The reputation of the diary was shattered yesterday ( what reputation ? -Ed ) when Kris Commons scored the odd goal in six minutes that gave Celtic a win over Dinamo Zagreb in the Europa League. The Diary, of course, had predicted a win by the odd goal in five….
Of course thats what I meant. what else could it have been ?
A hugely improved Celtic side played with the heart more than the head, and the supreme effort paid off. There were particularly outstanding performances from Craig Gordon, all of the defenders, despite one or two hairy moments when the heart did overrule the head, and Scott Brown and Stefan Johansen managed to harry and harass the Zagreb midfield into mostly taking potshots from distance.
The tireless Anthony Stokes and Kris Commons up front meant that the Croatian defence could never settle, and the two were unfortunate not to take advantage when a complacent keeper gave the ball way in front of goal.
The goal came when Emilio Izaguerre, who worked well with Wakaso Mubarak on the left, crossed a low ball to Commons, who forgot to take it with him on his run toward goal, but a helpful Stokes threaded it through to him, and Commons supplied the type of finish that made him the top scorer last season.
The particular scare from the defence came when all three defenders ran toward a Zagreb player in possession wide right, leaving them a man over in the middle, and it was only a superb save from Gordon that kept the Celts in the lead.
Aside from that, only Wilson Eduardo, the Zagreb winger , made any sort of impression, again with shots either straight at the keeper, or straight at the crowd.
Manager Ronny Deila praised the players , well, I think he did;
“They (Zagreb ) have a system that you can see they’ve used for a long time and they were comfortable on the ball.
“We need to have longer periods like we had in the first-half and if we do that we are going to be hard to handle.
“If we get the six points against FC Astra then we will have a good chance of going through. If you look at the average points of the teams that have gone through in the last few years I think it’s around 9.8 or something, but it seems like now there are three teams that are very equal and it will be a fight until the end.
“We know we are in a process. Some players, especially in midfield, haven’t played too many matches but they worked so hard. I’m proud of them and I know we will continue developing and we will be very good.”
He certainly singled out the excellent Craig Gordon, who on current form would have given Fraser Forster ( Who ? ) a real battle for the number one shirt;
“Craig was fantastic. He can’t do much better so what he has shown is fantastic. He is very calm and gives his defence confidence.
“We are in a good position and it’s important to win. The fans were fantastic and behind the team for the full match. That’s why Celtic have won so many games at home.
“We have to keep on but every game is different and we are looking forward to playing FC Astra.”
The club, incidentally, presumably alarmed at the lower than usual crowd last night, wasted no time in promoting the Astra games;
CELTIC moved to the top of Group D in the UEFA Europa League with an important home win over Croatian champions GNK Dinamo Zagreb last night to set up a crucial match with FC Astra in three weeks time – the first of a double header against the Romanian cup winners.
FC Astra currently prop up the table with no points from their opening two matches so the Hoops will be looking to capitalise on home advantage and stay ahead of the pack in their quest to qualify for the knock-out stages of the competition.
Manager Ronny Deila was quick to praise the fans who backed the team last night at Celtic Park saying they were “fantastic”. You can be part of club’s journey in the Europa League by being in Paradise for the FC Astra match on Thursday, October 23.
Tickets for this match and the match against FC Salzburg are now on general sale priced from £25 for Adults, from £20 for Concessions and from £17 for Under 13s.
Tickets can be purchased ONLINE, by calling 0871 226 1888* or by visiting the Celtic Ticket Office. Booking fees apply.
Season Ticket holders can purchase a single match ticket at the Season Ticket prices of £22 for Adults, £17 for Concessions and £12 for Under 13s by visiting the Celtic Ticket Office or by calling the Customer Services Line on 0141 230 1967. Booking fees apply.
The cynic in me is tempted to comment that the booking fees will be around thirty pounds, but of course they won’t be.
In fact, coupled with the two for one offer at the Hamilton game on sunday, then no wonder we’ve got no money for players.
But , we don’t need players. We’ve got a system, and somehow, it seemed to work last night even though I doubt very much that the players would be able to explain how or why.
Who cares ? We won, it was entertaining, and the players played with heart, spirit and a fair bit of skill as well. Forwards went forward, midfielders passed and tackled, and defenders defended. You cannot ask for more.
Mind you, the Scotsman pointed out the downside;
SEVENTEEN people were arrested after Celtic’s Europa League clash with Dinamo Zagreb.
