Mikael Lustig revealed yesterday that he’s still not one hundred per cent fit. The big Swede confessed that he has to take painkillers to get through games, and given his track record, it’s fair to say we’re not going to get a full season out of him.
Therein lies the dilemma facing Ronny Deila ahead of tomorrow’s visit from Icelandic champions Stjarnan.
And therein lies the reason why although we are pretty confident of progressing through this tie, one or two among the support may be starting to get the jitters. Which explains the worry about Lustig, who is probably fine.
But…
A few years ago, Efe ambrose leapt off a plane, told Neil Lennon he was fit and raring to go for that nights game against Juventus, and it backfired spectacularly. ambrose, a more than decent defender saw his reputation plummet that night, and it’s never fully recovered.
If Lustig isn’t one hundred per cent, should Deila risk him ?
Lustig himself says he’ll be okay;
“I can give 100 per cent but the foot is still quite swollen,
“But they say it’s going to be like that for a while so I just need to go through that.
“It could be up to a year before it’s back to normal but it could be worse.
“It is my ankle ligaments. I take painkillers when we play games but not for training.
“I have trained for three weeks and it’s getting better.
“It has been frustrating. I got some muscle injuries at the start of last season. When I got my second one, I thought, ‘I need to do this properly and take a couple of weeks extra’.
“I did that but then after two games I got the foot injury and was a little bit unlucky. I was frustrated but it’s over now.”
Whilst it’s admirable that he is willing to play with painkillers, and he should know his own body better than anyone, the doubt remains that his desire to play may be overruling any risk to his longer term fitness.
As we have seen, it’s better to wait until a player is completely recovered, than to play him because he says he’s fine.
Maybe Lustig should be shown that video where Bobby Murdoch talks about the long term damage he did to his ankles, or perhaps he could ring Paul McStay.
If there is even the slightest doubt about Lustig, he should not play.
Celtic beat a Morton XI 3-1 last night in a testimonail for Andy Bryan, the Morton kitman who is heading to Stoke city after serving the Greenock club for 37 years, and he’s still only 46.
Now there’s a man who will have a story or two to tell, and he’s coming to Stoke. If you see him, tell him I’ll buy the first beer….
Anthony Stokes and Stefan Scepovic scored a goal each, and they were quite pleased when Ronny told them they could have a couple of days off as a treat…. The other goal came from Luke Donnelly, who is starting to get noticed and may well be the next player to break through to the first team. As one journey ends, another begins, I suppose.
Stokes has been a great servant, but it seems his time is up. And although Scepovic has been promised a run in the team, it’s looking more like he’ll be away later as well.
We need three strikers, but there’s plenty of cover for Ciftci and Griffiths elsewhere, with Kris Commons likely to be the spare man for all positions forward of Brown and Biton.
With regard to tomorrow’s game, Deila wasn’t giving much away as to who will start;
“Most of the positions take care of themselves in terms of who will start, but there are still one or two that I have not entirely settled 100 per cent,”
“I think that at this stage of the season when there are a few new players into the team you have to look at how they are gelling with the team and take it from there.”
We did get hold of what he’s decided so far, according to our resident drunk… who stole a memo Ronny sent to John Collins…
John,
So far I’ve got Craig in goal and Broony in the middle…
Thoughts….
R
Which is pretty much the same as any other game, to be fair.
But, there is concern over the reply….
Ronny
Have you seen this ?
Brown toenail video..
J
John,
Fuck .
We clicked on the link….
Celtic Captain Scott Brown Gets Part of His Toenail
Removed in Gruesome Video
Perhaps he’ll be alright…
Ronny’s dilemma’s will be around Lustig’s fitness or Janko. Ambrose or Boyata ? , and any two from Armstrong, Mackay Steven, or Forrest.
Everything else is settled.
Opponents Stjarnan flew into town yesterday, and seemed fairly relaxed. The club tweeted;
Glasgow seems like a nice city with friendly and helpful people #ThankYou
Wonder what they would have thought had they been here for the weekend ?
Thankfully, Stjarnan will not have to experience the culture of some of Glasgow’s peepil.
