Celtic Diary Wednesday November 18: Soon Be Transfer Window time…

For all the talk of a team full of internationals, and indications that things at Celtic Park are going in the right direction overall, it’s a sobering thought that Mikael Lustig will probably be the only Celt on display at next years European championship finals.

And he’ll probably hurt himself getting off the bus.

Thats a damning statistic, but as most of Celtic’s players are Scots now, then maybe its not surprising. since the Dutch fellow -I cannot remember for the life of me his name, Wollte or something, left the Scottish set up, results and performances have , well, gone bad.

Maybe the policy of picking second rate players based in England isn’t the way forward. I gave up when Leigh Griffiths wasn’t brought on against Germany, and although thats maybe just the green tinted glasses, the likes of Griffiths and others in the Scottish set up should be first picks, and until they are, they will be forcedto head south to get recognition.

Anyhoo, its nearly christmas, which means its nearly transfer window time, and if Ronny Deila isn’t aware of the deficiencies in the team by now, and Peter Lawwell hasn’t handed him the debit card, then we could be in trouble.

As usual, a number of names have been bandied around, and the latest is slovakian Matus Bero, who is a midfielder with AS Trencin.

Back in October , Bero scored the third in an U21 Euro qualifier against the dutch in a 3-1 win in Nijmegan, so its no surprise that he’s been attracting atention from Celtic  and oither clubs.

His dream is to play in the English league, where he claims;

“They play a style that I love — players don’t stop for 90 minutes and there is a lot of emotion.”  

Maybe he really does mean emotion, and not money. still, if thats his dream, let him have it.

We’ll end up with Martin Odegaard on loan, with a view to a permanent signing, and  hopefully a decent centre half.

Rumours of Marco motta won’t go away, which is a shame;

Billy Hawkins, on HTS sport offers us his opinion on the Italians time at Watford.

He often looked out of position and possessed little composure, and although clearly a talented player with the ball at his feet, he was never given the time due to the intensely physical game of the Championship.

This physicality is shared in Scottish football, and Motta never looked good when under pressure.

Most incredibly, his biggest impact with Watford came in the 2-2 draw with Derby County, when the Italian full-back managed to get himself sent off in the first-half after giving away a penalty.

After that game he started just two of the remaining five fixtures, and was left on the bench for important victories over Birmingham and Brighton which sealed promotion.

Defenders we need, comfortable on the ball we need, but no good under pressure,  I think we’re quite well off for that particular quality.

Theres no shortage of midfielders at the club, and anyway, it looks like the manager has a new favourite in Tom Rogic;

 “Tom improves all the time. I am really happy with him. He works very hard in training and you can see that being transferred into games.

“But he still needs to last a game, a whole 90 minutes

“There have been too many times when he gets tired. It has been difficult for Tom to feel as good late on in game as he does at the start.

“He has missed a lot of football, which we can’t forget. So he needs more games.

“And once this fitness comes, he will be an ever better player and he is at the top level right now.”

“Tom has a lot of things he can give to the team.

“He has a good touch, has scored some important goals for us and he has a lot more still to give.”

Nir Biton has, according to some reports, had a price tag of £10m slapped on him, which is little more than mischief making, as the Israeli has made it clear he’s happy where he is.

Biton, like Samaras and Boyata has seen life in England, with Manchester City, and appears to be in no hurry to sample it again.

If anything in January, I’d expect to see a few “fringe “players move on.

If Anthony Stokes still harbours ambitions of playing in France next year, he’ll need to move on to get games under his belt.

Don’t be surprised to see a few familiar names move on, especially among the senior players who may also be aware their time at Celtic is coming to an end.

The next six months should see the last survivors of the Neil Lennon side make way for the youngsters and new signings that Deila has brought in, and then we should start to see a team gelling, and an understanding between the players that will make us ready for the next round of qualifiers in the champions League, assuming of course we don’t win the Europa.

Which is probably a fair assumption at this stage.

One who may move on is Efe Ambrose, ho was outstanding for nigeria yesterday as they beat Swaziland 2-0. The big defender also finished off a cross to score a rare goal, which actually was a finish anyone would have been proud of.

Mind you, there was a bit of a bonus in it for him;

The duo of Moses Simon and Efe Ambrose have won $20,000 each for entering the scorers sheet in the Super Eagles 2 – 0 triumph over Swaziland.

Moses first put Nigeria front with a well-curled free-kick in the second half while Efe Ambrose doubled the scoreline three minutes before full time.