Three individuals were detained at Celtic Park for alleged breach of the peace and drunk and disorderly offences while 14 were charged with similar offences in the High Street in Glasgow.
Police said that some people were caught carrying smoke bombs and CS spray canisters.
All 17 are expected to appear at Glasgow Sheriff Court today.
You can assume from the fact that they didn’t mention whose fans, that they were in fact Zagreb supporters. Otherwise the headline would have been a little different.
Seventeen Fenian terrorists attack women, children and family pets in orgy of drunken violence.
The paper wasn’t the only one a little upset at the win. Poor chick young, the BBC expert on matters football, in the same way that I’m an expert on sub-nucleonic particle physics, managed to confuse Zagreb with Belgrade. Which, in fairness, as unusual for him. Its normally his arse and his elbow he gets mixed up.
And roddy forsyth, whose name is in fact rhyming slang, made a big fuss over Celtic tweeting that John Guidetti was starting the game, when , in fact UEFA tend to go offthe official teamsheets they are given, and not sit waiting for someone to pass them the line up via social media;
Red-faced Celtic officials had to move quickly to change the team line-ups they tweeted ahead of Thursday night’s Europa League tie against Dinamo Zagreb after they named the ineligible John Guidetti as striker.
Guidetti, who arrived on loan from Manchester City during the recent transfer window, was not registered in time to play in the tournament and the official team sheet showed Anthony Stokes as spearhead of the Hoops attack.
However, it was an embarrassing lapse in view of the blunder made by Legia Warsaw in their Champions League third round qualifier against Celtic at Murrayfield.
The Polish side fielded a player who was, because of a registration technicality, officially suspended for the tie.
Hang on, Roddy-how about reminding us of the earlier European results while you are at it ?
Legia won 4-1 in Warsaw and 2-0 in Edinburgh but Uefa ruled that the second leg should be a rollover 3-0 victory for Celtic, who were restored to the tournament on the basis of Callum McGregor’s away goal.
Ronny Deila’s team were subsequently eliminated in the play-offs by Maribor of Slovenia.
When the Maribor captain, Marcos Tavares, scored the goal that consigned Celtic to the Europa League, Legia tweeted “#footballwon”, a message that was retweeted more than 9,000 times
With Keith Jackson receiving a ban from Celtic Park-nothing specific, he’s just a loon, – then Roddy should be a little more careful, because soon these papers might be forced to employ journalists who don’t have an agenda….
So, all in all, theres a spring back in our steps today.
In fact, I’m as happy as a Wonga customer who has just had his debt written off. Wonga, the company that lends you a tenner and asks for £100 back, have written off £220m worth of unpaid debt. A figure that is expected to pass the £500m mark if they don’t hurry up and do it.
Sober October is underway, a campaign to encourage people to quit drinking for a month. That’s something everyone should consider, as it would mean less queuing at the bar for us professional alcoholics.
I’m not actually an alcoholic. They go to meetings, I’m a drunk.
And I’m not a quitter.
Your a so right Ralph. Not only the Scotsman headline but they contrived to post it alongside a picture of the Green Brigade.
Do you think they might have an unhidden agenda?
“We know we are in a process. Some players, especially in midfield, haven’t played too many matches but they worked so hard. I’m proud of them and I know we will continue developing and we will be very good.”
Yes I think he praised them as well.
Again I listened to his comments and I agree with everything he says, I think even his doubters agree with what he says but are frustrated by the lack of “walking the walk” at the present time.
That was a good team last night, lacking a cutting edge you could argue, and the performance could be greatly improved on; but Deila quite openly identifies the need to improve the consistency of our play. I do hope this consistency comes sooner rather than later because as soon as it does the fans (who have every reason to harbour doubts) can start to warm to him.
Forced to agree that we looked a bit better last night, heart or head, I am really not sure but we got there in the end. Trying not to be critical, which is hard, the same tactics hurt us every time. When we go ahead the opposition play a high midfield line that stops us passing the ball through the midfield. This makes it hard to clear our lines or feed the ball to our strikers which puts us under pressure at the back. We coped well enough at the back last night and as Ralph said, left them hitting pot shots from distance, well most of the time. Craig Gordon was immense. Here is a wee tip for free Ronnie, it’s called the long ball, sometime straight sometimes diagonal, but it makes the opposition midfield turn and face their own goal and eases the pressure on the our defence. I know it’s not sexy or silky but it has it’s place and last night we could have used it to better effect.