You see, when this kind of “culture ” is encouraged, it taints the rest of us. Have a look at this, from i24 news;
Someone must have sent the bhoys round, though, as it was later amended.
Tell you something, whatever it is Beitar are doing it must be really bad if it can shame Israeli society….
The claim in the first quote is simply not true, and rightly, it’s been removed, but one has to question the writers motives. Yet it’s inclusion is not central to the author’s point, and it appears to have been added simply to justify the anti Catholicism which was inherent at Rangers.
You’ll notice the exclusion in the second piece actually strengthens the point about exclusive signing policies, which are in place for no other reason than bigotry.
There’s sinister reporting, and then there’s this;
Kids will be looking in the paper for news about the game. We need kids to be encouraged to go to the football. Maybe I’m a little out of touch here, but there’s something distasteful about this headline.
It surprises me they have used it, considering the “reading age ” of the paper, which determines the style of writng within it’s pages, is seven.
Am I the only one who thinks that a newspaper is not the place for this kind of story ?
Speaking of distasteful and offensive, Islamophobic homophobe Chris Graham, former Second Rangers director, has sprung to the defence of Lyndsey Sharp after the generously toothed athlete was slammed for repeating a bigoted and offensive chant on twitter.
Graham tweeted;
Keep your head up @LynseySharp. Interesting how keen certain elements of Scottish press are to have a go at anyone publicly supporting RFC.
Who the hell would want to put his head up Lyndsey Sharp ?
Or is that another one of Graham’s “hilarious” drawings ?
Still, Graham could always turn to this chap if he’s unsure how to console Sharp;
@ChrisGraham76 @LynseySharp Maybe you could draw her a picture of a religious leader wanking off a fictional character to cheer her up?
Quote of the Day comes from Lee McCulloch. The man who was Ally McCoists lieutenant on the pitch during their time together at plauck new club Second rangers had this to say about his now allotment based former boss;
. He was a man mountain when it came to shielding the players
Fair enough. He’s hiding a couple in this picture;
Ally Hunter was the player in the picture yesterday, evoking memories of when Celtic goalkeeper policy seemed to be based largely on whether or not they had their own gloves.
Today, these two players went across the Atlantic. Who are they, and which team did they join ?
By the way, you’ll notice that there’s no roof over the seating. Unlike Scotland, thats because it doesn’t rain where they are.
Looks like Tommy Callaghan and Roy Bain. Don’t know the team though?
Tommy Callaghan and Harry Hood, I guess Qatar
TC and Harry Hood at San Antonio Thunder, the only club to have more stars on the jersey than the sons of satan.
tommy callaghan and harry hood as San Antonio Thunder
I don’t think LUstig has looked anywhere near match ready in pre Season.
He keeps hinting about being called upon to move into the CB berth if need be and I think that is because he struggles to do the overlapping required at Celtic.
I would start with Fisher who looked 100% at it against Sociedad and have Efe on the bench as back up foe both the RB and CB positions along with Mulgrew covering the LB cb DM positions.
It might take Lustig a good 3 months to get back to full strength conditioning wise as he has had a long lay off.
No point risking him again and given the state of play with Forrest (Ronny rested him for recovery reasons remember)I don’t think Ronny will.
I think the side picks itself at the moment with perhaps the only position in doubt the Striking role.
Ciftci or Griffiths?
I’d go with Griffiths for 60 then bring on Ciftci for the remainder.
4-2-3-1
………….GORDON
.
FISHER..BOYATA.VIRGIL..IZAGUIRRE
.
…….BROWN…BITTON
.
GM-S…JOHANSEN…..ARMSTONG
.
……..GRIFFITHS
Subs:FASAN AMBROSE MULGREW FORREST ROGIC CIFTCI SCEPOVIC
Virgil is suspended for the game Charlie, but your’e right about Lustig, he seems well off the pace at the moment.
Charlie Saiz – Don’t fancy putting Janko anywhere on that bench? Thought he looked much more solid on the ball from his appearance against Real Sociedad.
