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<\/p>\nAlright, I can accept that its the job of a football manager to encourage his support and instill confidence in his players, but there are times, and these times are getting more and more frequent, when surely reality must be observed and expectations lowered.<\/p>\n
With the renewal of the newest rivalry in Scottish football taking place on Sunday in the Betfred League Cup, itself another example of the blinkered marketing of the game up north, which seems to prevent the powers that be approaching anyone other than bookies, the pressure is beginning to show on the south side of the river.<\/p>\n
It’s not so long since the bold Warbsy was having a pop at alan Stubbs, and telling him to concentrate on his own team instead of bemoaning the difference in budgets between the two Cup finalists last year.<\/p>\n
Anyway, the alleged former city trader sounded a bit like Stubbsy when he went on his latest burble ahead of Sundays game, and if any kids are reading this, remember,,<\/p>\n
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Anyway, on to another example of talking pooh.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of budget, I would imagine the gap is two or three times.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n I think he can allow his imagination a little more leeway here. Think big, Warbsy.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are playing in the Champions League, gaining valuable European experience and they have a very good squad packed with international players.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n All this on just two or three times the budget ?<\/p>\n \u201cThey have added some very good attacking individuals in Scott Sinclair and Moussa Dembele and they are proven young talents. I said in the first press conference that Brendan, having worked with him, would bring a level of organisation and belief, which I am sure he has done.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Ah, well, if you said he was good, then we shouldn’t be surprised , should we ?<\/p>\n \u201cIt is the fine margins in football. Whether it is belief, unity, an aspect of play, whatever it may be, sometimes it falls into place. That is how the game works.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n I’d make a snappy, witty comment here, but I don’t think I need to. However, \u00a0if you imagine him saying this very slowly, looking out of the window and then shrugging, you might then be able to work out what the fuck he’s on about.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are a good team but I have total and utter belief in my own squad of players and that\u2019s all I can affect.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Then he looks at the floor, holding back tears, and asks if anyone can lend him a couple of quid for the bus.<\/p>\n \u201cOur squad is getting better and better. Our players have gelled, we\u2019ve got a number back from injury and on the day it\u2019s down to how we play. We were pleased with the performance in Inverness last Friday and you can see we\u00a0<\/em> Niko Kranjcar has damaged his cruciate ligament and won’t feature again. Should have known better, \u00a0running about at his age. Joey Barton is enjoying the autumn of his career, winding down at their expense, and the rest of them have only gelled because they arent quick enough to move away from each other. Whether or not they are improving is purely relative. A man with two broken legs could be said to be improving, but you’d still have to help him up the stairs.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a tough place to go but we were brave, we moved the ball. My only criticism is that we didn\u2019t score enough goals.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n I think he’s talking about the 5-1 thrashing, which he thinks was 3-1.<\/p>\n \u201cBut the performances are consistently getting higher.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n So is the manager, by the sound of that.<\/p>\n I know a few of you will skip this bit, and in fairness it is a Celtic Diary, but when the manager of our next opponents pretends to know what he’s on about, it cannot be ignored.<\/p>\n He spoke of the future of the club, and their current policy on players.<\/p>\n \u201cI hope you see the foundations being laid down, the staffing structure, the communication through the club, the type of player we are bringing in.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n The last line of that sentence, ” and the shite I have to put up with from that bastard Dave King and his arselickers ” was edited out. He cannot seriously think that what he outlines here is the way forward for his club. Of course , the reporter didn’t ask him to elaborate, the SMSM don’t go in for that sort of thing, but there aren’t any foundations, the staffing structure are just two words i promise you will never, ever see next to each other anywhere else, and the communication through the club consists of strongly worded statements that appear every time his team gets beat.<\/p>\n And the type of player he’s bringing in ?<\/p>\n He may have had a gentle nudge here from the writer, and changed tack a little, accepting that this time at least he’d been caught out talking shite.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a lot of focus on experienced guys like Kenny Miller, Lee Wallace, Clint Hill, Niko Kranjcar but don\u2019t forget these young guys coming in like Jordan Rossiter, Joe Dodoo, Josh Windass and Matt Crooks.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Look who didn’t get a mention….<\/p>\n \u201cOver the last 15 months we have brought in a lot of players between 19 and 24. Wes Foderingham, James Tavernier, Rob Kiernan, Martyn Waghorn, all these guys.<\/em><\/p>\n Not one of them has been sought out by any other club, though there were stories that Tavernier nearly went to Turkey, while other attempts to raise a few quid were met with the reply ” get stuffed ”<\/p>\n \u201cIf we can get a core squad you improve the balance sheet of the club, we will be in a good place.\u201d<\/p>\n Just what the support wanted to hear ahead of potentially the clubs biggest defeat in its short history.<\/p>\n Does that sound like over confidence ?<\/p>\n Probably.<\/p>\n Or is it a touch of the reality that continues to be ignored by all concerned with CarCrash FC ?<\/p>\n Comapre those ramblings with the clear, concise words of Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers…<\/p>\n “…..I think when you are a big club you are looking to prioritise every competition and for us this is the first chance to get a trophy,\u201d\u201cYou have an obligation as a big club and supporters will certainly expect you to do well. That is what we aim to do.