One more gripe then I am off to boil ma heid! Why mention six points off Astra? The Romanian’s will already be plastering this on the dressing room walls, It translates into “thon Diela thinks were shite”. For once Ronnie shut the f##k up and just enjoy the win!.
Ralph Good to see you admit that your doubts over RD were ott . I’m not saying he’s the real deal – more like work in progress , the guy was landed a thankless task when he arrived. I totally agree with his philosophy regarding fitness levels.
Craig Gordon is miles better than FF , his one weakness i would like to see am improvement in his parrying ball back into play , i believe this will be addressed as we have an excellent goalkeeping coach.
Dynamo were an excellenet team and had they finished better we probably would have nil points.
NB: Chick Hun, last night, said words to this effect. I don’t why Delia’s been going on about fitness all week. His players were knackered at the end of the game but Dinamo weren’t.
I couldnae believe the guy on BT who interviewed Ronny five minutes before the game started asking him about the bust up wae Lennon that they made up. That’s what the mhan’s up against!
‘There were particularly outstanding performances from Craig Gordon, all of the defenders…’ What game were you watching, Effin Ambrose was shocking again, 3 good challenges don’t make up for a lack of positional sense and physical presence. His passing was also poor. It was a whole hearted performance but the second half was just holding on. the team was too deep again and their midfielders had too much time on the ball at stages in the second half. I was shocked with Commons, Brown and Johansson’s fitness levels, both looked heavy legged after 50 mins, looks like they are being overtrained (maybe). But I do have to say that it was a much better performance in the first half and that is hopefully a sign of what is to come
HH.
aint life grand COYBIG
we’re getting there but it was clear to me last night that we are still watching a team trying to learn a system and trying to familiarise themselves with combinations. The amount of passes where one player thought another was going to be running into space and wasn’t was shocking! I do believe though that will come with time. DZ are a very decent team; doubt we’ll scrape anything in Croatia, but you never know. I believe we’ll improve with every single game; this time next year I hope we will look back on Maribor as a massive blessing in disguise as Ronny gets the chance to build his team in the Europa League without the pressure he’d have faced in the CL. It was the same path that turned us from thinking Lenny was a dud to actually believing in him…….
Totally agree with this.
I thought Ambrose played quite well last night and I noticed no one has pickedup the fact Van Dijks positioning at times and urgency nearly cost us dear last night?
Commons scored the vital goal so Kudos for that but his final touch and grafting are well below the standards set by Stokes alongside him.
Kayalmeade a decent impact though I think he should have hooked Commons sooner myself as Brown and Johansen started to tire.
A very good result against a decent passing side with an excellent performance by Gordon in goals.
Fraser who?
I thought we rode our luck, Gordon’s saves stopped us from shipping at least 3. Their keeper was a bombscare but we didn’t put him under enough pressure. Still think the formation is ineffective and we make the opposition look better than they are. We might have been second best on the pitch but we got three points.
Belgrade are an average team in Europe like Salzburg but they are both miles better than us at football. We won last night through guts. Its always gonnae be like this unless it gets worse so get used to it folks. Crowd were immense last night. Welcome back Green Brigade. People like Forsyth shouldnae be getting mentioned Ralph.
Is this a whoosh ? As they say in Kerrydale St ?
It was Zagreb !!
This could be a turning point or a lucky escape.
£ for £ Kris Commons is as good a bargain as Billy Stark, Lubo Moravcik were previously. Yeah I get his fist touch is erratic at times but he along with Craig Gordon (probably the best signing Deila never made) made the difference last night.
Good result.Was the manager as s***e as was mentioned non-stop here previously?
I think he isn’t a mug, has a long-term plan…and will take us up to the next level… he may or may not be THE ANSWER…but FFS just lay off him and give him a chance!
Hailhail!
Welcome back,Marko.
You have seen the light,and rejoined to post your views.Good on you.All we need now is a win over table-toppers,Hamilton, and everything in the garden is rosy.
Thanks HS.
I guess I just couldn’t stay away:)
Table-topping Hamilton-bet you never thought you would be writing that in October!
The Scotsman wasn’t as bad as the BBC, whose headlinen “Police at Celtic’s Europa League game arrest 17 people” hid the fact that only four were made inside the stadium. So not at the game then.