Insert Mulgrew for Virgil and Janko for Mulgrew that takes care of cover for Izzy.
Forgot Virgil got carded at Inter.
San antinio thunder was the team I think – Tommy callaghan and Harry Hood in the pictures wonder how it felt playing in red white and blue.
Hope our lion Scott Brown is up for it this week. Hope that toe nail was not the only thing keeping him angry and mean.
Big Spam and handbag Harry, the last player to score a hat trick against the deceased. Got Spam’s autograph at Pontin’s holiday camp in 75. No flashy foreign holidays in those days for the players or the fans. I would say happy days, but in fact it was s shite holiday. Pontins was crap and not a patch on Butlins. Never made the same mistake and it was a return to Butlins for the next few years unitl it too lost it’s lustre.
Don’t know the players.
Interesting that Chwissy supports Lyndsey Sharp for supporting ‘Rangers’. To my mind he’s willfully missing the point, it’s got nothing to do with what team she follows and everything to do with using something as awful as child abuse for pathetic point scoring. Any Celtic fan who made jokes about the Ibrox disaster should be criticised, and the same goes here, some things really are more important than football, and both Sharp and Graham show themselves up to be the horrible huns they are. Word deliberately chosen.
Hardly surprising Chris “Chuck the Blazer” Graham came out in support of Sharp and attempted to bend things backwards to suggest critics were “attacking” her because of some perceived anti wee arra peepil agenda. – That’s what he does every time : Deflect attention/refuse to condemn/encourage fellow monobrow cyberneds.
As we know, Graham was chief smearleader behind the scurrilous innuendo of the original BJK slur; Sharp stupid enough to publically announce her support & membership of Graham’s RST group. RST are the driving force which allowed Simba to oust the previous regime at Ibrokes (with majority support) earning him a directors blazer, which lasted all of 48 hours before he allowed his homophobic & anti-Islamic bile (representative of his views of many things) to surface.
IMHO this illustrates a warped, bigoted mentality which – contrary to the official public spin – is actually shared by a large majority of our blue nosed brethren. (Witness the fact that >80& of them lustily joined in the Billy Boys song at Hampden this year – fully aware of, and reveling in, it’s content & context ).
Frankly, what I find most interesting is that Sharp – an educated woman with a degree in law – could be stupid enough to express such a view in the public domain, then – when challenged – pretend she didn’t understand what it meant with the blatantly false excuse that she thought the slur referred to former 1st Rangers manager Jock Wallace. It’s almost as if – in her panic at the public outcry – she was advised to use that lame excuse by the only public figure I know stupid & crass enough to convince her she could get away with it. – 2 guesses? – and guess who was first to rush to her defence – knight in slimy armour Sir Cwissy of Mordor
Yeah. Yeah, Yeah. I’m paranoid and proud of it (although there’s little doubt that nowadays the boot is on the other, cloven-hooved, foot). However. bearing in mind that part of the known tactics of Level 5 (taking the PR baton from Media House before them) is not only to pander the myth that everything is spiffing in the glorious new Kingdom, but at the same time to encourage /invent / manipulate anything & everything with an anti-Celtic spin, I can’t help – in my madness – think that by once again allowing the BJK smear to be the focus of media attention – albeit in an underhand, back-firing way, might even be the darks arts extreme end of the same PR lance.
NURSE!
My post suggesting another possible reason for Graham’s rush to defend Sharp hasn’t appeared yet (lost in ether due to PensionerBhoy-like verbosity?).
TBH, even I thought I was being overly paranoid to hint at an ORChestrated dark arts campaign. UNTIL I saw this tweet from (yet) another front for the chief smear-mongering cyberned … which – on the very same day – tries to raise the distorted ugly head of that very same ghost..
COINCIDENCE?
https://twitter.com/RangersStandard/status/620548710800486401
Charlie said – no place for commons on the pitch or the bench ? Perhaps an oversight on your part ?
Injured.
