Watching Honduras in the World Cup, you could have been forgiven for thinking it was an Emilio Izaguerre look a like in the national colours. A mean streak that was never evident in our own Izzy seemed to have come to the fore, and the little chap became a thoroughly unpleasant individual. Then, at half time in the Ecuadot game, the real Izzy returned and apparently told his manager, Luis Suarez, ( which probably explains everything ) that he didn’t know what he was doing and got himself pulled off-which seems an odd way of settling a disagreement-and dropped for the final group game against Switzerland last night.
What is it about people called Luis Suarez and damaging people ? Just give us our Izzy back and we’ll forget all about it.
Speaking of Suarez, we hear Liverpool are not going to sack him, but have lined up a move to German cracks Borrusia Munchyacentreback.
Look, theres good money in crap jokes and an inability to deliver them properly;
Having a BBC comedy producer for a Dad has also been known to help.
Another Celt made it through to the group stages with his country last night, as Efe ambrose and Nigeria joined Georgios Samaras in the last sixteen.
Funny how its our two most, er, unpredictable, players who get to the very highest level…
Oh, and if you are about to point out that Samaras isn’t our player any more, you might want to hold off for a couple of days….despite the Everton stories..
We really shouldn’t listen to people when they’ve had a couple of beers, but hell, sometimes you can’t help it.
Perhaps its because we want to believe them.
Look, anyone who can bring this much happiness to a wee boy who isn’t very well should be treasured…
wee jay watching Samaras score for Greece.
That video shows what our players and our club should be all about. God bless the wee man, and the big man for making him happy. Again.
UEFA confirmed the Celtic banked around £14.5m from the Champions League last season. Surely a couple of quid from that could go towards giving a man who has given us seven years and invaluable publicity what he wants to stay ?
Neil Lennon, the former Celtic manager , doesn’t look like Margaret Thatcher. He doesn’t sound like Margaret Thatcher, but he’s behaving like her.
When the old witch was ousted from her job as Prime Minister, after a couple of weeks break cruising on the River Styx with her old pal with the horns, Thatcher came back to haunt her successor John Major from the back benches.
She offfered her opinion on everything, and that meant Major was trying to ignore two women who could have destroyed him, with Edwina Currie still texting him and calling him “Big Boy ”
Lennon currently can’t stay out of the papers, and he’s been on the telly as well. He gives the impresssion that he is still Celtic manager, and refers to players as though he s still their boss. Then he spoke to the Evening Times..
The question of players being held back from appearing for their country has been in the news, with Harry Redknapp-also bitter about not being in a a job he wanted- said when he was at Tottenham, players used to interrupt his accounting classes to tell him they didn’t want to go away and play for England.
Lennon was asked the about Celtic players. Did he put pressure on them to turn down the chance of an international cap ?
“Absolutely. Of course I did. There comes a time in the season when you are playing Champions League, you are playing league games, cup games and then you have friendlies.
“You may have players who have played 40-odd international games already, do they need to go and play an extra game in an Eastern European country?
“They train on the Monday, travel on Tuesday, play on Wednesday and you won’t get them back till Thursday or Friday. I have had international players from Japan and South Korea. They leave on the Sunday after the Saturday game and I don’t see them again until the Friday, before a 12.30 kick-off, maybe in Aberdeen.”
And yet he tried to talk Kris Commons out of retiring from the Scotland team….which in turn meant that Gordon Strachan, reading the article, could put his phone back down.
Kris decided he wanted to stop playing for Scotland, he wanted to spend more time with his family. Now you can read between the lines into that.
“I wasn’t too happy with his decision, I tried to talk him out of it but you have to respect his decision in the end. He went on to have a great season for us and was Player of the Year. In the back of my mind I am thinking ‘he doesn’t fancy doing the travelling for two weeks and making a cameo appearance here and there’.”
Yes, I can read between the lines there. Kris wanted to spend more time with his family. Despite what Lennon said, you get the impression that Commons and his wife like each other, and want to spend time together. Some couples are like that.
Maybe someone could give Lennon a wee nudge and perhaps a holiday brochure.
Don’t spoil the memories…
Scott Brown is looking ahead to the first season without his mentor, and says Celtic will be ready to go when we eventually find out when the game against Reykjavik will be.
” The main thing is that the new manager gets into it and sees how we are building up and how we are going to perform, and get the formation and team settled by then.
“Everyone is in good shape. The lads are pros and always keep themselves ticking over in the off-season.
“We get schedules of what we should be doing and what we shouldn’t be doing and the lads have stuck to that well.
“The sports scientists focused on it and tried to get us all in tip-top shape for the new manager coming in.”
Fair enough, but will he be challenging John Collins to a square go on the car park after class ?
After all, thats the important bit. ( Copyright MSM )
There will always be negatives here and there and people trying to stir it, but we have just got to focus on the positives.
“It is two good management staff that have come in and it is going to be good for us.
“He (Deila) phoned me and said who he was going to be bringing in. It has been good so far. It has been interesting.
“John has come in and everyone is making it a big issue, but me and John have got on fine, there have been no hard feelings whatsoever.
“It has all been positive and hopefully that continues.
“It is all about not falling out with people. You know that someone could come back around the corner and you could work with them again.
“I knew John might be working at Celtic at some point because he is a legend here. There was always that possibility.”
Then he dropped a bombshell…
But Brown has kept himself busy during the close-season by starting a Uefa B Licence coaching course at Largs.
He said: “I think it’s good for any professional to learn that aspect of the game, though.
“It shows you what goes on behind the scenes and that it’s not about turning up and putting out cones.
“There is a lot of planning and a lot of thinking that goes into it.”
Is he growing up ? Are we going to get a mature Scott Brown leading from the front ?
