Celtic 1 – 4 Sparta Prague
Morning,all.
Bonfire night might have been the night we saw Neil Lennon’s hopes of taking us towards The Fabled Ten go up in flames. You all saw that last night,and it was utterly shambolic. That argument though can wait for another day,let’s just deal with last night,the here and now.
We have a team of highly paid professionals,internationalists almost to a man,and they played like strangers to each other,strangers to even the game of football. There is not a player out there who can be proud of his performance last night.
I don’t want to go overboard too much about it,the autopsy can wait till later-but certainly this Celtic team is not showing much sign of life,and there have been way too many embarrassing and frankly piss-poor performances this season for any of us to casually dismiss as a bad day at the office or even just needing a bit of tinkering at the edges.
This isn’t a car which just needs a retune,a bit of work done under the bonnet. From what I saw last night,there isn’t an engine left to work on,the wheels have came off and the brakes are shot.
On top of which,there’s a big problem with the driver who seems not to know how to drive the bloody thing in the first place.
We had a front line who couldn’t hold the ball up,certainly didn’t seem to be playing as a unit and who couldn’t get into dangerous areas. A midfield who couldn’t provide them with the bullets and who also couldn’t protect our men at the back,and a defence which was fucking useless,if I’m honest. Sparta drove through our middle any time they felt like it and there was as much chance of me putting in an effective tackle from 400 miles away as there was of any of our players doing it.
And by the way,Sparta,when they weren’t putting the ball in the net,looked like a bloody ordinary team,so just how bad were we then?
I don’t want these players to publicly apologise to the fans for the performance last night,nor for any of those performances in the last three weeks or so. I want them to cut them out. They are vastly better players than they have shown recently,and it is way past time they showed it and earned their money.
They were a disgrace to the jersey,an expression I doubt I’ve ever used before. I don’t think there’s a single one of them can argue to the contrary.
I know you folks don’t.
Above article by BMCUWP
Predictor link for weekend games,and there are four tonight to have a look at.
https://sentinelcelts.com/?p=5783
Take care Fairhill. Thoughts and prayers.
RIP Bernard.
MIT
Correct!
Actually I can summarize that and everything myself and others have been saying since Willo Flood……..
“Tims get what they fucking deserve!”
MiT,
Known it all along. Just wanted to witness the final act up close.
Hail Hail
bada bing1
If NL wasn’t Celtic manager, what level of club would he be at? Dundee,Bristol Rovers…?
—————————————————————————————————-
His next gig will be as stand-in pundit at Clyde Superscoreboard. There is not a professional football club on the planet that would invite him to manage their club.
Thon Karlsson looked very handy yesterday.
Worth a close up squint.
M6BHOY
If he’s lucky…
Ronny Deila and John Kennedy
Brendan Rodgers and John Kennedy
Neil Lennon and John Kennedy
Eddie Howe and John Kennedy
Gordon Strachan and John Kennedy
Martin O’ Neill and John Kennedy
Shaun Dyche and John Kennedy
This arranged marriage routine must stop,guys must stand and fall with assistants they know and trust, not the CEO having a man on the inside, that is when the controlling starts
The fact that DD was one of the first to attempt a rewriting of history, should be the whole of his “Legacy”. Not that men like him GAF, there must be a way for us to convey to him how disgusted some of us are, and how unforgivable his comments were and are.
I keep being told “You need to separate the team from the board, BAD” Do people not realise, these rats depend on us having that attitude, they count on it! The really sad thing is, we have enough supporters who do want to roll around in the mud, with an opponent who would crush us given the opp. If all we have to look forward to is another century of Old Firm bile, I am most definitely out!
Firhill.
So sorry to hear of your news. All the best, mate 💚
AFTERNOON ALL and JIM, FB. condolences on your sad loss,,,MIKE agree with everything you said in your post except the bit about lenny going, those bassas will hold on to him as long as they can and hope for a good win against motherwell and pray the furore dies down, IMHO of course,
TGM.
