The weekends football continued the pattern of recent weeks with Celtic collecting three points and “rangers ” managing, with a little help from their friends, to keep pace.
Of course, it’s not about keeping pace with Celtic, only the bluest of eyes still see a title race, it’s now about keeping the new club ahead of Hearts, who have by far the stronger team, in order to secure a crack at Champions League football.
The two clubs collide on Wednesday, with Hearts already practicing playing with ten men and the keeper facing hours of penalties in training.
John Beaton will be referee, to ensure the right result, and VAR will be run by Kevin Clancy, who will do as he’s told.
Celtic host Livingston next, and will simply go about their business, moving closer to two in a row game by game.
Willie Collum did his bit at the weekend, ignoring penalty claims and sending off a St Johnstone player when he really shouldn’t have, and one has to question not only his motives, but his intergrity.
In any other profession, someone so ridiculously inept would be asked to resign at best and removed at worst.
Collum has had neither option presented to him, which suggests he may have access to information that the SFA would rather remain behind closed doors.
Which would suggest he might actually try to do the job to the best of his ability, despite any instructions to the opposite. But he still continues to flout the rules in plain sight, almost as though he wants to be sacked, and certainly as though he likes the attention that comes with it.
At first, a suggestion he might be a sort of Fifth Columnist, Willie “fifth ” Collum does have a poetic ring to it, sounds ridiculous, but the more i consider it, the more it becomes at least a possibility, is that in his own mind, Collum is trying to bring the whole system down around him.
St johnstone had a moan about him on their Twitter feed, which measn they are surely thinking of an official complaint, and frankly they should.
Celtic have shown no signs of fighting back against what is more or less match fixing now endemic in the game, so we must look to others to kickstart the cleaning up.
I don’t care who does it, it just needs to be done.
Every week, one club benefits from the VAR system, and every week, two clubs are disadvantaged.
Celtic and whoever plays “rangers “.
VAR is being used all over Europe, and it would be interesting to see if any other club has benefited every week , or if there is another country where such inconsistency in decision making is rife.
And to think on sports desks throughout the land, they would still rather ask former players who struggle to put together a coherent sentence for their thoughts, rather than going out and collecting data and drawing their own conclusions.
Then again, they probably have, which is why they resort to asking former players who struggle to put together a coherent sentence.
The transfer window closes tomorrow night, and although Celtic have lost a couple of internationals, we’ve brought in a few as well.
It’ll be Wednesday morning before we can fully take stock, but once more we seem to have come out of it stroinger than we went in.
Although we have heard there will be a couple of cheeky bids from down south for a couple of mainstays, but that’s more in hope than expectation. Enquiries about our players have been given short shrift in most cases, and the ones who have gone are ones who wanted to go .
Good luck to them, they’ve done their bit in the early stages of the revolution.
On the other side of the city, however, they are stuck in a bit of a rut.
No one wants to buy what they’ve got, and no one wants to come to them who is already getting a game elsewhere.
Which brings us back to where we started, in that they need all the help they can get.
What about the Irish big breaking news regarding Celtic the other night on the Podcast.
If Celtic aren’t interested in sorting this when we’re winning then they never will be. There’s a big hard drive full of evidence in the VAR office so no need for any hard work putting a case together. Shitebags.
Why are replies in this section covered over by a grey colouring . Can it be removed?
A few people seem to have this problem or one with black bars obscuring comments (I have no such problems myself) but no explanation has been forthcoming.
What will be cleared up first, this or the Var, ahem, inconsistencies? 😉
Probably VAR if the comment vaporizing filter is anything to go by!!!
Everybody who is experiencing the black bars or grey overlay should post what device they’re viewing the Diary on i.e. phone (Android or iPhone), or computer (Windows 7,8,10,11? That might give someone with tech knowledge a clue.
I’m on Windows 7 (x64) and not experiencing the visual artifacts that some guys are experiencing.
I’m using an iPad and not experiencing the problems as described.
However, considering that most if not all all smartphones/ pads and Laptops are touch sensitive screens it is an enigma to me that I ONLY have to adopt the Joe Frazier style of touch typing when posting here..Jab Jab Jab Kerpowww.
As for the POST COMMENT Button for some completely random reason the reaction time is akin to waiting for Ian Maxwell O’Level, to issue a statement on behalf of Sevc.. sorry The SFA.
Tap Tap Tap Tap ‘ Sorry you have already voted for…´
WTFF.
The User satisfaction level at times on this site can be
generously described as ‘ …losing the will to live’. Which probably validâtes the infrequent postings.
I and other users surely have been relegated to the ranks of ‘The Lurkers’.
H.H. & KTF but FGS ditch the platform.
Luigi clearly being pushed into the goalie by the defender in the sandwich No pen according to V.A.R. who’s kidding who!
Wednesday will be interesting. Livi will have a good go at us but I seriously down Hearts are professional enough to pursue second place. They will foul it up some how.
There’s no race for 2nd place, the Huns are 16 points ahead and by season end it will probably be about 30.
In the last 3 games against their big cousins, Hearts have hardly had a shot on target and are usually right royally rogered.
It doesn’t help anything to artificially create a challenge when there isn’t one; the nearest the Huns have to competition is their very distant pursuit of us.
We are, realistically, the only ones who will be affected (whether this season or a future one) by the Huns VARy favourable decisions and, if our board won’t act, then don’t expect Hearts, St Johnstone etc to do it for us.
