Celtic Diary Tuesday April 25: Instant Karma Is Going To Get Him

With both Celtic and “rangers ” dropping points at the weekend due to below par performances , it’s fairly clear their minds were elsewhere.

Celtic struggled to a 1-1 draw at home to Motherwell, which caused all sorts of panic, with some supporters too young to remember what a draw actually is. It’s when both sides score an equal amount of goals and gain one point each.

Sooner or later we were going to be reminded that the players are only human and every now and again they won’t fire on all cylinders.

They’ll get over it.

At Pittodrie, “rangers, with only the cup to play for, fared even worse, with manager Mickey Beale blaming everything and anyone he could think of for the loss. Except, obviously, his own shortfallings, which centre around tactics, man management and a stubborn refusal to accept his team aren’t very good.

Although he did say it wasn’t his team, he’d inherited the mess.

If his charges underperform and lose on Sunday, he’ll be out on his arse.

As it was at QPR, players, fans and probably even the board are beginning to see he isn’t the new Messiah after all, and the more he blames everything else, the less the players will trust him…..

Mind you, he has brought in a ruthless fitness programme, designed to toughen the squad up, demonstrated here…..

pic.twitter.com/m4MgddqT6V

— Ange Postecoogloo (@Iwata_beadored) April 23, 2023

Be very afraid, this man is ready not only to step into the shoes of fierce midfield combatants such as Hurlock, Ferguson and albertz, he can shuffle those shoes to the beat.

If the Hampden DJ plays a disco floor filler during the game, we could be in trouble.

Of course, aggression has always been part of their make up…and there’s no suggestion Cantwell wears make up…..and it often goes unpunished, as in this instance where aging keeper Alan MacGregor attacks the scorer of aberdeen’s second goal, which has gone largely unnoticed…..

https://twitter.com/i/status/1650581227080916993

The Ibrox club might still get their act together for Sunday, and in a one off game, especially in Scotland, they might even win.

But Ange Postecoglou will be privavtely telling his players that the performance and result against motherwell is not acceptable, and instead of blaming anything else, he will put that responsibility onto the players.

And they will accept it, and do something about it.

There’s no word, officially or from the ranch, on whether or not Jota and Reo Hatate will play on Sunday, and the injury to Hatate is worrying, as whatever it is seems to be taking longer to fix than expected.

The squad is strong enough to leave out both players, but we’d rather have them playing.

Although you are unlikely to see Liel Abada start, and with James Forrest injured, then Celtic may well utilise Haksabanovic, who like any other creative player, will improve with more starts.

Celtic , in short, have options.

Beale will just have to hope Willie Collum can fill in for John Beaton, as they will miss his contributions from the middle of the park

Elsewhere, and the shoddy set up of Scotland’s top league was proved to be even shoddier than we thought when the post split fixtures , expected yesterday, were delayed.

It seems that Sky TV want a league title showdown at Ibrox, given that there will probably be all sorts of a hullaballoo should Celtic triumph, which makes for good tv, whilst the police are against it.

Celtic still have one home game left of the four Sky cover, so ideally for them a league clincher at Ibrox and a home game to finish on with the trophy presentation will keep them interested.

The police would rather it was won away from Ibrox and have enough to worry about this weekend.

Yet another reason to ditch the current system, which whilst exciting, would only really work if the split happened after the halfway stage.

Thus ensuring equal home and away fixtures against everyone in your section at the end.

If you live in the midlands of England then you might fancy somewhere that will be full of Celtic fans for a post title singsong.

For fans in England it’s a rare opportunity to catch a show that is getting great reviews , and an even rarer opportunity to meet other Celts in the area , which is not as easy to do as you would think.

On Thursday, we had this….

By the way, if you’ve not read all the replies, go back and have a look. That was as tough a pick as any previous caption competition.

Today,