Let’s be honest, nothing else makes sense, does it? The board have just followed the path that appeared to offer the greatest return …jeez, we are barely a football club now, Just a money making vehicle for leeches. The problem is, we have downsized too far and are now about to pay the price for it.
Who would have thought the Liquidation of Rangers would be the catalyst for what I consider the most shameful episode in our whole history?. One of my last acts as a Celtic fan, will be to let them know why they will never see another penny of my money, and all my family feel the same. If I paid £50 to see us play Sevco, while kidding myself I’m watching Rangers, I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror.
BAD,
Dermot is capitalising on a rancid sectarian divide.
Without a competitive Rangers there’s no OF.
Connolly, Pearse and Gifford, would have done everything in their power to reject profiteering of the toxic Taig-Hun axiom.
Old Firmism is slavery. It’s a drug, an addiction.
Domination is the language of fear and is the polar opposite to everything people like Connolly stood for.
Dermot and Lawwell are Gombeens. Exploiting the misery of the Scottish people.
The Old Firm represents everything that the Easter Rising fought to remove from Irish shores.
It’s tragic that a tax exile Irishman is conning the Irish diaspora in Scotland. It’s even more tragic because he just sees it as ‘business’.
Business and profit are Dermot’s primary addictions.
Let’s hope Dermot has an epiphany like Paul on the road to Damascus.
A damning judgement but there you go.
When you see through the lie that it is, life opens up…Freedom.
The time is now, Lenny’s last game should be Sunday.
Pay him what he is due, in full, and thank him for everything he has done for Celtic as a player and manager.
The Czech press on their own players who won last night:
“A bunch of young men joined, who usually sit among the substitutes.”
Jnp,
I have to agree the time is nigh. I would not give Sunday though, could do with new guy in now for full two weeks of the break.
Hail Hail
JNP hi pal it all depends on sunday, if we get a good win he gets a reprieve, unfortunately.H.H.
Last night was a long time coming. There’s a number of reasons for it and as others have said it starts at the top.
DD is quite content to leave the CEO to get on with it until he himself is personally inconvenienced or embarrassed by events on the field. (It’s ok for us fans to pay for the privilege of being embarrassed by events on the field).
The main issue with this is that the CEO isn’t very good at anything connected with the football side of our business (despite the fact our business is football). When DD did take more of a hands on approach he appointed excellent football people and let them get on with the business of football ( MON, WGS & BR). When the CEO gets his way we get Mowbray, Ronny & Neil Lennon twice. We also get the CEO signing players for his pet project that the manager(s) didn’t want or have any input into and the CEO not offering contracts to players whom the manager wanted to keep. A wiser man than me once said “If you’re going to make mistakes, at least make them your own”. Or something like that.
As for DD, his interest in Celtic went when he realised we were not moving to the EPL/Premiership any time soon. He’s quite happy to collect whatever profit he makes and if we get a move to a bigger league then great, he’ll cash in his chips and walk away a few quid wealthier. If we don’t he still makes some money off us and we’re a thing for him to brag about and keep his son happy. Which is nice for Desmond Junior. Without the lure of English/Sky TV money and the associated glamour the next best way (in his eyes) to make us attractive & relevant to anyone outside Scotland is to re-animate the footballing equivalent of an illegal dog fight.
This myopic business view dovetailed beautifully with our CEOs approach to things. He’s an accountant and in my experience accountants have a lack of imagination and a one dimensional approach. Their only concern is the bottom line and they want to take the easiest way of getting their sums to add up, often forgetting the reason why the business operates in the business it operates in in the first place.
Apologies to any accountants.
This lack of ambition/foresight/competence manifested itself when the huns were grubbing about in the lower divisions. Those years were the perfect time to implement a new sporting structure & defined strategy at the club. One that clearly established our way of doing things and would be the template for future success.