Yes I have had the dark grey blocks for yonks now. They tried to look into it but I think gave up.
The guys provide a great site but, as with the infuriating comment killing filter, the technical side seems to be their Achilles heel.
I agree. The problem(s) arrived with the ‘all new, state-of-the-art’ (what does that even fukkin mean?) bullshit.
Over many years I’ve cringed when seeing “new” in reference to a long-time favourite consumable. Ditto here. We had the best site of all. I was (and apologised for) sometimes making unacceptable comments. Much of this was in verbal retaliation and no-one died from it. I’d say it was absolutely fine as I’m no ‘Politically Correct’ snowflake.
Anyway, as you rightly say, Owen, “The guys provide a great site but…..”
It’s that “but”.
On another note, I’m not ‘into’ podcasts. It seems to me that few really are.
So, just a suggestion, if each of the 3 guys who do the podcast (an hour plus each), why not try an individual focus effort, i.e. each of you spending an hour focusing on one disparate Celtic FC related football/charitable area and then presenting it over a day or two on the Diary? Just a thought!
Oh, FFS, Owen, response debased into ‘moderation’.
“Awaiting for approval” FFS, can’t even make FN sense!
I’m just about at the end of my ‘moderate’ rope!
There is still a cross shaped dark grey area over the comments section. Making it difficult to read comments or respond
When you have a ref as a journalist’s source and they are anonymously quoted on the BBC briefing against colleagues then it is internecine warfare amongst the men in black. Never mind the pundit gig when retired they will all take that shilling. There’s an edict from on high saying save the Ibrox club and some are playing the game and others not. What are Hearts saying? They’re the losers in this. We’re good enough that event corrupt officiating can’t touch us.
Although he only had a cameo appearance of about 10 minutes, I liked the way
Oh put himself about. He was fast and keen to get involved. He took up a good position at
one point but didn’t get the ball passed to him. he seemed keen enough to be involved and
I look forward to seeing him starting a match (this midweek?) to see what he can really do.
In Ange we trust.
Hail Cesar! – (2-3-1940) – (22-4-2019). A whole football career dedicated to playing and captaining one club only, Celtic FC. – 822 games played over 18 seasons makes him the player with the most appearances. And – Celtic manager 1978 – 1983 and 1987 – 1991.
A lifetime of devotion to the Celtic cause. Few can lay claim to being real Celtic legends but Billy McNeill is and will always be a Celtic great. The greatest of the great. ‘Whaes Like Him? Naebody.’
They never say sorry and they always blame someone else:
It`s a driven worth to protect the Rangers International Football Club and all the Football Boards are the chauffeurs for the SFA.
Their (Courtrooms, Police) avenues of corruption are all being highlighted at the moment.
False violence between supporters of clubs is their next step and the SMSM will happily oblige with constant frontpage spreads.
Right Port, and just yesterday the Dirty Record.printed a headline about a Celtic fan attacking a *rangers fan as if it was a current event. Deep into the article they mention that the incident had happened years back. They’re actually desperately looking for ANY story to paint Celtic fans in a bad light. They’re not so eager to condemn bottle throwing by orcs…saying “football fans” had to be ejected from Ibrox after dangerous objects were found planted by a group who were allowed early entry on the pretext of arranging a TIFO. This is basically a propaganda war by these so-called journalists.
Struth, took his club down the pathway of intolerance and bigotry on purpose. How we laughed when Liquidation happened and his club perished and how the maggots fed off its corpse. We had our own trials and fairy-stories. Beatrix Potter gave us Peter Rabbit, Joe McHugh brought his rabbit out of his hat on the 27th.November 2019, at the Celtic AGM when he produced the 5Way Agreement. Our smiles faded, was this another fairy-story? Sadly for us it wasn’t. Currently its been reported that 9 off the SPFL clubs are feeling stressed, that’s just another way of saying that they are skint, as Scottish football continues its descent into the gutter. “Penalty to *Rangers, 49 for and none against at the Midden and that’s no fairy-story. Hearts – Lawrence Shankland is vying for goal scoring parity with Kyogo who is on 20 goals this season, the only thing is, his goals like the Tavs. nearly all come from the penalty spot. Pray tell me how that can happen. Shankland to *Rangers a marriage made in the sesspit of Scottish football.. VAR – how could we possibly think that we would possibly fair better?
Just because I can. Willie Maley and Billy McNeill, both sharing similier backgrounds, both sharing a life-long devotion to the Celtic. Maley of course played for Celtic but nothing like the amount of times that Cesar did, both of course managed the ‘Tic, Maley of course for around 50 years. When Willie Maley passed away, I think it was around about 1954, Celtic lost its last link to the Founding Fathers. I’m fascinated by Maley’s Chief Scout Stevie Callaghan who had Maley’s full confidence, so that he himself could sign players for the Club. “The Bould Bhoy’s”.
William Patrick Maley – Born 25th. April 1868 – Died 2nd. April 1958.
The Beneath the Magic Circle documentary on BBC is worth a watch. Not least for the actions of a QC called Nimmo-Smith. This is how the elite in Scottish law acted only 20 years ago. The minor players then are the major players now. Ask the question if they can cover up this stuff for 2 decades what actually constitutes justice in Scotland?
It seems like it is so difficult to sign players in the January Transfer Window.