Celtic Diary Saturday December 14

Before we say anything, Etims would like to make an announcement.

In the Blame Catholic Schools article on the site, there was a bigoted and semi literate response from a reader which was not of the usual standard we have come to expect on here. We let it through because we felt it added to the points made in the article ( bloody liar-you wanted a laugh -ed )

However, if you feel that John Smith should be allowed to continue to post his views, then okay, its Christmas, you can keep him, but, and I  mean this,  you take it in turns to walk him, feed him and clean up after him.

And we’ll set up a donate button to help with the vets fees. Lets face it, he did sound fairly rabid..

And now, the main event….

Celtic have been fined another £42,000 in the wake of the Green Brigades Wallace / Sands banner, as UEFA , as expected, deemed it an “illicit political ” message.

There is some good news though, as the club representatives have been such regulars in front of the disciplinary committee, they’ve been invited out on the Christmas do next week.

For all the whataboutery, for all the arguments whether the banner was relevant, the point is Celtic are now persistent offenders, and at this rate it won’t be long before the supporters are asked to wear electronic tags during Uefa games.

We need to wise up. I was particularly depressed with this version of events from CNN, which is actually quite typical of how others see us. Rightly or wrongly.

” There are passionate soccer supporters the world over, the sort who name sons after their clubs’ stars or travel hundreds of miles on a wet Tuesday evening. But Celtic’s Green Brigade brings a sectarian flavor to its support for Glasgow’s Catholic club. In fact, it’s more than a flavor.

( The author is not john Smith, despite the similarities in spelling )

This week Celtic went before the disciplinary committee of European football’s governing body UEFA for the seventh time in as many years.

The latest infraction: the Green Brigade had unfolded huge pictures of a Scottish nationalist hero, William Wallace, and more controversially of Irish Republican Army hunger-striker Bobby Sands before a recent game against AC Milan. Above the portraits, the slogan: “The Terrorist or the Dreamer.” ”

The banner was asking a perfectly valid and thought provoking question-just in the wrong place-and sadly, too many people in the world wide media missed the point. Which is sort of the point about the banner.

If the worlds press see the image of Bobby Sands and assume its sectarian-I know, ridiculous-but what chance of making a point did it have in the blinkered world of the Scottish press ?

Neil Lennon has admitted that Celtic cannot compete financially in the Champions League, but thats hardly news. What I did notice though, was the differing body languages of the boss and his assistant Johann Mjallby during the game on Wednesday;

I have seen that look on the big mans face before

Thats what is missing from this team. not a striker, not a creative midfielder ( well, ok, we could do with those ).

Passion. Fire. Heart.

Lennon kind of confirmed this when he said;

“People look at you – your family and friends – as though you’ve got a hump on your back. They give you a sympathetic ‘you’re all right’ look, with a wee smile.

“You feel like you’re a leper, that you’re really ill or something, but sympathy is the last thing I want.

“I’ve got a great job. We’ve been pretty successful. We’ve had a bad Euro campaign but we now look to build and get better.”

He didn’t add that we should take it on the chin and move on, but you felt he wanted to.

Meanwhile, Mjallbys words were deemed not fit to print, as they contained a lot of swear words and threats of violence.

Lennon continued;

“The board meeting was fine. Obviously, we’re all sore and disappointed with the way the campaign finished.

“But we set ourselves a very high bar last year and we weren’t able to replicate it, for varying reasons. We lost, or sold, three very good players and we were in the toughest group.

“But Juventus are also out and Benfica, Napoli and Shakhtar Donetsk, who have spent over £100m, didn’t make the last 16.

“It’s an unrealistic expectation to think we can make the last 16 on a regular basis.

“Financially we are way, way out of that league. We can’t compete financially but we can in football terms.

“There can be an improvement in the players that have been here for a few years and certainly in the players that have come in.

“Virgil van Dijk has done exceptionally well and there’s more to come from Boerrigter, Pukki and Biton. Balde is a work in progress.

“Maybe I’ve taken some to the wire at Champions League level and whether they can go to the well again is another thing.

“People say the players aren’t good enough. They are good enough. But for us to hit the ground running this year was very difficult in a short space of time and the group we were in.

“I live in the hope and belief in the back of my crappy old mind we can beat Barcelona, but sometimes you get a bloody nose and sometimes you win. The players can learn from it. ”

Its difficult to argue with what he says, but the odd tantrum now and again works wonders. The thunder was missing on Wednesday, replaced instead with clouds, and a chance of rain.

So, Hibernian today had better play with two goalkeepers. Teemu Pukki, given the confidence boost he needed when he was written off by Hugh Keevins , will put the Edinburgh side to the sword today, and the Flying Finn and Kris Commons will be fighting in the tunnel afterwards over the match ball-both having earned it with at least a hat trick.

If Lennon-or more likely the board-is reluctant to spend whats needed to improve the squad, then we are going to have to get behind the one we’ve got. As Lennon confirmed, the policy of buying young and selling on will continue;

“It can’t change. It can’t. We can spend significant money, so long as they are young and good enough.

“That is the strategy I have been told to work with and in the meantime try to be as successful as possible on the pitch.

“But there’s not a conveyor belt of Victor Wanyamas out there you can find every year. They don’t come along often.

“We’ve had two back-to-back campaigns in the Champions League. We had no real right to qualify for the last 16 last year but we did. Maybe we overachieved, but we did it. To go again, losing three of our best players, was always going to be a difficult in this group. Even if we’d had them, I’m not convinced we would have qualified.”

“I just hope Barcelona was a one-off. I didn’t like it and I did pull the players up for it before the game.

“You can sense it as a manager and you try to give them a bit of a gee-up before they go out but there was a nervousness to start with, we didn’t do the right things.

“I haven’t slept well since but it is what it is. In hindsight, would I have changed things? I possibly could but Charlie Mulgrew is out for the next 10 days so we were right not to start him. The only thing I can think of is that there was nothing riding on it.

“I don’t know how the fans will react against Hibs. Hopefully there will be a realisation of where we are. We were fourth seeds in the group and finished fourth. We were fourth seeds last year and finished second. It won’t happen every year.

“There might be a flatness at the game on Saturday because the Green Brigade won’t be there so it’s up to the players to get the fans going.”

Thankfully he resisted the comment about taking it on the chin again.

Between the lines there, we have a problem with the board. A major problem. They want to continue the policy of making money from Lennons achievements in developing players, but are reluctant to spend the money required to improve the team on the pitch, which is the one we go to see.

Therefore, in conclusion, they don’t give a flying fuck about the support at all.

Wheres my Celts for Change t-shirt ?

Finally, Adrian Durham, talkshite radio ? Remember him ? I stopped listening to the drivel on that station when they wouldn’t let me question Charles Green after leaving me hanging on the phone for an hour, and an exchange on twitter the other night reminded me why;

Talksport discussion.
Alex Gilbey ‏@alexgilbey8 41m
@talkSPORTDrive no chance they don’t deserve it! Not good enough!
Retweeted by Adrian Durham
View conversation Reply Retweet Favorite More

Josh ‏@Potter_Hoppo 49m
@talkSPORTDrive Celtic only get in the CL because they win the SPL easily. There are 32 better european teams out there.
Retweeted by Adrian Durham

Then Gilbey, who plays for Colchester, which is a town in england with a lower league football club, and not, surprisingly, a fungal lung complaint, added ;