We should have appointed a Director of Football & a Sporting Director. These 2 roles would work in tandem with the 1st team coach to ensure he had all the support he needed and would also help protect the club in the event of unforeseen circumstances arising. The DoF would be constantly keeping tabs on what players & coaches were available at any given time so that The Club could move quickly in the event that we have a potentially troublesome player (Boyata, Dembele) or if a manager was so despicable that they would quit during the season. This would hopefully prevent a scenario when we don’t interview anyone for the most important role at the club and then offer the job in the showers. The Sporting Director would help ensure the footballing philosophy was consistent throughout the club and help maintain the highest of standards in the Academy. In an interview, Andy Robertson said that Tommy Burns was always encouraging him saying don’t worry about the physical aspect of the game just keep working on technique, your size etc doesn’t matter it’s how good you are with the ball that counts. He encouraged technique over power. Robertson then went on to say that the person who took over from Tommy was more concerned with the physical aspect of the game & Robertson was subsequently let go. Having this structure in place would hopefully help prevent this unforgivable kind of mistake and since the 1st team coach, DoF & Sporting Director are all on the same page, would help create a clear definable pathway from the Academy to the 1st team.
The different facets of the club seem to operate completely independently from one other. In the last 9 years I can only think of Forrest, CalMac & KT coming through the ranks to make a lasting impression on the 1st team or to be sold for big money ( and in the case of KT you could argue £25m is below what we should have got). Surely we could have integrated more Academy players into the 1st team when we essentially had a clear run at the league for all those years.
Instead we have a CEO with an ego that demands he be the top man at the club.
Who makes bad appointments when he is allowed to chose employees.
Who stumbled onto some good fortune when Lenny came good as a manager in his 1st spell ( then had the spine of his team sold off.
Who has managed to deflect his failings in Europe ( 2 CL qualifications in 7 years) because we’ve dominated in Scotland ( albeit with a head start of 7 season and a budget greater than every other team in our league combined for those seasons).
A few weeks back I said we were stagnating as a club. Now it seems we’re regressing to the point it’s going to fall apart.
Sorry for the length of the post ( and once again to all you accountants).
Fox News is instructing its anchors not to call Joe Biden the “President-elect” when the network calls the race, according to two memos obtained by CNN.
One win in six. Realistically, how many of the next 6 are we going to win?? https://t.co/8bKPgmI6Iw
Mahe.
I know what your saying but in this day and age, it takes time to dot the Ts.
We should be actively interviewing potential managers with a view to announcing Mo/Tues
B.P.
Look at the next six fixtures, even if we win, the manager is only another defeat away from the support wanting him out, he’s lost the backing of the majority of the support now, in my opinion.
JIMMYNOTPAUL
I expect the board to act after Sunday’s match,and might well even have informed NL of that decision already. I think it will be a caretaker manager till the end of the season,with the time taken to ensure we get the right man.
But looking at that run of matches,it’s a helluva situation to throw a new manager into. Just need to hope he steadies the ship and is a miracle worker too!
JNP, we share the same view, get out now lenny please,👍
Jnp, It really shouldn’t take long to draw up a quick contract, but we don’t rush.
Also no point in a new manager under current setup. He decides in Jan he needs three players why should Peter provide? He won’t or will get someone at the very end.
He doesn’t want John, but taking JK onboard is part of being hired?
Because we are likely to fail this season, the list of those interested will be very limited.
We effed it up ourselves. Ten wasn’t wanted by the board, lets face it.
Hail Hail
STARABOVETHECREST
A lot in there mate,but the most important point you make is that the manager is not the most important person at the club-not even when it comes to footballing matters. The extent of PL’s control is ridiculous,and has led us to where we are. And there’s been plenty warning about it for years too.
It is less than two years ago that he got a £3m bonus,and at the time many of us wondered why? Well,I think he owes us a rebate now.
NZ continues to make me proud.
New cabinet has five Maouris, eight women, one openly gay guy. No problem at all, love of country comes first.
