Celtic Diary Friday July 8: Celts Head Straight To Gibraltar

Apologies for the diary being unable to appear yesterday.

We nipped over to Wrexham on Wednesday  to find out what it feels like to have your country in a major semi final, and due to the refreshments taken, it was noon Thursday before we rolled back into town.

A good time was had by all, but the Welsh lost, prompting one chap to throw a flare into the pub, which a heroic customer selflessly picked up and threw back at him. Without really understanding what he was doing, but he’d sen it in a film where John Wayne or someone had thrown himself onto a grenade to achieve the same effect.

Think about that the next time you want to take one to a game. There were kids in the place, many of whom were crying and many of who were very, very scared.

Anyway, back at the ranch, and Licoln Red Impos, the Gibraltese side who no-one expected to be playing will be the opponents as Celtic begin their quest to win back the European Champions Cup just fifty years after they last won it.

As the game now takes place on Tuesday, the club can have no complaints about having to alter their travel plans as they have been given nearly a week to arrange something.

Same for the support who are planning on travelling, although the club have only been given 960 tickets, so the hope is that Leigh Griffiths won’t take his kids.

Griffiths opened his account for the season on Wednesday with the two goals that secured a win over Olimpia Ljubjana and then proclaimed that they didn’t count, so we actually lost that game, I think.

The striker told Celtic TV;

“It’s all about fitness at this point in the season and we will get on to the real stuff next week,”It was good to go and get the other win and, while it was disappointing not to get another clean sheet, it was good to get a couple of goals.

“The first goal got stuck on my foot and the defender tried to anticipate me going back, but I managed to get it out my feet and hit the target and it managed to creep in. For the second one, I had a little bit more space as Stefan and Moussa made great runs and it’s opened up and I managed to hit the target and score again.

“We knew they were champions and we could come up against them if they progress in the Champions League qualifiers, but we had to take care of business, go and get the win and now we will look forward to Saturday (against Maribor) and hopefully we can get another victory.

“The pre-season goals don’t count so hopefully I can get off the mark next week and it would be good to get the Champions League campaign off to a flyer.” 

A goal is a goal, no matter who its against, and this means that Griffiths is on form as the squad head to Gibraltar.

Had the hoops faced Flora Tallinn, the game would have been on Wednesday, and the players would have flown back to Glasgow after Saturday nights grudge match with Maribor, and travelled to Estonia on Monday.

As the Red Imps game is on Tuesday, Manager Brendan Rodgers has had second thoughts about that. Especially the bit about going to Tallinn, as despite the attractions of a night out in the Estonian town, its hotels were deemed to be too far away from the Red Imps’s ground.

‘We’ve had to think about it carefully, about what makes most sense. Knowing we will be going to Gibraltar meant it didn’t make sense to go back to Glasgow for an extra stop-off.

‘We want to do what we think is best for the team, in terms of our preparation. So we’ll go straight to Gibraltar.’

CEO Peter Lawwell concurred;

‘It is a contingency plan that we had ready, depending on the draw. When we found out that we were going out to Gibraltar next, we put that plan in place. So the team will be going straight there from Maribor. It makes sense.’

It does, really, and that’s a good sign, as at this stage of the season Celtic are noted for doing things that don’t make sense.

Such as including new signings in a vital qualifier despite them not knowing any of their team mates-Artmedia etc… -so although the signing deadline for Tuesdays game has now passed, we shouldn’t be too worried that Kolo Toure didn’t want to have his medical during Eid, the celebration at the end of Ramadam, the Muslim holy period, and frankly , if we can’t put together a defence from what we have, he’s not going to make that much difference anyway.

 Another new boy, Moussa Dembele, made his debut in the Ljubjana game, and he performed well, without making any great waves, but something that was noticable is how big he is, which sort of surprised me, as he’s very moblie as well, which must have alarmed Nadir Ciftci.

This weeks Real Madrid manager, Zinedine Zidane , told Celtic fans what they have in Dembele…

“Dembele is an exciting player potentially for France, he has already shown what he is capable of.

“He is a very big singing for Celtic. I like to follow the progress of exciting, young, French players, and I know that Bayern, Monaco and Juventus were all looking at him – so it really is big that Celtic managed to sign him.

“I think it’s a good move for him, he needs first time football, to develop the skills he already he has and I think he will get that at Celtic. He is still so young, he can look at another move in four or five years time and still then he will only be a very young player.”

The biggest issue around these early qualifiers is pressure. They are important games, and the players are thrown into them when one or two minds might still be tired. And tired minds lead to poor performances, as we have seen countless times.

And then there’s the pressure. They are no win games for Celtic in one sense, as even a victory will earn no real praise, but a defeat can be damning.

Is the manager ready for this ?

