{"id":8781,"date":"2016-03-14T09:55:11","date_gmt":"2016-03-14T09:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/etims.net\/?p=8781"},"modified":"2016-03-14T09:55:11","modified_gmt":"2016-03-14T09:55:11","slug":"celtic-diary-monday-march-14-second-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/etims.net\/?p=8781","title":{"rendered":"Celtic Diary Monday March 14: Second Edition;"},"content":{"rendered":"

No idea where the first one went. I was just about to publish and off it popped.<\/p>\n

So you’ll have to take my word for it that it was the best ever.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Celtic beat Partick 2-1 on Saturday. The result moves the club closer to that fifth consecutive title, and although aberdeen kept pace with a 2-1 win of their own, thats one less game they have to overhaul the hoops.<\/p>\n

Nine games to go now, and if we all stick together, we should be okay.<\/p>\n

Leigh Griffiths opened the scoring just before half time, which perhaps settled a few nerves, taking his tally to thirty five for the season, and showing that he’s still hungry.<\/p>\n

Calum MacGregor added the second just after half time, which seemed to be enough to make the game safe, until referee Stephen finnie rememebred he hadn’t given Partick their penalty yet, and when a clumsy Erik Svaitchenko sort of tried to pull back Steven Lawless, there was no hesitation from Finnie, although he didn’t send the big Dane off, which means he will be sitting by himself in the lodge from now on, and certainly has no chance of refereeing the cup semi final.<\/p>\n

This was Particks first penalty kick in 69 games, and the first they have scored since February 2014. alan Archibald is currently undergoing counselling to help him deal with the shock;<\/p>\n

\u201cShocked, stunned. I was very surprised to see the penalty, we haven\u2019t had one in a year and a half.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

If Partick make the top six, there’s every chance he’ll see his side awarded at least one more before the end of the season.<\/p>\n

Calum MacGregor , now all grown up since he moved back home, spoke about how bad he felt after his recent drink drive conviction, and how the manager helped him through it;<\/p>\n

\u201cI had some dark days after it, \u201cI was so disappointed in myself.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a hard thing to take and I needed to try and get my head around it. It was an awful time.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cBut while I thought that might be it for me in terms of my Celtic career, the manager came and out an arm around me and told me that I had to have a think and then try to lift myself.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHe told me it was stupid but that the most important thing I take out of it is a lesson.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI am so grateful that I have been handed another chance and I am desperate to take it.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

We all make mistakes, but this particular case is indicative of the lack of guidance given to youngsters at Celtic in the matter of how to behave in a manner befitting a menber of the team when he’s off the park.<\/p>\n

Someone should maybe have a think about creating a full time position within the club helping these youngsters , thrust suddenly into the limelight, cope with the trials and tribulations of being in the old goldfish bowl.<\/p>\n

Or , of course, just helping them to grow up.<\/p>\n

The Partcik game was kind of a microcosm of the season. Cruising comfortably, expectied to win, and then all of a sudden it became a little nervy.<\/p>\n

There will be many more penalties and , er, controversial decisions during this run in. Celtic need to make more of the chances in front of goal. Saturday not only saw a return \u00a0to centre back of Charlie mulgrew, instead of using him as a draw back, and things did sem a little calmer in our own half.<\/p>\n

Kris commons also came back into the side, as Deila looks to have decided to put his faith in the old heads to get us over the finishing line.<\/p>\n

However, we need to dithch this policy of shooitng straight at the keeper , when combined with plan b, which is to hit it as far away as humanly pssible from him, is resulting in an awful lot of chances going a-begging.<\/p>\n

Ach, if we keep the heid and stick together we’ll be fine.<\/p>\n

Theres an old Arab proverb which kind of sums this season up for me, and maybe also explains a lot of things…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

but its down to how you deal with the rain….<\/p>\n

You’ll have to forgive me for the brevity if this second Diary, as time is now more of a problem than when i started the first one, which appears to have been seized by one of those societies showing people how to write witty , informative and entertaining blogs.<\/p>\n

Aye, okay.<\/p>\n

Todays caption competition …<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and finally, Happy birthday to john Clark, enjoy the cake…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Oh, we haven’t done a book review for a while, so keep an eye out for our summary of this potential classic…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No idea where the first one went. I was just about to publish and off it popped. So you’ll have to take my word for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":8785,"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\/2016\/03\/2nd-edition.jpe","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2J7If-2hD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8781"}],"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=8781"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8786,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8781\/revisions\/8786"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}