston.

All that’s missing is the bit about the Wonder from Down Under being sacked by Christmas….

Anyway, my point is that  if Hart was trying to gain an advantage by feigning injury to get the game stopped, then that’s quite interesting in itself.

It means, quite simply, that apart from the free flowing total football Ange Postecoglou has installed as second nature to the players, there’s also a degree of pragmatism and street sense among the players as well, which is encouraging, as let’s face it, thats how winners win…..

Since we seem to have run out of captions to comment on, let’s do a spot the difference instead….. courtesy of Abada Cadabra on Twitter…..

https://twitter.com/i/status/1576513943341629440

Anyone would think that some dark force is trying to make the league a little more competitive, and that there was a sponsorship contract or two up for grabs…

Or, of course, it could just be that the Anyone but Celtic, But Preferably Rangers campaign is fully underway again, which is usually the case when one club/company is skint.

Now, I had an idea the other day, or a thought occured to me, which is pretty much the same thing.

Charles the Last will be crowned as King soon, and older readers will remember the last time a monarch put some stolen goods in her hat and was paraded as some sort of gift from god, we had an all Britain football tournament, to celebrate the unique Britishnness of it all, the triumph of Empire and so on.

Unfortunately for the organisers, the final was contested by two clubs ..Celtic and Hibernian….that were formed as a direct result of abuses carried out during the reign of terror, which probably means there’s a reluctance to repeat the format.

Especially as there’s a realistic chance that Celtic and Liverpool might end up playing each other…..

Actually, I can think only of one club who might celebrate such an occasion, and they’re more of a holding vehicle than a club….

Still, Celtic do deserve to get a shot at defending their title as British Champions, and making it a quadruple of All Island trophies…..

Ach, let’s have a caption competition as well……if only to make a point……what in the sainted land of sinners is this ? I