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/em> \u201cCeltic 1-0 down and thinking it was all over and then Davie Provan equalising, Frank McGarvey scoring the winner and then going berserk afterwards,\u201d<\/span><\/em> I certainly remember that game.<\/p>\n Archie MacPhersons line before the free kick….”Is this a piece of history”<\/p>\n Then Frank McGarvey, scorer of the winning goal, and that look on his face, which I clearly remember, and I still think he knew he was being sold virtually as soon as the game was over.<\/p>\n Rodgers watched the game in a pub, like many others..<\/p>\n \u201cI was allowed in! I was 12 \u2013 running in and out to watch. \u201cThose days, the memories now are of the sun, great games, all those finals. But if someone mentions Hampden, that\u2019s my (main) memory.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n \u201cAnd no, I\u2019m not telling you the name of the pub.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/em> What about the game?<\/p>\n \u201cI expect it to be a tight game and you prepare for it to be that way.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cYou have to be organised in terms of how you defend and we know we have the game and players that can hurt the opponent.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Which is pretty much all of them.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, we are prepared for penalties.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Rodgers, of course, is referring to the prospect of a penalty shoot out should the sides be level after ninety minutes, as they were in the previous clash at Hampden, which turned out to be another example of Celtic making an arse of it at Hampden against a lower league side.<\/p>\n For Celtic to receive a penalty in open play, a player would have to be cut down with a scythe, his dismembered body thrown to the crowd and his head perched on the corner flag.<\/p>\n And that would be after consultation with a linesman.<\/p>\n Whilst its unlikely to go to a shoot out, it does make sense to be prepared.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019ve scored five and could have had more and play as we did then you know you can beat the other team.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t necessarily make it any easier, but you know that you\u2019ve done it.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cStill, this is a different game, a semi-final.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWe know that if we play as well again we\u2019ll have a great chance of getting through to the final. Time will tell if Rangers are better.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI can only judge them on the last time we played them and we performed very well.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve obviously got one or two changes now within their team and when you win the way we did it creates a big motivation for the opponents not to let it happen again.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cCurve balls from Rangers? I don\u2019t think so. Mark was probably disappointed about how they played last time, simple as that.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI know he spoke in the game about being brave and getting on the ball but he is very clear on how he has asked his team to play since he has been at Rangers.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t expect it to change too much for Sunday.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThere might be one or two personnel changes because of injuries and the likes, but you always prepare for \u2018what ifs\u2019.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n All very relaxed, all very down to earth.<\/p>\n On the face of it, even with the help of Craig Thomson-you know what to do, Craig, right ?<\/p>\n there should be no real problems on sunday.<\/p>\n It is what it is, a game against a club who have never won a major trophy, and with a squad made up of journeymen and veterans look increasingly unlikely ever to do so.<\/p>\n Unless you happen to believe this sort of desperate attempt to re-write history, from the Record…unsurprisingly<\/p>\n Celtic can bust a century-old stat with victory over their rivals at Hampden.<\/em><\/p>\n They have defeated the Light Blues by at least four goals on seven occasions since 1914, the last meeting apart. But each time they\u2019ve failed to win the next Old Firm game, a record Rodgers wants to change as he closes in on his first final as Celtic boss. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Or their other attempt to inject some kind of illusion of competitiveness into this game…<\/p>\n Aye, lets hope we don’t get another one. My sides might just burst open and ruin my shirt.<\/p>\n Believe it or not, the writer, Fraser Wilson, is serious…<\/p>\n IT’S not often you hear four-goal thrashings described as dangerous results for the victor.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \n But when it comes to\u00a0Rangers<\/a>\u00a0v\u00a0Celtic<\/a>\u00a0derbies, history suggests the side dishing out the hammering might want to be on their guard the next time the fixture comes round.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Er, its not actually happened between these two clubs yet, but hey, you carry on…<\/p>\n Call it overconfidence, cockiness or just downright coincidence, but five times in the past 30 years a four-goal hosing has been registered in this derby – and on every one of those occasions the team suffering the agony has recovered to get a result next time round.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n He is, of course, referring to the original Old Firm derbies, which ended a few years ago. Presumably its some sort of marketing ploy, and not a desire within Ibrox to get the creditors paid.<\/p>\n
\nare improving.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n![\"Image](\"https:\/\/tyronetribulations.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/05\/old-footballer.jpg\")
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\nanother significant difference became apparent when Rodgers spoke of his boyhood memories of Celtic at Hampden-mind you, to be fair to Warbs thats a lot easier to do when your club has been around for longer than your dog.<\/p>\n
\nHe’s referring of course, to the 85 Cup final, against Dundee Utd. to take that into context, the Arabs has been in a european cup semi final the year before, and would feature in the UEFA cup final in 87.<\/p>\n
Wouldn’t matter if he did. It’s probably a care home or a block of flats by now.<\/p>\n![\"Image](\"http:\/\/cdn-wpmsa.defymedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2012\/09\/humorous-hilarious-funny-pictures-of-animals_Laughing_Out_Loud.jpeg\")
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<\/p>\nCeltic fans lapped up 5-1 drubbing of Rangers – but history suggests<\/h1>\n
four-goal hammerings can be a dangerous result<\/h1>\n
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