According to Super Eagles official twitter handle, the incentive was announced during the Governor’s visit to the Super Eagles training camp.

“Rivers State Government pledges $20k per goal against Swaziland. #SoarSuperEagles,” the handle tweeted. 

I wanted to stay away from the current campaign to exonerate old Rangers from their years of cheating, but an article in the Record has made me unable to.

Its by a chap called Alex Mooney, who is a freelance, which is a journalist who cant get a full time job.

he argues that its time to move on, and forget all about it. Which is par for the course in the MSM these days,

But he is the first to use the sectarian angle as a reason for the title stripping demands to stop.

And a somewhat unique interpretation of financial doping;

 Nor can cash saved from the taxman be called financial doping. Immoral as the EBT scheme may have been, and it was, it was not illegal and its use was clearly set out in Rangers’ annual accounts. Title-stripping is therefore something that should not happen. 

So let’s cut through the conspiracy theories on this and find a logical conclusion – Rangers used an EBT scheme to avoid paying tax which was shameful but its use only gave them the same advantage on the field that all big clubs have.

I think most dispassionate and objective observers will accept this and use it as a fair agreement on which we can all move on. 

Of course, this will infuriate the self-proclaimed, proud ‘bampots’ on social media toiling away 24/7 in pursuit of justice for Scottish football. 

Their irreversibly entrenched view will always be that ‘the Protestant establishment club cheated on an industrial scale and the corrupt SFA and mainstream media were in cahoots in a whitewash’. 

Well, thats what happened?

To them I ask this – what is it you want? Rangers have been ravaged in a way no one could have imagined five years ago. Whether you view their troubles as a self-inflicted consequence or a punishment is not important. 

What do we want?

Honesty would be a start. An admission of guilt, an apology, and less of the nonsense about new clubs and no crime committed would also be a start.

Mind you, the author did hit the nail on the head with this;

They ( Second Rangers ) have been badly wounded and who, other than a baying mob, would wish them and their fans to suffer more? Only Rangers being shut down and Ibrox demolished will satisfy those who want nothing less than to dance on the club’s grave. 

Well, the old Rangers was shut down, and the new one is merely a collection of spivs fleecing the fanes while a compliant media prestends nothing happened.

Take this , for instance, from the same article;

That, though, won’t happen so I urge the SFA and all its member clubs to get round the table now and end this sorry episode. Strong leadership is needed to find a way forward and common sense must triumph over those who revel in agendas.

Celtic’s Peter Lawwell and Rangers’ Dave King could lead by example. In fact, would it be so outrageous for them to go out for dinner and mend fences over a decent bottle of red?

Each could show a lot of class by putting out a joint statement that accepts the clubs are big rivals but acknowledges sectarian hate has no part in that relationship. King could also apologise for the EBT years and Lawwell graciously accept it in his twin roles with Celtic and the SFA. 

Sectarian hate ?

So, all else having failed they are now playing the sectarian card.

This has nothing to do with anything else other than a club which spent above their means, dodged the tax and liquidated, and then had the cheek to try to bully its way on, in another guise, pretending that it was all just an administrative mistake.

We are talking about multi million pound tax fraud by big business.

Sectarian ?

Really ?

Fucking idiot.

Mooney the Looney.

He continues…

Is that really so difficult? Or too much to ask? Some might even say the custodians of these two massive clubs have a duty to start the healing process. 

As a shareholder in Celtic, along with many. many others, I would be abhorred to see our CEO consider any kind of dealings with the convicted tax criminal Dave King.

And how do Celtic have a duty here ? Its the Ibrox entities that made the place smell so bad .

Again, the idea of two sides of one coin is desperately wheeled into view.

We don’t need them.

They really need us.

But we should cut the cord.

Karma is a sexy beast sometimes….

You can read the full article onlne, or in the paper itself. I wouldn’t if I were you.

It made  my eyes vomit.

I haven’t included the bit where he concludes that Rangers having more money due to not paying taxes is exactly the same as any big club having more money than a small club anywhere in the world, because i honestly felt you’d think i was making it up.

Weathers been a bit rough of late, hasn’t it ?

I found myself stranded in a bar during last nights storm.

And it certainly meant we had to adapt.

If you fancy a night out tomorrow, you could do a lot worse than pop out to the Admiral;

The Caldwell brothers, Steven and Gary, featured in the picture yesterday, and today we go further back, ot one of those trophies Celtic won only once…..

Which trophy, and who are the players ?