As Derek Johnstone , the Radio Clyde football expert-( thats a sentence thats making its debut in outwith English fiction ) would say, “it’ll be like a new signing ”
Although we don’t yet know when the Champions League qualifier against Reykjavik will take place, we do know where it will happen.
This is Murrayfield, which hasn’t had its name changed yet, probably because its nothing to do with Dodgy Dave, and Celtic could be the first to play on the new worm free pitch.
Celtic will be first beneficiaries of new worm-free Murrayfield
pitch when they play Champions League qualifier at home
of Scotland’s rugby team
See, told you. I
ts in the Daily Mail, next to the “get your jackboots ready for the winter ” advert
Gregor Townsend, the 82-times capped former Scotland star who is now head coach at Glasgow Warriors, said
Townsend, the 82-times capped former Scotland star who is now head coach at Glasgow Warriors, said: ‘The surface will be great for Celtic to play on. On top of that I am sure the team and the fans will enjoy playing the match at Murrayfield.
‘The capacity is around 67,000, which I think is similar to Celtic Park, and I expect there will be a great atmosphere.
I remember going to a friendly match between Hearts and Barcelona at Murrayfield a few years ago and it was a fantastic occasion.
‘I am sure the Celtic match at Murrayfield will also be a fantastic match in a fantastic venue and a lot of Celtic fans through in the east of Scotland will already have their tickets.
‘It will be great if Celtic win the match and it is great to see football and rugby working together.’
So, the manager is untested, the assistant is untested, the pitch is untested and we’ve never played at the ground before.
Oh, and we don’t know when the game will be, so we can’t make plans to support the team.
Am I on the point of spotting where things might go wrong ?
Yesterday , we asked what was wrong with the picture of Ian Wright and Regi Blinker , two players who were better described in rhyming slang, and the answer, from none other than Etims colleague Desi mond, was “Everything ”
Today, another reason to consider ourselves lucky. Who is this guy, bought in to shore up the defence…
Gary Gillespie pronounced hill-s-pie by the Ekeren announcer
Gazza Gillespie
Gary Gillespie
Giving contracts to inconsistent, frequent underperformers purely for sentimental reasons? Lordy dordy
How much are we getting for hosting the games that celebrate our terrible past,better be about 14.5 million,as that we could lose if we don’t qualify
Lawwell out out out
I’ve already pointed out the reason for CP being used for the Commonwealth Games, but you probably deliberately ignored it.
The Commonwealth Games in Glasgow were planned 10 years ago. Celtic Park benefitted greatly from the investment in the surrounding area and I think money was also spent on the stadium (take a trip up and see the improvements around CP).
10 years ago there was no thoughts of having to pre-qualify for the CL. 10 years ago PL made a deal that would benefit Celtic (and the supporters, he wasn’t to know that UEFA would move the goal posts (or indeed if we were even likely to be in the CL).
If we are not confident of getting through the qualifiers, we have absolutely no chance of doing anything in the group stages
I was at Gary’s first game against Falkirk and he was incredible, scoring at least 1 (possibly 2?). Fantastic on the ball, clearly a class act. Fast forward a couple of months and I recall him hobbling off to be substituted with a voice from the jungle shouting, ‘we’ll see you next month Gillespie’.
Pity.
I remember a very windy Broomfield when a clearance from GG landed behind himself.I think it was the last game of the season, we drew 0-0 and failed to qualify for Europe.
Was it the last game played there?
Gary the rigger Gillespie, scored a cracking goal, waltzing through the Falkirk (I think) defence and slotting home, felt as if he played 2 games and was injured for 6. Still a real class act.
Being a wee boy in Ireland at the time I didnt get to see Gillespie play, but recall being excited by him signing from all conquering Liverpool, which turned into “he doesnt seem to play that often” which turned to “Gary who?”
Another in the pantheon of playes we have signed amid great excitment who turned out to be a massive disappointment.
Thats why I don’t get too involved in the whole “we need to buy a £6m pound stiker” argument- aside from Lenny, Sutton & Hartson who all signed in or around the same time, we have never spent big, and when we have or when we have got a “name” in they have rarely been a success: Juninho, Berkovic, Martin Hayes, Stuart Slater, Tony Cascarino ooh better stop, I ll make myself cry.
Ralph
Any other player as inconsistent and frustrating as Big Sammy would have me playing the fiddle (now, how appropriate would that be) outside Ibrox for the fare to send him anywhere. But Sammy has just got something very special about him and I am coming round to your way of thinking that he is a figurehead for the Celtic ethos that might just be worth investing in for a wee while longer. After all, look what is invested in London Lizzie and she does nout for Celtic. More seriously, he does more for ethos, in my opinion, than a certain CEO does. He might even be used to instil some “Celticness” into the hearts of the less committed players and the young guns. A price worth paying? If I had dads like him, Izze and Kris, I would support gay marriage and polygamy tomorrow.
As for Lenny, I agree. He is definitely risking his reputation with his current attitude. I can understand it is difficult to not refer to Celtic as still his club in such a short time but, for someone who found himself in the limelight for all the wrong reasons when he was manager, he does seem to be rather overtly courting the same media dobermans that would have mauled him to death at any given opportunity a few months ago. I feel his head is just a tiny wee bit too far above the parapet right now.
Yes, Garry Gillespie the never ever man. I think his middle names were James and Forrest. Both he and James must have plaques dedicated to them on the treatment table. I have to admit, in spite of his very rare appearances, I saw more talent in Gillespie than I do in Forrest. So, what does that tell you? Everton very quickly?
H H
Everyone I see Lennon now he looks like a man that has just missed the bus
…..or shat his pants & can smell it.