Yesterday, at 6am , after a fairly relaxing and enjoyable trip to the game-so relaxing that I was in bed after being sent there by the wife within fifteen minutes and a verse of come on you boys in green in the garden after getting home- I had to get up to take the youngest to work.

The dozy sod had mistaken a 6pm start for a 6am one, and was thus soundly ridiculed by the rest of us. Twelve hours early, the boys a fool.

I’m not going to mention to him that I was also a little early for my physiotherapy appointment this morning, a spectacular two weeks early, and you know that look nurses give you when they feel sorry for you…

Anyway, despite a somewhat shaky start, Celtic came from behind for the first time since , well, its been a while, to beat an enthusiastic Hearts side to move another step closer to five in a row.

Early in the game, the body language-slumped shoulders, reactive instead of proactive decisions, and what looked like a number of players looking round for inspiration led to Hearts taking the lead after Mikael Lustig gave the ball away again. I wouldn’t mind so much but he appeared to say “Here, have it..” as it went…

Jamie Walker then smasehed the ball beyond the reach of Craig gordon, something Celtic’s forwards haven;t yet grasped the concept of, and Hearts were in front.

It didn’t last long, Gary Mackay Steven was hanging around on the edge of the box when the ball dropped to his feet, he steadied himself and sent a low shot into the corner, missing the keeper by some distance, which brought the hoops level.

Patrick Roberts was on the end of a Tom rogic pass, which the aussie Ardiles weighted perfectly, allowing the on loan englishman a chance to show that he can finish as well as anyone else in the team.

After the break, Roberts doubled his tally with another good finish, cutting in from the left, and although there had been a couple of scares, and more were to follow, that was the scoring done.

3-1 may have flattered Celtic, but it was one of those games that could have gone either way, it just so happens it went our way, and you have to be happy with that.

A much improved atmosphere seemed to lift the players, and the customary mistakes from the referee helped to get everyone onside.

Well, maybe mistakes is the wrong word. He tried to let the game flow, which was understandable, but as the tackles-from both sides-got a little meaner, he failed to keep a lid on it, and the rammy before half time when Tom Rogic got in the way of a reckless jump set the scene for a good old fashioned game of football.

It’s hard to pick a man of the match, because Celtic had a few on form, which must have made anyone watching who still harbours hope of a new club in the cup final take stock and possibly enter the real world.

I enjoyed it. Its been a while since I can say that.

After the head knock, Tom Rogic was substituted, and manager Deila reckons it was the right thing to do;

“He was dizzy on the pitch and I had to take him off, he couldn’t answer the right questions.

“He knew the score but I asked him if we had to change or not he shrugged – it is hard for a manager to understand what he is meaning.

“But we had to take him off. We will see tomorrow but I think it is okay.”  

Hearts boss Robbie Neilsen had a moan, especially at Scott Browns tackle..

“I felt there should be some sort of action but it’s Parkhead, it doesn’t happen for you, you just need to accept it.

“We knew it was going to be a feisty game, it is always like that when you come here but in my opinion it is minimum a booking and it doesn’t happen.

“Oshaniwa wins the ball at the end and gets the red card, for me Brown’s tackle is worse.

“And Oshaniwa was booked for challenging for the ball in the air, that is the disappointing thing.

“We have had players sent off this season when they shouldn’t have been sent off.” 

Knew it was going to be a feisty game ? Well, thats because you told your players to be, er, feisty.

Love the idea that “it doesn’t happen for you at Parkhead ” -Celtic have been playing there for years, and it doesn’t happen for us either when it comes to fifty fifty decisions.

Gary Mackay Steven, now approaching his form of this time last year, was a little more philosophical..

“Sometimes to win titles you’ve got to bite and scratch and there was an element of that today.

“You saw a lot of tackles flying in and that’s just players giving their all.

“It was pleasing to be involved and I think we showed our title credentials.

“It’s games like this where you really need to show you want to win the title.

“Big games like this are where you have to show what you’re all about and after going behind early we could have sat down and let them run over the top of us – but we certainly didn’t do that.

“We wanted to prove a point and show why we are champions and why we want to win it again.

“There’s talk from a lot of people who think we’re not going to win the title and how people are running us close.

“But us, as players in the dressing room, we know what we have to do and we’re confident going into every game that we’ll win it.

“The finishing line is in sight now but we just have to take it one game at a time.

“Every team wants to beat us but we’re confident that if we play to our strengths we will win, as we did today. Hopefully we can do that in every game to the end of the season.”

There did seem to be a more determined approach from a few of the players, notably Stefan Johansen, Tom Rogic, and even Dedryck Boyata which augurs well for the run in. 

And this defence, which may give us the occasional moment of , er, excitement..

We’re not conceding many. Three goals in nine games, whilst the  Wunderteam from south of the city, playing at a lower level,  has conceded nine goals in three games…

Deila looked back to Saturday,, and ahead to tomorrow’s trip to Dundee, which by all accounts, is a very nice place indeed.

“I always felt that Saturday’s game and Tuesday’s game were particularly important for us, Our aim is always to win games, to get points but I felt that if we could come out of this week with six points from six then it could be a very big step for us.

