Celtic Diary Saturday October 26

Hullo again.

Celtic don’t play until tomorrow, so todays diary is entirely devoted to the inconsistency of the distance between the spokes on the wheels of bicycles, with particular reference to models manufactured between 1047 and 1951.

We will be looking especially at differences found within the American manufacturing market, and comparing performance, costs and reliability with similar models on the declining British and advancing Japanese production lines.

Or we could take no notice of the Huddleboards claims that I am boring to listen to.

Well, they’re the experts.

A recent thread over there says that the recent Etims podcast was fantastic to listen to, “but do us a favour and keep Ralph off the airwaves “, which kind of made my day.

Next time out I’ll inhale helium beforehand and do a wee tap dance.

Boring  ? Me ? Listen, I got chucked out of school for urinating on the teachers desk once. Thats why the wife does the parents evenings now.

Still, its all about opinions, and with the clocks going back this weekend, the general opinion on the huddleboard is to go back to 1965 and give my father some condoms.

Craig Bryson, linked with Celtic over the last couple of days, has managed to talk himself out of favour with a few Celts down here with his comments in the Burton Mail;

“I can remember watching a few Championship games and noticing it was a step up from the Scottish Premier League,” he said. “I just wanted to come down here and try and make myself a regular in the team.”

The midfielder used to play for Clyde and Kilmarnock, prompting cries of “oh, that Craig Bryson ”

Celtic will be without Charlie Mulgrew and James Forrest for tomorrows Glasgow Derby at Firhill. Forrest has hurt his ankle, and Mulgrew his heel. Forrest took a sore one against ajax, and is better wrapped up again until the rematch, where the plan is to let Ajax kick him again, so that he gets a head of steam up and scores another vital goal on our way to the last sixteen. He could arguably be seen to have stepped into Victor Wanyamas shoes with his vital strikes in Europe

With Mulgrew having the foot injury, which would restrict his mobility, Lennon might try him in goal, as we’ll need someone there when Forster goes.

Scott Brown will feature, and he has announced his intention to make a personal appeal to UEFA against his three match ban. He thinks a personal word in their ear will help.

I’m not sure he should go down that path, especially if it goes against him. can see him kicking the clerk of the court on the way out, and if he wins , will he do this in front of the judge ?

Neil Lennon, himself no stranger to twitter, has warned players, their wives and anyone else he could think of about the dangers of social media;

“I’ve had to warn the players about Twitter. Not just the players but their wives as well.

“I’ve told the players anything damaging the reputation of the club will be heavily fined – and we might have to stop them using it altogether. We have made them clear on that.

“There have been episodes even before this week where I have taken a dim view on it. We’ve made it clear that there is a certain line you can’t cross.

“And Charlie putting up naked pictures wasn’t one of his brighter ideas, I have to say. So he’ll get punished for that.

“I use Twitter myself and there are a lot of good things you can use it for. For example, I did a 10k run the other week and raised a lot of money for charity.

“If I hadn’t used Twitter I probably wouldn’t have raised nearly as much. So there are benefits but, like everything else, there are also drawbacks.

“I have sympathy for the players in terms of how easy it is to get dragged into something. But they should be experienced enough to know what they can and cannot do on a public site.”

They’re footballers. Most of which need adult supervision when they’re putting their shoes on.

Someone else who needs adult supervision has been waffling again…

Ally McCoist, speaking after Dave King, who has paid lots of money instead of going to jail said that he;

“knows for sure” that the SFA will allow him to take up a post at Second Rangers

King  said: “I wouldn’t be here otherwise. I’ve checked this fully with the relevant people.”

Stewart Regan of the SFA is on Radio Scotland today, so we can all check it as well.

King continued;

“I’m back for a series of confidential meetings to establish the best way to take Rangers forward. I’m here to see if I can get rid of the disharmony at boardroom level and between the board and fans.”

“We need a funding campaign to make sure that when the club does need money, it is already in place with the right people at the right cost.”

So, he’s going to borrow money…. Good luck with that one.

McCoist though, to recap, is delighted, and has given the new chairman the managers vote of confidence. ( They do things differently in lalaland. )

The words in brackets are mine ;

“We need to go in challenging when we get back to the top flight.”

( Your club has never been in the top flight. )

“There is no point in us going in and just thinking about top six. That’s no disrespect to the other teams in the country and I hope they wouldn’t see it like that.

( It’ll be a few years before you can think about top six. )

“But the standards at our club are different.

( Does he mean financial or moral standards ? )

“We’ve always been expected to challenge for the division. That should never change. It’s going to take time to get back to the level we want to be at.

“There will need to be a cash injection to raise the bar and raise the quality again.

( so, the premier league players he signed to win the third division are not good eough for the premier league. More good man management there, and as for the desire for a cash injection… he still doesn’t get it, does he ? )

“You can’t lose all those players we did and expect, in three or four years, to be up challenging where you were at Champions League level.

( You didn’t lose anyone. The old club folded, and you started a new one. You cannot lose what you didn’t have. )

“But the motivation is to get back to that level. It might seem a long way off but we were in a UEFA final just over five years ago.”

( Yes, they’re still cleaning up in Manchester. )

“We don’t want to go down the road we’ve been down financially – but we need to give the fans the best team we can get.

“There are players here capable of being with us when we get back to the top league. Time will tell who makes the journey.

( ah, the journey. And time will also tell who gets sick of it. )

“All of a sudden we are signing players from SPL sides where it’s okay to win two games, draw one, lose one, lose another, draw one.

“That’s okay because that’s the norm and generally accepted for those teams. It’s not a criticism at all, I just believe it’s a statement of fact that these teams aren’t expected to go and win every week so therefore it’s not a disaster when they don’t.

( Is he not aware he’s a couple of divisions below the Premier ? )

“We have to get into the mentality of our boys that getting beat 3-1 at Brechin at half-time is just about a semi-disaster.”

( Oh, yes.  He is. “Just about a semi disaster. ” Would love to have seen the players faces if thats what he said to them at half time. ))

Neil Doncaster has been appointed to the board of the European Professional Football Leagues. He will hold the position for three years and said that he is ” honoured. ”

Just as Scotlands profile on the field is raised by some decent results, and its reputation enhanced, this loon gets to walk in the corridors of power.

Paul Lambert was the only player not discovered/signed by Sean Fallon from yesterdays collection.

Coyle was under the great mans wing at Dumbarton.

Odd one out again today,