That picture above , of the 3 players all going to the man on the ball, whilst the striker is left completely alone in the box should be put up on the wall of the Celtic changing room. It’s a shocker!!
This win is massive cause it buys us time , but huge work is needed in defence. Gordon continually exposed , and but for him , this script would be SO different, I fear we would be looking at 2 heavy Warsaw type defeats( to Salzburg and Zagreb) were it not for the keeper.
I know that’s his job , but the fragile defending needs addressing ASAP.
Don’t like this talk of ” we restricted them ” to this shot or that. It suggests our defence was in control. The pic above should dispel that notion.
Last night saw signs of improvement , except in defence.With better finishing ( even with Gordon) we’d have conceded several goals.
My point is , no matter how we improve elsewhere on the pitch , if this defending isn’t dealt with we’ll constantly find ourselves chasing games and – only a great keeper and some luck – away from a Legia type tanking , in Europe anyway.
Must have been at a different game we were shit yet again,only saved by the goalie,and johannsen is rubbish ,bring back Ledley,
Delia talks crap he has no tactical nouse,and continually plays his favourites the norwegian duds
Cancel your tv licence to the bias scum that are bbc scotland you don’t need a licence if you watch catch up tv write to them and tell them you are withdrawing access rights to your property and if capita who act on their behalf come calling they are trespassing and may be arrested. Also don’t buy the rags and they will fold sooner rather than later. Be sure to look out for The asterisk years about the Edinburgh establishments efforts to down Celtic FC.
Well lucas eye ,that,s so much tripe you must have voted yes
loser
Deadhead see your still spouting your poison on this website why not go back to follow follow or better still go and iron your skirt for school.
Like you Ralph,I alway’s new Ronny was the REAL DEAL Deila.
Okay,one swallow doesn’t make a summer.And we have a long way to go.But,if it wasn’t for our SUPERIOR FITNESS,the game would have been lost.Only jesting.As said,yesterday,if RD get’s team shape and tactics right,I’ll start believing.Apart from
Tonev( I’d sent back to Villa,if found guilty,at the kangaroo
court)the team was the most effective,Ronny could put out.
Yes,we carried alot of luck.But,if ever a goalie,deserved a clean sheet,then nobody could grudge Gordon his glory.
A long way to go for Ronny.However,at least promising
signs,will start to win the doubters,like myself,over.
Good mature European performance last night. A step forward under Deila’s reign. Long May it continue.
When we get all our injured players back and Guidetti in the EL squad I reckon we’ll be flying.
Getting 3 points were the crucial part of last night. We should be good enough to take something from Astra – even 4 points would be welcome – then we can see how Dinamo & Salzburg do – someone’s dropping points there – and we’ll know what we have to do to get out of the group stages in the remaining 2 games.
If we get through, Scepovic, Forrest, Guidetti, Lustig, Matthews, Fisher & Mulgrew should all be available, to give us even more options.
Can everyone please ignore dickhead’s comments – don’t even read them and maybe he’ll go away.
Thought Efe played well last night. Berget, not so well.
Desi.
“Sevco” = Jason Denayer.
Explain please.
Pellegrini or Deila said he was the new Kompany
As he has been tagged as “The new Kompany”, Scott Brown called him Sevco!
can you stop showing them creepy pics o Ronny and Johnny gazing into each others eyes,like the poster for a very bad rom-com.
not that there’s anything wrong with that kinda thing.
Aye . This is a good Celtic team is it? My arse. That pic of the 3 players chasing 1 ball is what you work on with primary school kids, and though it was the most glaring example this is what happens to n areas all over the pitch. And its knackering us by the way. Individuals working together won us the game last night, not a team unit or game plan from the 2 PE teachers.
Full credit to the players and their terrific effort, they deserved their win.
John Collins a PE teacher??? Are you serious???Played for Celtic, Monaco, Everton and Fulham and you call him a PE teacher…lack of respect man and a pretty silly comment-you may not rate him ,his tactics or his training methods but he was an exceptional player-PE teacher, my arse.
I’ve every respect for him as a player. He’s not a player at the moment, he’s a coach which is entirely different. That’s the basis I was commenting on, and on the here and now. Not in his own personal achievements in the past in a completely different role.
The PE teacher comment was an accented expression of how I feel both of them are out of their depth. Capiche?
Unconvincing & lucky spring to mind.
If Celtic make the semi finals of the Europa Egg Cup I will eat my hat.
Thanks, Andy. All is now clear.