Aberdeen

Aberdeen 3—3 Celtic (win on penalties after extra-time)

Aberdeen win the moral victory, but Celtic get to the Scottish Cup final after penalties. Bojan Miovski has a good scoring record against Celtic. He was at it again today. Two minutes in and he’s in behind the defence and scored. Game on.

We’d 88 minutes to retrieve the match. Yang missed an early chance, when he really should have scored with a back post header. He’d an awful match.

I’m not sure Kuhn on the other wing is much better. He did grab the equaliser. Kyogo had robbed Angus MacDonald just outside the Don’s box. His shot was blocked and Kuhn simply slid it into an empty net. We’d another seventy minutes to grab a winner.

Just after the hour mark a real winger came on. I used to slate James Forrest. Lately, (as in before the Old Firm game) I wanted him to start. Here’s the reason why. He came on, drifted in off the wing and bent a shot into the bottom corner of the net. He’d another few chances were he was unlucky. He did more in his cameo that our two other so-called wingers, before bizarrely getting taking off in extra-time of extra-time for  Maik Nawrocki to shore up an increasingly unreliable defence.

But his substitution had the opposite effect. Liam Scales has been on the slide recently. He wasn’t as awful as Yang, but most of the Aberdeen goals came down his side. Scales was also lucky to get away with a hand ball. Replays suggest it might have been outside the box, but it was marginal, on a day when everything Scales did seemed laboured.  

Not as lucky as Carter-Vickers, who looked to have given away a stonewall penalty. He clearly kicked Hoilett. Both luck and VAR came to Celtic’s rescue again. Carter-Vickers has had a great press and pundits are telling us how good he is. Not today. He did make a few blocks but Mivoski got the better of him for the first goal and, generally, got the better of him and Scales.

Aberdeen’s late and even later goals were identical. Substitute, Ester Sokler, headed in at the back post from a cross from fellow substitute Junior Hoilett on the 90th minute.

Sandwiched by a coolly taken Matt O’Riley strike high into the net in extra-time.

Junior Hoilett flung another cross into the back post where Scales et al were found wanting, and the Aberdeen captain, who’d gifted Celtic an equaliser in the opening minutes, scored on 120nd minute to make amends.

Penalties. We all know what happened next. Hart the hero and the villain. Hitting the post with a spot kick, but saving that crucial one that took us to the final.

My man of the match was James Forrest, which says it all. I think we’re fated to win the league but not the cup. I hope we win both, of course. Rangers implosion has been wonderful but there’s still work to be done. The joy of a cup final, but poor in defence, poor in midfield and missing lots of scoring opportunities doesn’t make good reading, but does make a good game for the neutral. I’m never that. Move onto the next game. Dundee away. Play like this and we’ll win nothing.

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Kerry Hudson (2024) Newborn Running away, Breaking from the past, Building a new family.

Kerry Hudson makes the personal universal. She’s forty and having a baby in a maternity hospital in Prague, while the country, indeed the world has shut down due to the COVID-19 virus. She has a section and a wee boy who is perfect in every way. Her partner, Peter is waiting for her and they take their baby back to their rented apartment in the city centre. End of story.

That’s the newborn part. Kerry Hudson doesn’t usually do happy endings. Which I appreciate. Nothing spoils my day more than some middle-class turnip wandering off and living a Mills and Boon, happy-ever-after ending.

There’s also the sudden Russian invasion of Ukraine. And a Czech response that shames Britain.  Kerry also offers her home to a refugee. Well, refugees, if you include a cat and dog.   

She was worried that although she’s mastered the C-section shuffle, the Slovak language remains beyond her. Baby Sammy and her are healthy enough candidates for early discharge, but she’ll accidentally ‘fuck it all up’.  

Despite being an award-winning writer, her carefully constructed world will unravel. All the carefully propped up ladders in her life will give way. She’ll be found out. Her fall will be unbroken. There will be no more Little House on the Prairie kind of life, or move inside the bright primary colours of Sesame Street, she watched on the telly as a kid. Reality will be what she knew and come to expect. She is reminded of this by a well-wishing fan and acquaintance from her early life in Torry, Aberdeen. (I’ve been to a few of the pubs near the Harbour).

She’s in her rented flat, holding a baby that gives her life purpose and joy, holding photos from her past. Her mother was beautiful, but not a mother. She’d leave Kerry as a package behind any door with whoever was available for days at a time. Her father was double her mum’s age, but not a father. An alcoholic, needy soul, with mental-health issues.

