Celtic Diary Thursday January 8 2026; Ta Bi, Or Not Ta Bi ?

With Martin O’Neill now firmly back in the saddle and trying to clean up the mess left by that French bloke, supporters have started demanding all sorts of unreasonable movement from the club. (Will this do. Mike ? )

This isn’t just a case of resetting to what the club was before the French Revolution, it’s partly that, but it’s also a case of finding out what was being done badly at every level. There’s not just the remaining campaign this season, but to avoid another UCL exit a team strong enough to succeed on the pitch has to be embedded over the next few months.

Like proper, grown up clubs do.

The biggest worry seems to be a lack of incomings to , in the manager’s words, supplement the squad. You’ll notice he wants to supplement the squad, and not “get all the diddies to fuck ” . That kind of calm rationale is why he is a manager, and why we scream profanities and apportion blame on the interweb.

A case in point is Jocelyn Ta Bi, the Ivorian winger set to sign, depending on where you read it. The manager won’t be overly keen in bringing in someone recommended by someone handed his jotters for not being recommending enough quality.

Sorry, any quality whatsoever.

If there is a delay in transfer activity, then it’s surely far better to pause to assess the situation than blindly carry on and hope we get lucky with whoever the quack in the cap thought could do us a job.

Some sections of the support are beginning to worry, largely because Celtic have dropped to third in the league with Danny’s lads on a bit of a Rohl. (See what I did there ? )

Hearts are still beating a path at the top, but although those two sides have gained a bit of momentum, it’s important to realise that bith sides are ahead of Celtic not because they are better than Celtic, but because of our French connection and the complete collapse of our team when the previous manager told them not to worry, because it isn’t about winning anyway.

A fairly large proportion of Celtic supporters, anyone under 30, won’t remember what a title race actually feels like, and it’s important not to confuse excitement with panic.

What we need to remember is that these clubs who are in contention have little or no experience of any sort of success whatsoever, whereas we have a manager, coaches .players and supporters who have.

That might be a little unfair on plucky newcomers “rangers “, but fuck ’em.  after all, they’ve only been around for twelve years, but it’s nice to see them doing well.

And as for bringing in a striker, the much maligned Johnny Kenny , despite having missed a couple of chances, is still running at a goal every couple of games. Imagine what he could do if the fans stopped blaming him for everything from the poor run of form to that fat American bloke stealing Venezuelan oil.

So, when we’re pressing refresh on our keyboards, or ploughing through largely made up links in the media, and that’s before i add the drivel on Sky sports, let’s remember that we are in the hands of someone who knows what he’s doing, and will just go out and do it.

If you count the board, that is, but I’m sure O’Neill knows how to handle them.

On Tuesday , we had this…