John Kennedy could do with paying a little more attention. He doesn’t look like he’s focused, but the other two seem a little more serious;

Rodgers told reporters about pressure, and playing for Celtic, though it’s unclear who told him;

“I think pressure is part of playing for a club like Celtic.

“You don’t always have to be the best player but you’ve got to cope with pressure and cope with that demand, whether you are a player or the manager at a club like this one.

“You are at one of the big institutions and you have to be able to deal with it. The pressure will come. The pressure always comes.

“And that’s not always about the talent. You guys will have seen it a lot more than me over the years at clubs like Celtic where you can have big talents who maybe can’t cope with pressure.

“So the idea is to get the personality type, the profile right, so that in those moments they can stay calm and deal with it.

“I know that it will come, no matter how much you dominate a game: there will be moments in that game when the pressure will come. You just stay calm, stay focused, and we hopefully try to train for that.” 

Thats when you need leaders on the ptich, and thats something Celtic didn’t have last time round.

 “It will always ultimately be about players and how you cope with pressure.

“What you try to do, especially in this short period of time, is give them strategies in order to cope and try to put them in pressure situations and match situations.

“We train at a real intensity so the situations we do are all real-game exercises. But of course you try to limit the mistakes and hopefully they can take that into the game.

“It is a wee bit of both: you can train it and develop it but it’s about the players and players who constantly make mistake. I haven’t got a magic wand.” 

That last line may be a little more telling than it appears to be at first glance. Maybe he’s seen something that needs a lot of work to fix…

As far as we can gather, the Scott Sinclair deal has hit a hitch, with the clubs unable to settle on a fee, and that seems to be the theme running through a lot of proposed moves in or out of the club.

No-one wants to pay £2m for Stefan Johansen, which is ridiculous. as he’s an established international, and on form a creative and  combative midfielder with almost endless energy and drive, which makes me wonder of there’s something we don’t know about…

Johansen has had issues, which may or may not be around his diabetic condition, and so this may be part of the reason. Not only for the lack of interest, but for his lack of consistency last season.

Celtic are also holding out for £10m from spanish side Espanyol who want Nir biton, well, thats what they say, but we know they’ll take eight.

Well, there’s a Joe Allen to be paid for.

Efe Ambrose has registered surprise at supposed interest from Bayer Leverkusen-so have most of us, to be fair-and he told Soccernet Nigeria;

“I have also read about this interest, but I have not heard anything on this from my agent.” 

He probably doesn’t believe it, either.

Other transfer news… and we have an exclusive…

On now to our regular Friday feature..

Knob Of The Week 

Nominations included another man who may be deluded, “rangers ” director Stewart Robinson, who expects us to believe this…

RANGERS Managing Director, Stewart Robertson, has decided not to stand for election to the SPFL board. Mr Robertson’s decision comes after much thought and consideration.

Mr Robertson is fully committed to ensuring Rangers’ return to the top flight runs as smoothly as possible.

It should be pointed out that after a series of meetings with other Premiership representatives over the last month, Rangers is confident its views are being listened to and treated with the utmost respect.

It is accepted that Rangers’ voice is being heard within Hampden, both at SFA and SPFL levels.

Although Mr Robertson won’t be standing for election, he has made it clear he will be available to assist the governing bodies when and if required. No-one should be in any doubt Rangers will be perfectly positioned to contribute and play a full part in moving Scottish football towards a brighter future.  

The simple fact behind his decision not to run is that he would have come fourth in a four man race for three jobs, quite embarassingly fourth as well….

Does he win ? No, no, not by quite some way.. 

Well, what about this guy, Richard Fillingham, for this wonderful piece of prose… 

ask-not-what-rangers-can-do-for-you-ask 

No, there’s still someone even knobbier….hard to believe, I know, 

We’ve had quite a few nominations for one chap in particular, who may have inadvertently made himself more well known than he actually thought he was..

It wasn’t the hat and coat that disguised him.

Really, It wasn’t.

I’m uncertain whether or not to give the award to Matt Crooks, the player who really shouldcomplete the hilarity by asking to wear the number eleven on his back, to define the club he plays for, or Gary Ralston, the Record hack who wrote this rubbish.

Since Record hacks are likely to feature prominently in the roll of honour in this particular category, we’ll give it to the player, who has delusions at least on a par with that clubs support.

So, congratualtions, Matt Crooks, whoever you are, as you are this weeks Etims

Knob of the Week 

Tall fellow, isn’t he?  Towering over the goalposts there, and he runs about that much he has to use two pairs of boots in every game.

someone has photoshopped this picture of him recieving the award, and substituted him receiving another. less prestigious gong, and i’d appreciate it if someone could photoshop it back, you know who you are….he added hopefully…

Wednesdays caption competition, a somewhat cruel venture into the world of art and caricatures…