Philip Larkin nails it in This Be the Verse:

‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad,

Your parents they fuck you up,

“They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.”

Kerry Hudson’s personality, her personal reality of rape, assault and abuse, are captured in those photos. And in a story her older cousin reminds her, when like so many other working-class babies, her mother was cleaning her in the kitchen sink.

‘Your mum was washing you in the sink while talking. You started crying, maybe with getting soap in your eyes. She issued a parade ground-type        BE QUIET! And you stopped crying. I was struck by your expression. I thought – This little child is AWARE.’

This reminds me of the orphaned children of Romania after the execution of the Ceaușescus. Wee babies who didn’t bother crying. Self-aware enough to know if they cried nobody would come to comfort them.

Kerry Hudson would not let her own fucked-up past fuck up Sammy’s future. Post-natal depression, the baby blues, sleeps deprivation. A potent enough cocktail to destroy any relationship. Peter was in the firing line. Kerry was in the firing line too. Too exhausted to care. We know where this is going…Shit a happy ending of sorts. At least it’s not Byres-fucking-Road. Read on.

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Aberdeen 1—1 Celtic

A draw is a disaster. Defeat is catastrophic. We don’t need any reminding of that. We live it. Substitute Nicolas Kuhn’s second-half equaliser, after coming off Nicky Devlin, was fortuitous. Results like this are music to the ears of Rangers fans. Managerless Aberdeen hasn’t beaten Celtic in eight years. It’s been over three years since they managed a draw like today’s disaster, which could easily have been a catastrophe.  

A VAR check even before the game started. When the game got underway, a passback to the Aberdeen keeper, and the ball hoisted up in the air towards the left. We’ve watched enough matches to know how this works. Try and get free kicks and corners around the box. Devlin can take a long throw and hit the big men coming up from the back.

Taylor is tiny and he hasn’t been great this season, while still comfortably holding onto the left-back slot. Alexandro Bernarbei is so small his name is bigger than him. Taylor’s injury has opened the way for the young Argentinian to play his way into the first team. And he’s fine, as he was here, when teams like Aberdeen hardly get a kick of the ball in the first half.

An early goal always helps. We’ve scored in the first minute of our last two matches. Palma had a goal chopped off in the first ten minutes, after an Abada shot had been palmed out by the keeper. But young Israeli should really have scored. The Honduran also clipped the bar and had two other significant chances to finish. But after his double penalty misses last week, he’s no longer scoring. And I wonder now who will take our penalties.

Liel Abada isn’t scoring either and Kyogo is going on one of those goalless runs. Norwich loanee striker, Adam Idah, coming on, made more room for Kyogo. But we go back to that debate of whether he’s better playing the number ten role, where he looked more effective today. His strike rate through the middle, of course, would suggest otherwise.

Other players need to chip in. Bernardo hit the bar in the first half, in which he dinked the ball over Roos. O’Riley had a couple of efforts. He hit the post in the second half, but on another day he would have scored. McGregor had a quiet game and barely a shot on goal.

The first half went much as many of us thought. Celtic dominated between seventy to eighty percent possession. Aberdeen, in contrat, a solitary touch in the Celtic box.

The second half went much as Aberdeen supporters could only have dreamed. Celtic were linked with Bojan Miovski. Chris Sutton came out with the usual cliché’s of a thankless task in the first-half as Mivoski had few touches and no chances. When his chance did come, Sutton predicted his track record suggests he would take it.

 Maik Nawrocki, like many of the other Celtic players, strolled the first half. He played in Kyogo with a beautiful ball over the top which nearly created a goal. He was also booked for a needless foul on Miovski and probably should have been sent off for another mistimed tackle near the touchline on the same player in the second-half. No great surprise he was substituted.

Cameron Carter-Vickers was missing today. And we missed him. Nawrocki isn’t as good on the ball, which is so important when building from the back when teams sit in (as every team in the Scottish League does). More importantly, I doubt whether Miovski would have scored today had the American been on the field.

Aberdeen pressed higher at the start of the second-half. Celtic lost composure and fifty-fifty battles. The Dons were dominating. Dante Polvara played a curled pass, and it was fifty-fifty between Nawrocki and Miovski. Carter Vickers would have got there first and he would have defended better. Miovski’s took Nawrocki into the box and his finish into the corner. This encapsulated one of the reasons we were looking to sign him. But it was only as good as Nawrocki allowed it to be. I’d have fancied Carter-Vickers in this one on one.

