Celtic Diary Tuesday January 20 Ronny Talks-And Kenny Walks !

Ronny Deila has been talking to the papers again.

He’s outlined his plans for the rest of the month.

“I have to concentrate on the games,”

“But I have a job to do in the window as well, so we will see what is happening.”

What about the players ? The ones who want to leave ? The ones who want to stay ? The ones we need to bring in ?

Well, apparently he isn’t going to speak to any of them. Which is a novel and refreshing approach.

“They are used to this now, and I’m used to it as well.

 “They know we are going to keep the players we have and, hopefully, bring some in as well.” 

Kris Commons.who wants a two year deal, but isn’t getting one because he’s 31 ?

 “I still think a deal can be done. I haven’t given that up.

“The situation is very clear. We want him, and he wants to stay.

“It’s hard to say how apart we are. But we’re in negotiations, so we’ll see what’s happening.” 

“He’s not leaving in January, We have to win the league.

“He’s a good player, and we want to keep the best ones.”

 Anyway, we’ve got our eyes on promising youngsters Darren Fletcher and Sean Maloney in case he does head to Bolton.

Some things just don’t need a comment.

Still, the players are all fit again, which is something, and with the next month likely to make or break the Norwegian, he’ll be pleased with that.

“Everyone is back training That is what we have been working towards.

“Anthony Stokes, Charlie Mulgrew, and Mikael Lustig are back. And so is Derk Boerrigter training again.

“Now it is only Tom Rogic who is not, so there is going to be a lot of competition for places.” 

With all the carry on at Ibrox on Friday, a couple of guests managed to sneak in to get a look at Celtics semi final opponents without causing too much fuss. As you can see, they were impressed by what they saw.

With someone forgetting to put ten bob in the meter, the undersoil heating didn’t get switched on, and the game was abandoned after 24 minutes, which will probably be roughly the same amount of time the semi final remains even remotely competitive.

The Celtic manager revealed that it was the first time he’s been to the home of Scotlands newest club, but he did go to watch the previous incumbents some years ago.

“I’d only been to Ibrox once before and that was about 15 years ago It was just a trip with my friends. I was still a player in Norway at the time and was just with a group of boys having fun in Glasgow. We just sat in the stand like normal guys. You’re not getting me to say it was in the Rangers end, though! I think the game was against Motherwell and Rangers won 3-0 

Fancy that, the old club cuffing Motherwell. They must have needed the points.

“It was nice to be there again on Friday, but the game shouldn’t have been played at all. There was so much snow, they could have gone cross-country skiing instead. But you get a feeling of the team and the stadium as well. They were very nice to us at Rangers on Friday night. It was quite professional, there were no problems for me being there. It was a good atmosphere.” 

If you don’t count the fighting, the sectarian singing and the  smell of decay, it probably was.

“I still got something out of it, even though the game was abandoned. I also have assistants who know the Rangers team very well. I also watch their games on TV, so I think we will be well prepared for that game. 

Er, TV ? We’ll come back to that later on…

“You learn everything from experience and the game against Rangers is going to be a new experience for me.

Its going to be a new experience for all of us. You see, back in 2012….

I’m looking forward to it. 

 You’re on your own there, son.

“Yes, you get fans telling you how big a game it will be but you get it inside the club as well. You can feel the atmosphere around this game already. But I don’t need to make it bigger than it is. We have to play a football game, that’s the most important thing. If we are going to win it, we have to play good football and that’s what we will prepare for.”

“For me, I know it is a very big game. But we have so many exciting games coming up now. It’s a semi-final and if we win it, we are in a cup final where we want to be.

“The game against Dundee in the Scottish Cup a week later is very important as well.

“The league is close just now, so you can only do one thing – which I’ve done for the last four months – and that is to think just one day ahead. You have to prepare well and see the whole picture. Everything has been very new for me here but it has been more than six months now and I feel much more prepared and confident now than I was when I started. 

“I think we have done a lot of things right in the last few weeks. Today has been the first training session where everyone has been available. That’s something I’ve been anxious to get.” 

Thankfully, he stopped talking about that game, and moved on to the Motherwell game tomorrow night, although you can sort of predict that he will say that it will be a tough game and Motherwell did well against us last time round;

“It will be a tough game on Wednesday night. Motherwell held us to a draw the last time they came to Celtic Park. That was a very disappointing day for us and it’s something we really want to bounce back from this time.” 

I have a theory.

No-one at Celtic is listening to him. All he gets when he turns up at the ground every morning is a “Hello, how you doing ” and every time he tries to start a conversation with someone, they tell him “Thats plenty”, and that they are really busy right now but will try to grab a coffee with him later.

Thats why he rambles on in the press. He’s just glad to get someones attention.

So, he’s more or less said that Celtic are not selling anyone, not buying anyone and he’s happy with his lot.

Unless he really is in charge of all matters on the fied and off it, then the next week or so could be interesting.

The Diary, and several readers, have mentioned the need to overhaul the scouting system on more than one occasion, and yesterday, without much ado, the club appointed John McGlynn, former Livingston and Hearts manager as chief scout.

At least he’s not involved in spending money, bearing in mind what happened to those two clubs, which is something, but what about his track record in finding players ?

Has he unearthed any gems ?

John , have you unearthed any little nuggets ?

Perhaps we’d better start with one on arts and literature.

Maybe we hired him for his management record….

Team	Nat	From	To	Record
G	W	D	L	Win %
Raith Rovers		November 2006	July 2012	249	106	64	79	42.57
Heart of Midlothian		July 2012	February 2013	34	10	10	14	29.41
Livingston		September 2013	December 2014	58	22	9	27	37.93
Total				341	138	83	120	40.47

Perhaps someone knows something I don’t….

