![\"Rangers](\"https:\/\/www.thescottishsun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/12\/alex-rae-philippe-clement-raging-960427174.jpg?strip=all&w=960\")
<\/p>\nOne of the most difficult aspects about resurrecting the Diary this year has been to try and retain it’s personality and dare I say uniqueness among the many offerings on the interweb.<\/p>\n
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Remaining ad free was crucial, at least it’s readable compared to a lot of the stuff out there.<\/p>\n
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I thought retaining it’s reputation for getting things wrong and \/or making stuff up would be more difficult, but then Celtic went to Ibrox yesterday, and pretty much everything in yesterdays piece failed to stand up under examination.<\/p>\n
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So I don;t have to worry about anyone thinking we’re not the real diary.<\/p>\n
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Celtic clearly held their new year party on Wednesday night, and it looked like they were still suffering the after effects as “rangers ” outfought, out thought and outplayed the hoops so clinically that one Celtic supporter showed his frustration by flinging a coin at Arne Engels whilst he lined up to take a corner kick.<\/p>\n
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There, look, I’ve saved you all the bother of buying the Daily Record to see their interpretation of events.<\/p>\n
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Although given the result, it was probably a “rangers ” fan making a takeover bid for the club, in cold hard cash, having seen that they might still win the league and gain access to Champions League money.<\/p>\n
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I don’t need to go over the game, you all saw it.<\/p>\n
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And now that I’ve stopped screaming, we can look at the bigger picture.<\/p>\n
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Yes, we remain eleven points clear at this stage of the season. Which is as good as we could have hoped for.<\/p>\n
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And yes, it’s possible the intimidating atmosphere and subliminal threat of crowd violence if Celtic had won was in the back of players minds…<\/p>\n
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After all, “rangers ” won convincingly and Arne Engels was hit by a missile, and both Reo Hatate and Nicolas Kuhn were more or less assaulted during the game, so one does beging to wonder what would have happened had Celtic taken the early lead they so nearly got….<\/p>\n
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The issue is, and those of you who listen to our podcasts will recognise this particular moan, Celtic cannot handle teams who press them.<\/p>\n
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Kasper Schmeichel has conceded three goals in three out of four games against “rangers “, who whilst limited in talent seem to turn on the enthusiasm against Celtic or European sides.<\/p>\n
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Hard work always beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard….or smart.<\/p>\n
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Celtic have a problem when teams go at us. Falkirk in the League Cup showed that, but they weren’t at the level of fitness required to keep it up.<\/p>\n
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Bruges showed that, and they got the reward when Cameron Carthorse Vickers showed us why he couldn’t get a game for Stoke City.<\/p>\n
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Dortmund ran over the top of us because the defence pass to each other instead of moving the ball to the midfield.<\/p>\n
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And nothing has changed since then.<\/p>\n
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Phillipe Clement is a professional manager, and although he might not be top tier, he sussed us out yesterday, It took a few games to get there, but he’s worked it out.<\/p>\n
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We’re not as good as we think we are becuase there is no leadership on the park in the McNeill\/ Aitken\/Brown mould that can override the managers instructions and take the game by the proverbial scruff of the neck.<\/p>\n
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If Kyogo Fuhruhashi isn’t getting the breaks, our plan B is to replace him with Adam Idah, who cost nine million pounds entirely on the basis that the ball bounced off his leg in a cup final.<\/p>\n
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Meanwhile, on loan Johnny Kenny is scoring freely in the Europa Conference League for Shamrock Rovers….<\/p>\n
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Daniel Cummings is scoring regularly for the B team, not yet attracting the same headlines as a young Charlie Nicholas did when he was about to burst on the scene. By the way, we hear that Cummings doesn;t talk anywhere near as much shite as Nicholas did or does, which is another bonus.<\/p>\n
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Manager Brendan Rodgers has a style he’s drilled into the players. What he hasn’t done is encouraged individuality and responsibility.<\/p>\n
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Maybe it is a wee bit of complacency creeping in, maybe the fear of a collapse is completely unfounded,<\/p>\n
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But every time we put in a performance like yesterday, it gives opponents an idea of what to do against us.<\/p>\n
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The result yesterday had been coming for a while.<\/p>\n
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How we respond is important. Spending \u00a326m on three players, none of which started yesterday , tells me that Brendan should have someone else in charge of purchasing…. and no doubt someone on the board will have pointed this out to him.<\/p>\n
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Frankly, I’ll be surprised if we change anything….and if we keep doing the same thing, we’ll get the same results.<\/p>\n
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There are rumours that Manchester United want Brendan Rodgers at the end of the season. It can’t be true, as he usually jumps ship as soon as someone asks.<\/p>\n
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He’s in his comfort zone at Celtic, being paid obscenely well to finish first in a one horse race. And occasionally get a good result in Europe.<\/p>\n
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There was a lot wrong with yesterday’s performance, it’s what we do about it that counts.<\/p>\n
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Yesterday, we had this….<\/p>\n
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Ralph Malph\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0See…I told you, they fall apart if you hassle them\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Today…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n One of the most difficult aspects about resurrecting the Diary this year has been to try and retain it’s personality and dare I say uniqueness…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":18896,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/etims.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/einstein.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2J7If-4UL","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18895"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18897,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18895\/revisions\/18897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Image\"](\"https:\/\/pbs.twimg.com\/media\/GgW3R95WsAAbJEB?format=jpg&name=small\")