Celtic Diary Monday December 30

Kris Commons , as predicted in the Diary yesterday, got the first goal and Celtic went on to win by the odd goal up at Inverness. ( If you check the diary, please delete , in your own minds, the words “in five ” that follow the words “odd goal ” and you’ll agree that our expert panel, were spot on with their prediction.)

Thats the closest that the diary has ever come to getting anything right.

With yesterdays win, the club has reached New Year undefeated in the league, and that means Neil Lennon has become only the third manager in the clubs history to do this. The others being John Barnes  and Liam Brady.

( I know. It was Willie Maley and Martin O’ Neill. Liam Bradys team never made it until tea time without a defeat, and Barnes was fired because we are all racists and should have given him more time to work out what a football manager actually does. So he says, anyway. )

Its safe to say that the match itself was another of those where each supporter sees a different game. Despite the early goal, smartly taken by Commons after some neat passing on the edge of the box, the inclusion of Samaras and Forrest meant that Joe Ledley and Scott Brown had their work cut out against a tireless Inverness midfield, consisting at times of all their players, most of their groundstaff and at least a dozen supporters.

All of whom were inspired by Ross Draper, the lumbering midfielder who flung both players and referees around, playing with a finesse not seen since this guy.

It wasn’t an easy game, it never is up there. but playing with two wingers doesn’t work. It restricts the full backs and leaves us lightweight in the middle. Where we then proceed to get over-run.

Stick with the 4-4-2 and practice it for next year.

I could go on for pages about the lack of excitement in yesterday game, and try even to use the time of year as an excuse, ( I just did, and deleted it ) but its three points in the bag, and another small step on the way to the title.

Lennon himself seemed pleased with the result, and with Kris Commons;

“Kris is wonderful and he is in wonderful form. Commons has been huge for me in the past couple of years.

“He is maturing and at the peak of his career. The goal was brilliant and when you see Kris in those positions you get disappointed when he doesn’t score.”

“There are times you have to be physical and grind it out.

That’s what we’ve done in the last two games.

“We were not taking care of the ball but that’s just a little thing.

“I’m delighted with where we are and the clean sheets. I’m pretty sure there will be a flood of goals coming pretty soon. We’ve scored in every league game this year. That’s quite an achievement.”

It is- regardless of what others might say. An optimist might say we are just a couple of players away from a great side. A pessismist would add that it’ll be Lennon who chooses the players.

The clean sheet yesterday was the sixth consecutive domestically, and this idea of building from the back-for the first time ever in the history of the club-is taking us all by surprise.

Not Lennon, though;

“The introduction of Virgil van Dijk has certainly made us better defensively.

“We have two or three excellent full-backs –three and a half if you consider young Darnell Fisher playing very well. Lustig, Matthews and Izaguirre have been a picture of consistency all season. They have given us a real foundation.

“We are building and want to inject freshness into the squad.”

He took time to mention yesterdays “come and get me ” plea from Swedish superstar Zlatan Ibrahimovic;

“He’d have to play well to get in our team. ”

Lennon looked fairly bewildered as people seemed to take this as a joke…it would mean dropping either Samaras or Forrest, so I don’t think he was kidding.

Mahmoud Hassan, the Egyptian youngster who has dubbed “Trezeguet “, says he wants to come to Celtic;

“Celtic made a bid of 500,000 euros and I think that’s a very fair offer.

“The club have refused the offer because they insist they need me – but they have a couple of players coming into the club in January.

“Celtic are a big club and their coach told me he wants me. They watched me at the Club World Cup.

“I think it would be an important step in my career to move to a bigger club.

“I’ve informed the club I want to leave and I hope they grant me my wish.”

Neil Lennon says he hasn’t got the faintest idea what he’s talking about, and Celtic have  made no such offer.

Oliver Norwood is coming, if you believe the bookies, who have the east end of Glasgow as his destination, but that is countered by what Lennon said;

“We are hoping to start getting into the market over the next week or so. We’ve made slight inroads but are nowhere near anything.”

Elsewhere, it seems that Allan MacGregor, the former keeper at first Rangers has suddenly decided to try to clear his name. Perhaps its the drink talking, but this set of tweets seems to say that he didn’t make more money after leaving the old club after all. And he defies anyone who says he did

Somewhere, theres a story waiting to be told by those who “walked away “, if anyone has the balls to print it.

But the press will still stick to the usual guff-including a bizarre interview with Ally McCoist, who says he will need cash to start building a team to stop Celtic winning ten in a row. He’d be better using the money to build a shelter.

He’ll need it when his supporters finally see through him.

The return of bizarre refereeing at the Second Rangers -Stranraer game prompted fears that the old order isn’t going to relinquish its grip on the game just yet, and its still a perilous time to be a goat, so be careful out there.

The clip in the quiz showed that it wasn’t a penalty after all, and thats just going by the reaction of the other players when the “offence ” was committed.

Now, the big Glasgow derby is just a couple of days away.

Have a look at this picture. One of the players in it has a son currently at Partick. Who ?