Wouldn’t have thought it was him, though.

These days, with constant coverage of European football available at the touch of a button, perhaps coaches-and managers have become a little lazy. Ronny Deila, for instance, quoted at the top of the page, said he wathed games on tv.

We often hear of players signing for clubs where only video evidence-and a sweet talking agent-have been the convincing factors. Maybe we should try a new approach-or , to be more exact, an old one.

Wheres that tardis ?

In the autumn of 1963, the notion of coaches touring Europe to swot up on the latest tactical trends was almost unheard of, but the repercussions of one particular trip would ripple across European football for years to come. At the instigation of the Scottish Daily Express newspaper, Dunfermline Athletic FC manager Jock Stein and his Kilmarnock FC counterpart Willie Waddell visited Italy to study the methods of Helenio Herrera, the groundbreaking Argentinian coach of FC Internazionale Milano, a man who reportedly slept with a model of a football pitch next to his bed. 

The visit changed the entranced Scots’ lives – and their careers. “Jock saw Herrera was a man who lived football,” said Waddell, who left Kilmarnock to become a journalist before taking over at Rangers FC in 1969, “a man with the single-mindedness and driving urge to get the best out of his players.”

On leaving Milan, both men would embrace the previously unknown notion of being a ‘tracksuit manager’. One – former winger Waddell – would use the defensive template to win Kilmarnock their first league title. The other – erstwhile centre-half Stein – would dedicate himself to discovering how to break down Europe’s finest defences.

Stein never forgot the lessons he learned during his trip to Milan. In December 1965, shortly after taking over at Celtic FC, he saw Scotland lose to Italy in Naples. Afterwards, Stein took Herrera’s most articulate player, Giacinto Facchetti, to a hotel bar where, with the aid of diagrams scrawled on napkins, he picked the goalscoring left-back’s brains until the early hours. 

In 1967, with a team made up of players all born within 50km of Celtic’s Parkhead ground, Stein’s Bhoys reached the European Champions Clubs’ Cup final. The Scottish side’s opponents in Lisbon? Herrera’s Inter.

The Italian champions went into the final as clear favourites, but Stein was quietly confident. “We don’t just want to win this cup, we want to do it playing good football, to make neutrals glad we won,” he said.

Under Herrera, Inter block-booked their Muxito hotel and kept themselves isolated. The players fretted about being over-trained and, as midfielder Sandro Mazzola admitted later: “We started to be frightened of losing.” Stein was more relaxed and Celtic’s Estoril base was almost an open house to media and fans alike.

Before the final, Stein put his knowledge to good use, telling his left-back Tommy Gemmell: “Your job is to play like Facchetti, to think like Facchetti, to be Facchetti.”  

The match at the Estádio Nacional began to play out as expected, with Inter going in front early through Mazzola’s well-taken penalty. Instead of subduing Stein’s men, the goal seemed to inspire them. The manager’s homework began to pay off as Celtic pinned their illustrious opponents back, passing shortly and accurately.

Inter’s catenaccio system left gaps for full-backs Jim Craig and Gemmell to rampage forward, and the Inter defenders were drawn out to the flanks to try and stem the threat. “It felt like there were 22 Scottish players shooting at us from every direction,” said Inter centre-back Aristide Guarneri.

Gemmell was so good at playing – and thinking – like Facchetti that he equalised just after the hour mark. When Steve Chalmers put Celtic in front with seven minutes remaining, the Inter players were almost relieved. Captain Armando Picchi even admitted later: “Extra time would have brought a drubbing.”

After the final whistle, Stein was ecstatic: “I cannot find the words. These are the greatest bunch of boys I have ever met.”

Herrera, the man who had shared his thinking with Stein, was beaten. Between 1964 and 1967, ‘il Mago’ (‘the Wizard’) had won the European Champion Clubs’ Cup twice with Inter and led them to another final and semi-final. After this mauling by the Lisbon Lions, he moved on, joining AS Roma in 1968. He never won another European trophy.

The notion of “swotting up” has all but disappeared in the video age. surely it can’t do any harm to bring it back ?

Now, from one great manager to the palaver over at Ibrox, which, of course, doesn’t involve any great managers.

Kenny MacDowell is the latest Second Rangers manager to walk away before the League cup semi final with Celtic. You could be forgiven for thinking that nobody wants to be in the hot seat when they play their first match against the biggest club and the best side in Scotland. Ronny hasn’t even played them yet, and he’s seen off two of them.

MacDowell cited “personal reasons ” for tendering his resignation, which presumably means he’s been in on enough meetings to be able to report fully back to whoever left him there to ,er, sit in on meetings and report back.

We may know the real reason.

We hear that MacDowell saw how much money was in the bank to pay the next round of wages;

A replacement-we hear that theres one already on the way;

And what of the old team-the true blue crew who have now all taken to the road ?

Well, their dance routines and songs had better make up for their lack of looks, or I’m afraid the boy band idea is a non starter.

Vic Davidson and Kenny Dalglish were heading to the USA in 1970, and no doubt hoping that they would break through to the first team soon.

At least in thise days we brought our own on. Heres four we could have had.

When the game against Second Rangers comes around, if , indeed , it ever does,  we must face the hordes with humour. As Tom Campbell said yesterday in the replies, perhaps we could sing ” Bring On The Rangers ”

Etims colleague Desi mond has one idea.

Judge John Deedes masks-heres the deeds !

I’m sure yours are better…..so add them below, in a nice wee change to the usual quiz.

Oh, by the way. This Jim Murphy chap. Is he wanting a knighthood for John Grieg ?

Would that be this John Grieg ?

Right, I’m all done.

Wonder whats on the telly ?