By bringing the natives onboard the community relations are positive.
It hasn’t always been so, the Maouri have had it bad.
Delighted to call a couple friend back in the day.
Hail Hail
If I was John Kennedy I would stay the fuck away from the showers.
MAGS
And if I was a Celtic player,I’d be barricading the showers and telling Lawwell to do his bloody job.
Biden inches ever closer to becoming only the second Catholic President of the USA 60 years after the first
It’s a great day Donald is leaving and MIT is back
MAHE
Karlsson was on loan to Killie. from Sunderland six or seven years ago.
No sense in just firing NL we need a clean sweep.
By the way…i dont believe any of the board pl or dd want “rangers” to win at the cost$$$ of our club. IMO
MIT
You are probably happy now.😈
The Gombeen man,
I am genuinely heartbroken.
Sounds daft to say that about a football team? Of course but here I am.
When I was young, Celtic really meant something to me, like it stood for right, like the good cowboy in the old westerns lol.
Sadly, Celtic are just a part of a realisation I’ve had that most things are a con …including the 2 balloons in the US who are both in the same lodge 😉
I used to wish for big changes at the club, but the only thing that would change would be the faces of the leeches…pointless!
Never thought I’d see a day that Cetic wouldn’t be a real joy to me. HH
Got this information from a pretty reliable source … dont shoot the messenger…
NFL is going to be mutually consented this week …
interim manager to come in ’til the end of the season…
if the zombies win the league …
CQN… sorry, I mean Celtic’s PR department says the Board has scoured the lengths and breadth of Britain to find the best man for the job … who had a proven track record of success…someone who ‘gets the club’ ….
step forward ….
Neil Frances Lennon.
🙂
After the Cluj, Ferencvaros and Sevco defeats I was apoplectic with rage, watching the game last night I just felt a resigned despondency
how could any african american vote for trump is beyond me, he is a racist white supremacist, he would get the kukluklan reinstated as one of the good guys,, anti catholic anti jewish,, a wasp in other words, im sure you know what that means.
TH
Happy about Trump? or Celtic?
As for DD/PL wanting Rangers to win … I think it is part of their business model … if we win everything, zombies stop going (not in their nature to support a loser)… if we win everything, even our fans get bored, and eventually stop going …… keeping the zombies going was in the best interest of Celtic … at least, that is how DD/:PL will justify their actions.
the only real question is did our Board see us as being second to Rangers .. the return of the good old OF …
or did they think that that, if they allowed Rangers to return, Rangers would be chastened, and now be good corporate citizens, and with our financial advantage, they would never catch up so we would always be ahead of them (the P67 theory), ?
to me, the failure of Celtic to use the last eight years to move our club forward suggests the former
if the former, they are morally unfit for their jobs, and need to go … if the latter, mentally unfit for their jobs, and need to go…
BP
Hope you and the pack are well.
as for blacks voting for Trump…. It is hard for me to fathom … sort of like I cant understand how any Irish/Catholics could continue to support a football club that gets into bed with a club that hates Irish/Catholics….
evidently, politics and football make strange bedfellows….
BAD,
I’ve admired your posts on the blog for a longtime. You epitomise everything that’s great about Celtic.
We’re going through a necessary transition.
A wake-up call, I suppose.
The last few months have been tough. The Sevco games, the nastiness. Translatergate, dodgy financial dealings, politics, misleading stories put out by people that know better.
Behind all that there’s something that money can’t buy. Things like my relationship with my kids and good times with my own dad.
Shares and money can’t buy that kind of a thing.
That spirit will outlast DD and PL.
We’re a patient lot.
There’s light at the end of the tunnel.
This is just a part of Celtic’s history. Growing pains maybe?
This has been coming for a while but it still hurts.
Celtic’s best always comes out of adversity. An integrated team, without the distractions of sectarianism, politics or Gombeens.
