Celtic Diary Wednesday December 2: Compare and Contrast

I think it’s safe to say the club is in a period of transition.

The now official policy of rearing our own ( and I’ll try to resist the urge to put a picture of Frankie Howerd here in order to gain a cheap laugh

well, I tried ) will see a few hiccoughs as we go along.

There will be peaks and troughs, but the idea is to support the team through thick and thin. That doesn’t mean we don’t have the right to question one or two things, however, and it also means that none of us will always be roight, and none of us will always be wrong.

Okay , there might be a few exceptions, but you get the point.

We’re going to keep an eye on how the young team performs in the Premier League Cup and in Europe over the next few weeks, but it’s interesting to see the mentality of them as well.

Earlier this week, John Collins decided he hadn’t said enough stupid things this year, and announced  that young Keiran Tierney was already a £5m defender, which brought poor Stevie Fulton flashbacks that would have made a Vietnam veteran wake up screaming.

Tierney , however, has his feet firmly on the ground.

 “It’s a compliment you take well, it’s good for him to come out and say that. It doesn’t get said a lot about young people, so it’s positive.

“I was surprised by when I first saw it, I didn’t expect it and it was my dad that showed me.

“My team-mates haven’t mentioned it but I’m sure they will now.

“I don’t want to get too ahead of myself, I need to keep my feet on the ground. I’m still young, it’s still early doors and I need to keep working hard and get more appearances under my belt.”

“The rule at Celtic is the youngest have to clean the boots.

“I need to keep working hard and hopefully one day I can be in the 
first-team dressing room.

“I don’t know when it will change but that’s all good. Everything that’s happened recently is hard to take in. I just see myself as still being a Celtic fan.

“It’s brilliant. I need to appreciate every moment I have with the first team and make the most of it. 

“I’ve worked so hard to play for Celtic and have supported them all my life, so it’s a dream to play for them.”  

The Scottish Cup draw threw up a tie at Stranraer for the Celts, and Tierney knows its a step on the way to a rare treble;

 “The Treble is the aim for everyone at Celtic. We’ll take a tie against Stranraer, we’ll take anything, we just need to go with the right mindset and prepare right for the game and we should get the result.”  

Note the use of the phrase “the right mindset “

And that brings us to Anthony Stokes.

At one time, Stokes was a prolific goalscorer, 14 goals in 16 games in the SPL for Falkirk earned him a £2m move to Sunderland in 2006, where he didn’t do so well, in fact his only goal was eight years ago today, a winner against Derby,  before being handed a chance to make a name for himself at Celtic.

 Alongside Gary Hooper, he was part of a fearsome unit that carved through defences, and he was never shy of putting in a bit of effort.

 Then, under Ronny Deila, it all appears to have gone wrong.

There are stories that his attitude is questionable, his professionalism non existent, and his sojourns to Ireland taking longer and longer to recover from.

 Theres no doubt he can play, but he doesn’t seem to want to.

 Then came his petulant tweet prior to the Inverness game, where he moaned about being forced to head up to the far north to just sit in the stand, receiving only thousands of pounds in compensation.

 Since then, he has kind of slipped even further down the managers christmas card list, and has apparently been fined two weeks wages and sent home from the Lennoxtown facility when he turned up yesterday.

Perhaps he would have been better off getting rat arsed and falling asleep outside a city centre bar….

It may be as Stokes has finally exhausted the managers patience, and it may be that this is just the latest in a long line of incidents that have isolated Stokes from the managers plans, but you cannot have one rule for one, and one rule for another.

 Scott Brown , as captain, has a responsibility to represent the club. Those pictures of him lying sutably refreshed in the gutter did the club and the player no good, but Deila chose to overlook it.

 One rule for one, one for another.

Kris commons stamped his feet, waved his arms and shouted his mouth off after he was substituted.

No action from the management.

 Stokes only tweeted his thoughts, not clever, but not exactly a massive offence.

 This is where we need to compare and contrast.

 Brown gets away with misdemeanours, Commons can say what he wants on television, but Stokes gets a fine for tweeting…

Tierney loves cherishes every minute of being involved at Celtic, and is prepared to clean boots and bide his time.

