Celtic Diary Monday August 26 2024: Reach Out, Touch Faith

A third successive league win without conceding a goal, coupled with a performance that entertained and excited whilst simultaneously showing a marked improvement in game management from the players was met with much rejoicing yesterday.

Well, sort of.

Celtic swept aside St Mirren in Paisley with a mixture of style and tenacity that was topped up with a controlled possession game that kept things tidy until the confidence returned.

Nine points out of nine would ordinarily be seen as a good start.

With Matt O’Riley house hunting in Brighton or Hove, Paulo Bernardo, the guy we had on loan last season to make sure he and the club were a good fit proved to be a good fit as he picked up where he left off after creating the winning goal in last seasons cup final.

Others who stood out included right back Alistair Johnston, Reo Hatate and Liam Scales.

However, the players would have been a little disappointed to learn that Peter Lawwell, the Celtic chairman, had been abused outside the ground because there has been a lack of new signings of late, if you don’t count the three who started yesterday, which kind of lowered the tone a little bit.

Lawwell, however, refused to leap into a hedge and point his fingers at fans, he didn’t tell them to stay off the superlager and put up with the nonsense.

Clearly he felt that despite his own experiences within the high falutin world of finance and commerce he was perhaps lacking in  one or two aspects, and decided to fill in the gaps with a few words from those who would obviously know better.

Yesterday’s diary prompted one or two howls of derision, one or two gently hinted that I’d become a board apologist and one or two others pointed out it was the worst diary ever written.

To understand the high level of thought provoking debate it encouraged, one must consider what is meant by the “worst ” diary.

As I’d spelt diary correctly, and got the date right, it was already way ahead of some previous offerings, so that particular opinion can be discounted immediately, perhaps what the chap meant was “Diary I agree with the least “…

Then again, perhaps I don;t give a toss.

I’ve been known to moan about the board, and I’ve been known to defend them.

I’ve criticised them to the point where I’ve been invited to face to face discussions and still criticised them, but with carefully considered and reasoned argument.

Sometimes a carefully considered and reasoned argument is ignored, however, and emotion and confirmation bias takes over.

Yesterday, upon hearing that vodka was on special offer and we needed some, well, not me, I don’t drink that stuff, my wife told me to pop to the supermarket and pick some up.

They didn’t have any left, so I had a wee run round to see where else it was on offer, knowing that if I paid full price for it I’d get an earful.

Returning empty handed, I was told I was a selfish bastard who hadn’t even looked for it and there was no convincing her otherwise.

And there was no point in bringing back something else. That would have been even worse as it would have showed contempt …a sort of anything will do to shut her up

We’ve all done it, and we’ll all do it again. Sometimes things are outwith our control, despite our best intentions, and when someone thinks we are a selfish bastard anyway, no amount of evidence will change their mind.

I think you might get the point, if you don’t, I’ll see if we can do an edition in crayon.

It seems that Barcelona left back Alex Valle, a 20  year old who spent last season on loan at Levante, is about to spend a season on loan at Celtic. We have heard from one of our drunks that he is more than capable of holding down that position, and whilst there is no option to buy, the release clause is low enough not to need one, although there is the risk he might do well and go somewhere else.

All of which must leave perennial scapegoat Greg Taylor feeling a little left out, unless there is a new deal on the table we don’t know about, as with his contract up at the end of the season, and the level of nonsense he has to put up with, he may be looking elsewhere even as I write this.

Or, of course, Celtic could announce two left backs in one day…..

With plucky newcomers “rangers ” next up on Sunday, there seems to be a wee bit of panic about getting players in, though most of us are more worried about which eight teams will be chosen to run up cricket scores against us in the Champions League when the draw is made on Thursday.

Of course I’m worried that we’re not ready to make a mark on the UCL, and even signing forty million quids worth of players before the window shuts probably won’t make any difference.

The manager has already expressed disappointment in how this window has panned out, and that may not just be the lack of signings, it seems that a lack of planning may also need to be dealt with.

Agents and players are not easy to deal with, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have someone with a bit of nous dealing with them, we need to be more proactive in that sense, and maybe that’s going to be one of the changes behind the scenes that could prove to be the most effective.

Things could be improved, there’s no doubt about that.

But what I noticed, and I’m not the only one, was that despite being weaker on paper, the squad including new guy Francis Turley, looked a lot stronger on the pitch.

And isn’t that what matters ?

It’s how they play, and not what they cost.

Yesterday, we had this….

Today….