SENTINELCELTS

Morning, all.

There’s quite a bit to cover today after yesterday’s events, almost all of which happened to Celtic without us taking any active part. The one that we knew about in advance was the draw for the Europa League. It wasn’t particularly kind to us, but could have been worse. We don’t face any arduous trips to the other side of the planet, for starters. And there’s every chance of us making the post-group matches. Not much chance though of doing so without that qualifying round first for the round of sixteen.

Hot on the heels of the draw being revealed, we had the outcome of the SFA disciplinary process regarding our cup game at Ibrox in March. Quite incredibly-but not, in hindsight-surprisingly, they decided to treat both defendants as equally guilty. That means that they viewed an outpouring of joy and celebration, confined to a couple of dozen fans celebrating a win with the players, as being the same as the hundreds of hun hordes who invaded the pitch with only one thought in mind-to inflict damage on the away support. Both teams were told that their next home  Scottish cup tie will be played behind closed doors, with a £100,000 compensation fee awarded to the other side. 

My own thoughts on this are that the club-who vigorously protested the punishment in their response-will appeal this. Personally, I think they may be on to plums. There is no moral high ground when your fans have invaded the pitch, no matter the cause. We may not like that, but that’s likely to be how it is argued. Countermeasures like telling them to stuff their cup competition aren’t likely to even be considered. Not with our board who treat every penny as a prisoner. 

The bad news kept coming too, with our Ibrox chums using the above as the perfect reason to cut our League Cup allocation to a risible 300. And no, I didn’t leave out a zero. 300 tickets barely covers the allocation for directors and other staff-I wonder how many we can fit in the dugout?-so the public sale will be somewhat limited. There are no rules on ticket allocations in the competition, so we don’t have a leg to stand on here. And we provided a rod for our own backs bin the form of previous pitch invasions, gleefully referenced by Der Hun. They might have failed miserably in their attempt to gain that moral high ground I mentioned, but they managed to move the narrative away from their woeful exit from Europe the previous night. 

We, of course, are still getting it in the neck for our capitulation on Tuesday. Rightly so, I might add. MON didn’t try very hard to defend the indefensible, but the hacks were like a pack of rabid dogs. If it wasn’t the game itself, they wanted to know how it might affect our planned moves in the transfer market. Martin game fully said that he hoped it wouldn’t have an effect, but the three top candidates beforehand-Mahmic, Gineitis, and Sugur-look to have decided that they will be better served elsewhere. That’s their decision, though it probably serves our board well too. Our latest target is a 19yo Dutch guy with about the same experience as McArdle. And I’m not too pleased either with our lack of cover elsewhere, particularly in goal and at left back. 

Still, today will hopefully allow us to forget about the above for a couple of hours at least. CalMac might miss the game due to a stomach bug, an avoidable malady caused no doubt by being stuck on a plane with Trusty, who had the same on the flight to Austria. I’d be surprised if CCV makes it, and the same goes for Høgh. This should give us a chance to see the lesser-spotted Osmand, at least for some of the game. Scales should start, but I have no idea who will replace our captain. That’s what happens when you lose our two most energetic midfielders without replacing them. And today is, I believe, the start of a run of weekend and midweek games all the way through to the first international break. 

The board still have a couple of days left to get some bodies in to relieve the pressure on everyone, but hitting an injury problem so early in the season doesn’t bode well for the long arduous months to come. It is obvious that our squad is massively below the quality required, but for it to be massively short in quantity as well is a disgrace. 

But, knowing our board, they will look at the drop in numbers of the playing staff and…fire somebody in payroll for being surplus to requirements. Not so many wages to be calculated, you see. 

Everything that has happened this week has mightily pissed me off, as you may have noticed. I’ll still be pissed off tomorrow, amd probably for a while to come. But at least for those couple of hours this afternoon, I’m hoping to have something to cheer about. 

Wouldn’t it be nice?

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