Celtic’s substitute did bring us back into the game. But the introduction of Tony Ralston at left back tells you all you need to know about where we are. I don’t think he’s good enough for right back. And he looked as if he’d been brought off the terracing to play left back. I do like his commitment and he’s fan, but he’s just not good enough.

Obviously, we miss Hatate. Where O’Riley is this season (well, perhaps not in the last two matches) Hatate was last season. The Japanese international is out for five to six weeks. I can’t believe I’m saying we lost the midfield battle in the second half. And we’ll certainly lose the league if this slide continues. You don’t need to be an ultra to know we had to strengthen in the Window. We’ve went back the way. Regressed.

Graham Shinnie is finished. Yet he could have hit the equaliser at the close of the match after Mivoski’s earlier finish had been called offside. Imagine if he had scored. Catastrophe. We’d be calling for the manager’s head. It saddens me greatly to say Rangers are back. And if they win the league (50/50 as we now stand) then they’ll have financial parity with Champions League cash. Over and over we are Celtic supporters and faithful forever, but we’re not mugs. Whether we win the league or lose it, I think this transfer window has shown Rodgers enough to know that he’ll be away in the summer.  

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Celtic 0—4 Bayer Leverkusen.

None of my mates thought we’d win tonight (perhaps I should use mate, singular). A draw would have delighted us. We can’t score goals and concede at every opportunity. One win in six games. Against a Dundee United, mid-table Scottish team, we looked vulnerable. Against a German team with far better players, we feared we could face the West Ham scenario again. We feared a thrashing. The return of our captain, Callum McGregor a godsend. Kyogo Furuhashi leading the line an unexpected blessing.

In the first few minutes it was end to end. Leverkusen had a goal disallowed for offside. Kyogo rounded the keeper, Hradecky, and looked sure to put Celtic one up. Tah came in on the Japanese international’s blind side and put the ball out for a corner. The Finish keeper was hard to beat all evening—only something exceptional would get past him.

Tom Rogic has a shot that the keeper puts over the bar. Adam Montgomery plays a ball across the Bayer box but Liel Abada doesn’t get on the end of it. Twenty minutes in and even, the much maligned Carl Starfelt, has a descent effort that the Bayer keeper is forced to save.

Twenty-five minutes in and Parkhead is silenced. David Turnbull is caught in two minds clearing a ball on the Celtic touchline. Bakker nips in front of him and plays a diagonal ball across the six-yard box. Hincapie beats Hart, but Montgomery gets a foot to it, but directs it into the net.

Celtic punch-drunk. Commentator Chris Sutton remarks some of our home town players were hiding and it was difficult to argue with him. Unfortunately, Ralston wasn’t hiding. He gifted Bayer the second goal ten minutes after their first. Dithering on the ball in front of a static back-line. Wirtz one-touch finish made it all look too easy. Celtic on the ropes until half-time.

Celtic went for it at the start of the second-half. Kyogo almost pulled a goal back, holding off a defender and bending a ball in at the post. Hradecky got his fingertips to it. Bayer’s keeper followed that up with a good save from Jota. Ten minutes into the second half and Celtic look as if they might have a goal in them.

Thirteen minutes in and Turnbull goes down in the box, after a challenge from ex-Celt Frimpong. Not a penalty. Frimpong didn’t have the easiest night. He created a couple of gilt-edged chances, but Celtic’s best player, Jota, generally, got the best of him—when attacking.

Seventeen minutes into the second-half and it is game over. Leverkusen get a penalty, when the referee decides the ball hit Cameron Carter-Vickers’ arm and booked the central-defender.  Alario makes it 3-0.

Bayer with a game against top-of-the-table Bayern, at the weekend, bring on around six or seven subs (I lost count). Kyogo finds time to miss another sitter, before he’s taken off. Abada misses a good chance too.

Giakoumakis makes his debut for the last fifteen minutes, but barely gets a kick. Hart makes a world-class save from a downward Shick header with a few minutes remaining. The Bayer substitute the ripped Scotland to shreds can think himself unlucky not to score.

Amine Adli scores the fourth goal, four minutes after the ninety, running beyond a static Celtic defence and hammering the ball into the top corner past Hart.