Stokes can’t be arsed and just moans when he’s left out. but it’s hard not to feel a little sympathy for him when you compare and contrast Deila’s response to other public misdemeanours.

Commons shouts and moans live on television, nothing happens.

Brown is found in a gutter and his picture plastered all over the papers. nothing happens.

Stokes sent a tweet.

Interestingly, Neil Lennon used to argue with fans on social media, so maybe thats why he thought it was okay.

A “source ” close to the player told the Daily Mail;

“Anthony is surprised and disappointed Celtic have taken this action. All he wants is to play football for his club.

 “He doesn’t care about the wages, he wants to play football and make a contribution and that was the point of the Tweets he later apologised for publicly.

 “He has scored 59 goals in 107 starts for Celtic and feels frustrated he can’t get in the team.

 “When Kris Commons indulged in a very public show of dissent towards Ronny and John Collins during the Molde game recently he was spared a suspension. Anthony finds it surprising his actions merit a suspension when that didn’t.

 “The player recently became a father for the second time and has to think of his family here.

 “Football is a short career and he wants to play games. When he is not playing, he is not contributing and his value decreases. That’s his concern.’

 “It’s about reacting to your values. I will talk to him about it. What’s important for Stokesy is that he has to show the work first before he speaks. If you do that you have a future.”

A managers job is to keep everyone happy, and keep everyone in line.

But he has to have rules, and they must be the same for everyone, otherwise it will all grind to a halt sooner rather than later.

 Still sure we you could win the treble if you were in charge ? Or anyone could do it ?

There is obviously an undercurrent at the club which needs to be addressed. and it appears to  be one of the managers own making.

 Deila may be guilty of treating one player different from another, but you could say that each player treats the club differently from each other, and so somewhere we need to strike a happy medium

That should wipe that grin off her face.

The youngsters want to play, and maybe one or two of the older players are working their ticket, or perhaps afraid that they are about to be thrown out of their comfort zone.

 That is obvious, and all eyes will be on the manager to see how he deals with it when the window opens next month.

But whatever he does, it will be the making or breaking of his future at Celtic.

In January, he needs to decide who he wants to keep, who he wants to let go, and stick to his guns.

Time to stop the tail wagging the dog…

Elsewhere, there was drama at a first division game last night when supporters were evacuated from their seats at Ibrox due to a fault in the “stadium fabric “.

It’s public knowledge that a certain level of investment is required to bring the old stadium up to modern standards, and this time, where it appeared that several parts of the roof had come loose and were hanging precariously over peoples heads, means surely the problem can no longer be ignored.

Especially as we know that a previous owner of the club had sought expert advice on structural matters…

Speaking of matters at Ibrox, the rumours of interest in their bright young manager (another one ? -Ed ) from Fulham won’t go away.

Though it seems that Warbs himself might.

Level % have their press release ready to go if Warburton does;

“We wish Mark all the best, but his family lives in london and he felt it was putting too much strain on them for him to live and work in Glasgow in what has become a hostile environment with the constant abuse he was getting from those who do not feel the club has been punished enough. 

 However, his position at the club was largely as a figurehead, and the real work was done on the ground by David Weir, who will now take over as manager, and continue to take the club in the right direction ” 

We hear that an influential lady has heard that the liquidators of the original  Rangers has heard they are seeking leave to appeal the decision which means they owe her money,

but her mood altered when she was told of their likelihood of success.

And her joy knew no bounds when she was informed of a subliminal message from Mike ashley, who is currently involved in trying to get his money back from Dave King…

King , of course, is desperately trying to raise the funds needed to avoid Ashley going to court to get repaid, and the SFA may well have told him to get it sorted, largely because they are kind of implicated having deemed the man who may yet spend Christmas in jail on account of being on licence for contempt of court when he appears in court next week charged with, er contempt of court, to be fit and proper.

We hear a few potential investors were asked to a secret meeting , where he sat round the table with them to outline his needs.However, they  all responded in the same way when King asked them for a sub, and he was left sitting by himself.

A wee blast from the past now, and can anyone name the members of the world’s first ever bhoy band-

And perhaps add a wee caption ?