“I was delighted with the performance and the result against Hearts. Yes, there are aspects that I think we can still improve on and get better but it was a good afternoon. Now we want to do the same against Dundee.

“If we can come out of this week with the momentum still going then it gives us so much positive energy.

“We are getting into a strong position and all along we have been wanting to get here. We have a chance now to start to push forward.

“There are not so many games left and if you are playing well and getting good results then you know you will have your reward very soon.” 

And Patrick Roberts ?

“Patrick will be hard to leave out after coming in and scoring two very good goals but there were also other performances that pleased me.

Well, don’t leave him out then.

One man who will be left out is Derk Boerrigter, who has finally come to some agreement about a pay off. He’s gone, and we were going to do a wee piece on him, summing up his time at Celtic, but there isn’t anything to say that hasn’t already been said, and lessons must be learned from this signing, which has to be the worst in living memory.

Lessons such as check the players medical history, and maybe get a doctor to look at him before he gets signed, instead of after.

That could work.

And as for the guy who recommended him, find his number on the club phone and delete it.

Another who might be away , at least according to the media, is Keiran Tierney, who , according to the media, will be the subject of a £10m bid from Liverpool in the summer.

Liverpool set for shock £10million move for international defender

Its in the Daily Express, which is still the only paper to have never actually got anything right. so i wouldn’t be too worried.

Why do they come up with stories like this when there’s real news out there ?

speaking of real news, which has been avoided by the media, we’re going to nip south for a moment or two, and a somewhat bizarre story about match fixing and player doping…

The self explanatory blog “Football is fixed ” published this, which more or less sums up whats going on..

Dr Mark Bonar (above) has supplied Performance Enhancing Substances (PESs) to 150 leading British sportspeople including footballers from Leicester City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Birmingham City.

We were the first media outlet to disclose the use of PESs at Leicester City in our ‘Webb Of Lies’ published on Football is Fixed on February 6th 2016  http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/webb-of-lies.html (although we had implied such shenanigans earlier on the SYnonymous blog  http://synomic.blogspot.co.uk/).

As we have pointed out throughout our revelations regarding the criminalities at Leicester City, although the referee-based corruption is systemic, the doping is particular and was set in motion in April 2015 prior to Claudio Ranieri becoming manager of the club.

The Sunday Times  http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/article1684584.ece?CMP=OTH-gnws-standard-2016_04_02 filmed Bonar boasting about his doping regime from his Harley Street offices where he admitted supplying EPO (Erythropoietin), steroids and human growth hormone to elite athletes.
The newspaper used an athlete as a sting and Bonar told him that “Some of these treatments I use are banned on a professional circuit. So, you have to be mindful of that.”

The General Medical Council (GMC) has clear rules stating that doctors should not prescribe sportspeople with PESs.
Additionally, the GMC has stated that while registered with it, Bonar does not have a current licence to practise medicine in the UK.

And Bonar has form.
Last December, he appeared at a tribunal charged with 16 instances of misconduct after it was alleged that he had given a woman false hope when he should have been recommending proper end-of-life care. Bonar hid the woman’s terminal cancer from her so that he might carry on billing her for ‘unconventional treatment’  http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/harley-street-doctor-hid-womans-6986419.

UK Anti Doping had been tipped off two years ago about Dr Bonar but sidelined the disclosures due to a lack of evidence.

All three clubs released remarkably similar statements over the exposures:
“Leicester City Football Club is extremely disappointed that the Sunday Times has published unsubstantiated allegations.”
“Arsenal Football Club is extremely disappointed by the publication of these false claims which are without foundation.”
And Chelsea “the claims The Sunday Times put to us are false and entirely without foundation.”

What a coincident fluke of shared innocence without collusion!

It is worthy of note that, if the clubs were in knowledge of or behind the doping, they would issue denials while, if the players were acting without the support of their clubs, the clubs would also release such denials as a matter of course in case the scandal impacts upon their brands.

Either way, the denials are of no consequence…
… remember Lance Armstrong?

And it should be remembered that Andrew Jennings, the investigative reporter who brought down Sepp Blatter, reckons that The Sunday Times team are the ONLY valid mainstream sports media in Britain. 
All other media orchestrate, collude in or turn a blind eye to corruption in British football.

As we have exposed previously, the improvement in fitness of certain Leicester City footballers could only have occurred via the use of blood doping – a team cannot move from being the least fit to the second fittest overnight without a number of their players engaging in illicit doping.

Interestingly, the only mainstream media outlet that failed originally to disclose that Leicester City are one of the clubs whose players purchased Dr Bonar’s services is The Guardian where Jamie Vardy’s matchfixing football agent John Colquhoun holds editorial sway.

THE SUCCESS OF LEICESTER CITY IS A CONSPIRACY
http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/the-success-of-leicester-city-is.html   

So, lets see, twelve months ago, Leicester were at the foot of the English Premier, and today they are seven points clear at the top.

You would think these accusations would merit a second glance, wouldn’t you ?

The rise of the midland side has been described as a “fairy story “, which co-incidentally also appears to describe their reasons for it.

Charlie won Fridays caption competition, his remark  clearly the wittiest and most topical of the entries.

Today, whats going on here ?