Celtic Diary Monday September 2 2024: Phillipe Goes Forth

Celtic routinely swept aside their newest and dearest rivals yesterday in the first Glasgow derby. We should appreciate it, as the way things are going for the other lot, there might only be another two.

The win meant Celtic joined Aberdeen on twelve points, and coupled with Dundee United ‘s win over Hearts…it was their turn this week…sent the Clement Clusterfuck down into fourth place.

Next time out for them is away to Dundee United, which could be terminal.

Celtic were surprised initially by a high press from the Ibrox men but when they’d finished laughing at the chances wasted soon clicked into gear. Kyogo Fuhruhashi opened the scoring , or everyone thought he had but Nicolas Kuhn was adjudged to be offside,,,these pictures clearly show why, as long as you don;t look at the lines in the grass on the pitch…

The second picture here shows conclusively why the goal didn’t stand….

Dallas, no longer physically fit enough to be a referee, has been given several shots at showing he isn’t capable of monitoring the VAR system, and yesterday he achieved that.

The first incisive move by Celtic reminded the “rangers ” players how far out of their depth they were, and when Daezen Maeda opened the scoring for real, James Tavernier , the only man to be in the Ibrox Hall of Fame to be nominated for a place in the Celtic equivalent, threw in the towel.

Further long range strikes from Kyogo Fuhruhashi and Calum MacGregor completed the scoring, although anyone with any attachment to “rangers ” knows that deep down they got off lightly.

Rambling afterwards to the media, manager Phillipe Clement would have earned more respect from the now baying hordes had he just said it was a good result on the basis that it should have been worse.

Celtic had no failures, so to single out Bernardo, Scales and MacGregor would be unfair to the others who all played a part, but those three were just ahead of the rest.

Brendan, as we’ll call him now we like him again, had the luxury of introducing new bhoys Luke McCowan and Arne Engels without any pressure on them, and that allowed them to enjoy the occasion rather than spend a couple of weeks waiting , maybe nervously, for their debuts.

Brendan was in a good mood after the game…..

‘It was a fantastic performance,’ 

‘I thought we were electric going forward.

‘We’ve scored three and we look at the other chances we had in the game. Equally as pleasing is that we were defensively solid right to the very end. Overall, it was such a great day for us.’

 ‘It just continues, the quality, the speed, the intensity at which we’ve been playing.  

‘I think we’re only starting. For me, the pleasing aspect was the performance. We want to always make it really difficult for every opponent that we play. And we’ve seen that today, both with and without the ball.’ 

‘Yes, very, very happy,’ 

‘It’s very hard to do everything you want to do in one window. But, if you look at the work that has gone into here at the club with the players, not just the players in, but players going out, there’s been so much that we’ve needed to do in order to get the squad to where we want it to be.

‘A manager will always want a little bit more, but I can’t complain.

‘We’ve done some great business over the course of the window, going right back to Kasper (Schmeichel) and all the guys. And obviously this at the end, which was what we wanted to do, was play well and win, and we’ve done that.’ 

Then he went for a lie down, and probably booked a couple of days off.

We’ve sent him a video of the match highlights…..

His counterpart at Ibrox, or Hampden, seemed to go a bit doo lally during his chat with the media.

He blamed everything he could think of, and some things he should have thought through, but ultimately there are signs he’s starting to lose it , as they say.

Though his main man couldn’t be blamed. As expected, their midfield maestro did his best to control the game, thwarting Celtic when they moved forward, helping the defence to avoid conceding penalties.

Clement could do with eleven like him, even if rules do mean only one can be on the park at any given  time….

So if you want a laugh, then get a ticket for this….

Let’s be honest, there may not be many of their own fans there.

They are, er, revolting.

And they’re not very happy either…..

Before the game, there was a quiet determination….

Then, when that didn’t work…. there were signs of apathy, and that’s what will kill this version of the franchise….they don’t do walking away, though it could be argued they don’t want to walk there in the first place.

And it’s not going to get better, despite their hopes and dreams….

Elsewhere, and there was a warning that Slovan Bratislava, Celtic’s first opponents in the new look UCL, might well be a dangerous visitor….

Clubs that size don’t tolerate that sort of humiliation.

Well, most of them.

One more thing, someone has pinched this flag.

This flag has been at

matches for 30 years. It was removed from hanging at the Exit at 104 around 10 mins before the end of today’s game. Young guy with a green polo shirt on spotted by stewards. Please RT to help return to @taggy_bhoy ASAP.

Let’s leave that sort of nonsense to others. If you know anything about it, let’s get it back.

Yesterday, we had this….

Today