I feel sorry for Lustig. There were times under Lenny when he was one of our best players, displaying a pride in the jersey & will to win which sometimes appeared lacking in others. However, there’s no getting away from the fact that in the pre-season friendlies he’s been a shadow of his former self. So, unless he shows a vary sudden & sharp progression from what we’ve seen so far this pre-season, I’m worried he could be a liability.
I hope he makes me eat my wrds, but I’d rather not take the risk and allow him instead to ease his way in during the league season. Also – although, I like what I’ve seen of Janko – for me Darnell Fisher earned his place in the side with an excellent display as a sub against Real Sociadad and IMHO is less of a risk then either right now.
Boyata is a nightmare much better off with EFE at CB
PMSL
You’ve chosen your name well, very apt.
Have not seen Boyata play yet but if Dead Thing says he is a nightmare then just get him in the Team.
To be fair to deadloss 67, what I’ve seen of Boyata so far is so so, but a bit too early to judge.
Tommy Callaghan…the first Celtic player’s autograph I ever got and one of the nicest blokes to have ever graced the hoops.
A wee story about Tommy: My Mum used to work in a Sports Center and once a week Tommy would bring in a bunch of teenagers from some of the underprivileged areas of Glasgow to play a couple of hours of 5-a-side. They were generally boys around that 13, 14, 15 years of age who’d been in a spot of bother. Tommy used to work in conjunction with the churches in those areas. He would organize the mini bus, pick them up, bring them to the Sports Center, play 5-a-side for a couple hours then take them up to the cafe, all out his own pocket.
A man just trying to reach out and lend a helping hand and give some guidance.
When my Mum found out what he was doing she started to give him the 5-a-side courts for free. One of the things he told my Mum what that he wanted to keep this all very quiet, especially from Celtic cos under the terms of contract he wouldn’t be allowed to play football with the kids due to the risk of injury.
A fine Celtic man to be proud of.
Great story. Can u imagine the likes of Virgil or James Forrest doing the same thing in their own time these days?
Tommy Callaghan kept it quiet because he didn’t want the club to know due to risk of injury””. – JUdging by how often Wee Jamsie is injured, dare I suggest that maybe he does the same thing, twice a day, 7 days a week, including holidays of obligation? 🙂
Never heard Tommy Callaghan described as Spam before he was always known as Big Tid in my time. Made his debut at Firhill and scored two, the first an absolute left peg raker hit from somewhere around Charing Cross. Fondest memory of Harry, Harry was a Puskas v Billy Wright-style left foot dragback and finish at a sodden Ibrox which left Ronnie McKinnon sliding over the bye-line on his arse to clinch a 1-0 win. Two of the finest goals I’ve ever seen from two very underrated players.
Re the i24 News article. I’ve lost count of the number of times here in South America I’ve heard TV commentators saying “The Protestant club” and “The Catholic club” when referring to us and them. People here really have the belief that we only signed Catholics and they were truly surprised when I explained, in detail, the truth about the history of the clubs. I obviously cannot inform the whole population of South America, but I do my bit to enlighten them about the reality of the situation and that it’s so easy for lazy commentators, who surely know the true facts, to use the Catholic/Protestant analogy to generate a wee bit more interest among viewers.
It’s sad that Celtic Football Club, despite it’s innocence in this matter, gets tarred with the same bigoted brush that the deid team deserves.
We can only hope that as they wriggle and squirm and slip into oblivion, their disgraceful celebration of their “traditions” and their legacy disappears too.
Lyndsey Sharp is a naughty, naughty girl…there, I hope I haven’t offended anyone today.
She’s a fucking nonentity and not worth fretting over.
In fact, this type of remark from the hun scum is all they have to cling to nowadays as the penny drops that the ‘real rangers men'(whatever that is) aint got a pot to piss in and they realise slowly but surely the newco will soon be another oldco.
I hope the Hibees grind them into the dirt next week, horrible horrible vile bastards.
“A few years ago, Efe ambrose leapt off a plane, told Neil Lennon he was fit and raring to go for that nights game against Juventus, and it backfired spectacularly. ambrose, a more than decent defender”
Decent defender?
A giraffe on an ice rink wearing rollerblades would be more competent than this idiot.