I came across this cover of one of my favourites the other day. Zombie by the Cranberries and an unlikely female doing it justice.
https://youtu.be/l81u-oSIAp4
MIT @6;11
Have to disagree with that comment,that is your opinion only…….no proof.
MIKE, nice to see you on, you have been missed not by me but jimthetim53, only joking buddy😍 the pack are fine, apart from the fireworks going on at the moment, mike when jim and I were young😍fireworks only started on the 5th of november, now it starts at halloween and goes thru till christmas, the pack dont like it ,luv to you and seamus 👍
The EL is now beyond us however we are still well within touching distance in the league and on the verge of completing the quadruple treble. All is not lost but we need to sort it out pronto with or without NFL at the helm
Packy, no fireworks tonight so far. Thank goodness. Great to see Mike in Toronto & Fan-A-Tic back on. Even although they are both saying the hurtful truth. I can’t wait for the day when PL & DD are gone. In the shorter term I hope NL has moved on this week-end.
It is Friday aftternoon here, and I dont feel like starting something new …so ….I’ll dredge up something I have mentioned before … it may be of interest to Auldheid, if/when he gets back on here …
In 1974, and after V2, a Jesuit theologian, Avery Dulles, S.J., wrote a book on ecclesiology … what do we mean when we speak of the Catholic church? He saw six distinct aspects of the church. His idea was that all of the six need to work in harmony, and the problems arise when one aspect dominates to too great an extent …. I think the same type of analysis could apply to Celtic FC.
Dulles saw the following aspects of the Church:
Sacrament – the visible manifestation of God’s word in the world. Not sure what the analogue would be in Celtic. But, the comparison doesn’t have to be exact.
Instituion – the teaching and ruling (on matters of faith) aspect of the church.
Herald – spreading the word of God.
Servant – improving the lot of all of mankind
Disciple – disciple comes from the old latin meaning student… so, continually learning.
Dulles’ idea was that all aspects need to be working in harmony for the church to be successful .. and if one aspects tends to dominate too much, problems arise.
For Celtic, we could see:
Football team – provides joy and fosters community to its followers
Servant – Celtic’s origin, as continued on through the Celtic Foundation
Company – makes the money which funds the team, and, to an extent, the charitable aspects
herald – spreads the good word (of Celtic’s origins and what it is supposed to stand for ) around the world
I haven’t given this much thought of late, but it seems like Dulles’ model could be used to help Celtic move forward…
there are other aspects that I haven’t thought of at the moment (feel free to wade in)… but for our purposes, this suffices …
the point is that, at present, the money making aspect has come to dominate, to the detriment of the other aspects…
the matter is made more complicated as Celtic PLC is now a company… and as I have noted in other posts, psychopathological pursuit of profit has become almost the norm for corporations….
but, unless and until the psychopathological and for lack of a better word, ecclessiological, aspects of Celtic are addressed, the present problems are going to continue, if not increase ….
MIKE brilliant stuff, i am going to let jim to respond to that, im a catholic but jim is a better catholic, if you get my drift👍 😍
Black men are voting for Trump not black women.
The reason black men are voting for Trump is the same reason most white people are voting for Trump. They dont want that “Insert your own homophone that rhymes with bigger and glitch here (so that it sound doesnt offend anyone) ” to become president once Biden dies. A super smart super educated half black/brown articulate woman who doesnt take shit from anyone in a position of ultimate power. Their worst nightmare come true.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q7vtWB4owdE Our next team talk 😜
Sorry to hear of your loss Fairhill… thoughts and prayers are with you.
Hail Hail
Some great posts today, great to see MiT back telling it like it is.
Hail Hail
Chairbhoy…
I’m going to leave more often if I keep getting nice welcome backs …(that’s lawyer logic for ya)
You lot are making me feel like Sally Fields …:)
MAGS
I said as much to my mates on Wednesday,no way Biden will be president through the whole term. Which will be interesting indeed.