I got an old friend, who used to work for the Celtic View in the nineties, to come up with the title for todays diary.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ach, well, surely there must be a bit of sunshine ahead ?<\/p>\n
At the end of every night there is a new dawn.<\/p>\n
Look at Cumbria, they have suffered terrible weather, with floods and all sorts of damage. but they’ll pull through. Things will get better.<\/p>\n
Apparently, though, there have been a lot of sheep drowned up there, and the figure is expected to rise when the guy who has been counting them wakes up.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Celtic drew 1-1 with Fenerbache last night, which meant we finished with the wooden spoon, and thats that for another year.<\/p>\n
Etims had a man at the game so I’ll leave the details to him.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So, before the Ronny out brigade continues the eternal debate, lets ask ourselves, have we anything different to say ?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Yes, as a matter of fact.<\/p>\n
The team weren’t great last night, but there was another sign that ronny does have a plan, and that his system might yet work.<\/p>\n
Scott allan is well on the way to displacing Stefan Johansen as the number ten.<\/p>\n
This , in turn is going to remove any argument about having a big bustling number nine to aim the ball at.<\/p>\n
They’ll aim for Allan instead, and he will have several options, as the pivot, for the next move. Griffiths in front of him, forrest to the left, and probably Armstrong to the right. Or the other way around.<\/p>\n
Behind him, any two from Johansen , Brown and Biton will offer a way back, and the two full backs will be there to support with a run to the flanks.<\/p>\n
As for someone to get on the end of crosses, well we could try the novel approach of aiming it at someone in a bit of space, instead of hoping someone can get on the end of it. A lot of work to be done there, admittedly, but you can see what the manager’s \u00a0trying to do.<\/p>\n
Three out of four defensive positions are sorted, with the only issue being if Boyata will settle or we need to replace him. We could do with someone with a calmer head and a bot of experience to take over for now, as some of the passing last night in our own half put a little unnecessary \u00a0pressure on the back line, and that needs to be addressed.<\/p>\n
On the whole, its not been a great campaign, but the signs of improvement, though woefully slow, are in there.<\/p>\n
You just have to look for them.<\/p>\n
With away draws in Istanbul and Amsterdam, a couple of home wins would have sufficed, and that certainly needs to be addressed. Forget anything else, no home wins in the group is inexcusable. Celtic Park used to strike terror into opponents, and put them off their game.<\/p>\n
It appears to have gone full circle since those heady days when Oliver Khan and Bayern Munich were exuberant after getting a draw. Get back to those days, and we are well on the way.<\/p>\n
The whole european experience this year will help, regardless of how it went. Deila and his management team are aware of deficiences, and have six months and two transfer windows to sort it.<\/p>\n
And he is aware, and manfully, he’s taking the hit;<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a manager you can always find people to point at and make excuses.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cBut in the whole picture it\u2019s my fault and I am going to take that responsibility. But we as a team need to improve small things.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWe need to show discipline in everything we do. We need to take that into the games domestically for 90 minutes \u2013 we cannot be lazy in situations when we sometimes get it easier than in Europe.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThis is a very good example of that. You need to do everything with 100 per cent quality and that is a very difficult task when you are winning games all the time.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWe had the chances in games that were even and we have to say we haven\u2019t been good enough. We have conceded too many easy goals. We have to learn from this and do it better next year.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n He can see a little improvement;<\/p>\n \u201cOf course I have confidence in this group, that we can do it, and we are going to show it.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s tough to come here, we met a very good team and I am very happy with getting a result away from home.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThe back four defended well. On the ball we can be better and in the midfield, playing passes forward instead of sideways and backwards. These are things we have to work on, overall it was a good performance and a good result.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n He’ll get the time, and I’ve seen enough now, without the disadvantage of hysteria, to believe he might just come up with something that means we get the utopian dream of Celts who want to play for Celtic \u00a0playing for Celtic in the Celtic Way.<\/p>\n But please, it was never going to happen overnight.<\/p>\n We need to show a little support for what the manager is trying to achieve, and it is a wee bit different not only from what we want, but what we expected.<\/p>\n Going back to his comments about discipline and one hundred per cent concentration, expect to see a few hammerings handed out in the next few weeks to other sides. The players will be aware that there is a chance to get into the “new ” team, and realistically, so far, only Simunovic, Allan, Tierney and Griffiths are a part of it long term.<\/p>\n Theres room for the others, but I’ve a feeling they are interchangeable.<\/p>\n Next month will give us a further indicator of this.<\/p>\n Celtic are being linked with all sorts of players, which may mean that the word has gone out that a certain player profile is in demand.<\/p>\n Some are realistic, some are ridiculous.<\/p>\n Tomorrow, Celtic face Liverpool in the Premier league Cup. The games in chester, and for me it presents a unique opportunity to go along and see them, so we’re heading out in the morn. It’s only forty or so miles away, so it will be a bit weird, and almost like a normal fan going to the game, having time for breakfast, and finding matching socks.<\/p>\n Even weirder will be getting home in time for tea.<\/p>\n But i’ll be able to watch the young guns in action, and I’m looking forward to it.<\/p>\n It’s nice to have something to look forward to.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I got an old friend, who used to work for the Celtic View in the nineties, to come up with the title for todays diary.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":8282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/etims.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/view.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2J7If-29z","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8281"}],"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=8281"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8283,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8281\/revisions\/8283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}