SENTINELCELTS

Morning,all.

We are back in action today with a home match against Motherwell, our first time at home on Boxing Day for some time. Which is nice, because I’ll be there in person. Events have conspired against me this year and this is my first trip home since last Christmas-hopefully that won’t happen again!-so it will be my first time at Celtic Park since 2nd January. And that’s too big a gap anaw. 

Of course, no matter how long any of us stay away or even if we are there for every home game, there is always that special feeling when The Holy Ground finally comes into sight. In my case, it is as I am walking down from Duke Street and those amazing high stands appear. I might be into my 60s now, but I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck rising just as they did when I was a wee 4yo seeing the floodlights peeking through the gloom as we came in from the Dalmarnock approach. It’s such a special feeling, and I hope it’s not just me!

Strictly speaking,we come into today’s match on the back of three successive draws. But since one of them includes the League Cup Final victory on penalties, who cares? (Actually, our opponents do, and they seem to be taking it rather badly, but I’ll briefly discuss that near the end of the article.) So we could probably do with a wee goalfest today just to settle the nerves a little, get our forward line back into the habit of hitting the back of the net, our midfield back into the habit of playing with their backs to our own goal rather than that of our opponents. It’s the start of a wee run of four games in ten days, three of which are at home. And they are the perfect opportunity to set us up for the second half of the season. 

Apart from the importance of the three points, today is ideal for checking up on the progress of one of our rumoured transfer targets. Motherwell undoubtedly have one of the rising stars in the Scottish game, the 18yo Lennon Miller. While he is a midfielder, he is too young yet to have his “own” particular settled role there, being used right across the middle by his club as events dictate. And even at that tender age, he has captained the side, been called up to the national squad, and been “linked” to various clubs across England and the continent. 

Is he someone we should be looking at? Of course he is, it would be foolish to say otherwise. And while we already have five players for the three midfield places, injury and suspension can soon make that look threadbare. I’ll pass on the likelihood of us signing him, other than to say that he probably won’t be at Motherwell too much longer. BR knows the type of player he wants, and the board have recently shown that they are happy enough to back his judgment. 

Of more importance is the personnel we will be fielding today. Sunday saw us drop two points at Tannadice, due in no small part to a hugely depleted squad as injury and illness took their toll on us. I’m never in favour of fielding players who aren’t 100% fit, even when their replacements aren’t of the same quality. Let players recover fully before putting them back in the firing line; partially fit players rarely do themselves or the side justice, and can set back their recovery by some time. There may be no certainty about the starting XI or the result, but in football there never is.

Except of course there is always the certainty of our Ibrox-based rivals releasing a statement on the back of their latest temper tantrum! This one arrived at SFA HQ just in time for Christmas too, doncha just love them. Peace and goodwill to all men, etc. They are still slightly miffed about being awarded a free kick on the edge of the box last Sunday, and instead of blaming the two, possibly three, officials with most responsibility for that-it’s one,actually. Beaton blew the whistle for the foul before any penalty box controversy-they have now focused in on the lowest ranked official on the day,the VAR Assistant. 

The hierarchy of matchday officials is: 

Referee

VAR

Asst Referee 1 and 2

Fourth Official

VAR Assistant. 

Blaming the VAR assistant is a bit like blaming the school janny when you fail your O-grades, but commonsense and the huns rarely go hand in hand. I doubt Frank Connor, for it is he, will be too bothered by it all, but it will be interesting to see how his career progresses from here. For a club which has only one voice and one vote at the table, same as every other club, they don’t half seem inclined to use it more often than any others.  And the fact that they have yet to face a disrepute or similar charge just encourages them in their quest to steamroller their way through any and every regulation applied to the rest of us. 

If the SFA and other member clubs are as fed up with it as we are, then they have a strange way of showing it. Throw the bloody book at them, same as they would any other club, manager or player who came out with this even once. Otherwise, get bloody used to it.

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Above article by BMCUWP