Celtic were simply outclassed, found wanting all over the pitch. Hart and Jota get pass marks. Kyogo? That’s a tough one. Four chances, no goals. Turnbull sold a goal and just didn’t play. Ralston also sold a goal. You could see his effort, but sometimes effort isn’t enough. Hradecky showed him how it should be done. Sheer class, attacking and defending. We want to play like Manchester City, but we can’t defend and aren’t scoring. This was as close to our first team as you’ll get. Certainly, Christopher Julien is better than Starfelt. I’m better than Starfelt. But the problem doesn’t lie with the Swede international. Good teams find it easy to score against us. So do mediocre teams. Livingston, bottom of the Premier league at the time, beat us 1—0. The good news is I’m sure we’ll beat Aberdeen at Pittodrie. Not totally sure, but pretty sure. They’re wide open as well. And if we can score three or four, we might get better than a draw. If we can hang on to Rangers’ slipstream we’ve an outside chance of the league because they too are stuttering, just not as badly as us. In the Europa league we’ll be lucky to pick up more than a point.

Aberdeen 3—3 Celtic.

I know we’ll get that old line, for the neutral this was a cracking game. A great advertisement for Scottish football. I’d have taken a bog-standard Celtic victory. I know 27 league games to go. We’ll get the standard fare of no need to panic. I’m not panicking. Listen, I was at Love Street that day when Celtic needed to score four or five and we needed Albert Kidd to dig us out of a hole of Heart’s own making. Even early in the ten-in-a-row season, we’re looking at dog’s chances.

Rangers, from what I’ve seen, aren’t going to roll over this year. We need to be better and we need to be better fast.

Be careful what you wish for. Scott Bain in goal was a good start, but like Barkas, he didn’t make a significant save. Two of them were penalties, just before half time, and the extra-time of full-time. You don’t expect keepers to make saves then, but you kinda hope. The other goal, the second for Aberdeen was another Shane Duffy moment. You know the script and we’re getting the jokes, Shane Duffy is an Effie Ambrose waiting to happen. But we’re not laughing. Bring back Effie.

McGregor was in for Scott Brown. And McGregor gave us hope, when we were one down, with one of those dancing feet goals that dragged us back into the game. Good to see Rogic involved. Good to see the Australian back in the team.

Elyounoussi, after his cameo, against Milan, started here. He’d a poor game. But let’s look at the positives, he did get on the end of a cross and got us a penalty. A winning penalty- I’d hoped.

Come back Johnny Hayes (I’d have kept him and played him). He’d Frimpong in his pocket until the ninetieth-third minute when the Celtic youngster finally ran past him.

In a four-four-two and with Frimpong playing full back, we hoped he’d be able to run into space. But although he got lots of the ball, again and again he came inside. Leaving us no width.

Just when we seem to have the left-back position sorted with Laxalt, the right-back position is our weakest point in attack and defence.

McGregor might have dug us out of a half-time hole, but it was the return of the Griff that fired us ahead –and had us thinking we’d win.

Ajeti is a goal scorer, but he needs to hold the ball. He didn’t. He mumped and moaned, looking for fouls.

Griffiths, came on, as he did in the game against St Johnstone, before the international break, and turned the game. He made space for himself in the box. And his strike into the top corner was a thing of beauty.

Game over—I wish. You’ve got to allow for Duffy, wandering out to the left, like a cow returning to pasture. Still in control of the ball. Then that flick. We all make mistakes. But what was it we kept saying about Effie, in the big games, then the Irish Ambrose came to the fore. Ryan Hedges, who was Aberdeen’s best player, scored from a rebound. An almost save, we seem to plagued with almost saves.

Aberdeen’s first penalty—which was a penalty—was a clumsy tackle, that wasn’t even a tackle by Ntcham on Ferguson. Ironically, Ntcham was having one of his better games before that incident.

There was talk, after the international break of the games against Rangers, AC Milan, Aberdeen, Lille, Aberdeen and Motherwell defining our season.

We all know what happened against Rangers. AC Milan was a defeat, but it wasn’t total capitulation. Aberdeen today.

We’re 3—2 up, going into added on time. We’ve dropped back, but we’re patting ourselves on the back, thinking we’ve been lucky here. All teams need a bit of luck.

The game against Lille doesn’t matter than much. I think we’ll beat Aberdeen, comfortably, at Hampden. I’m not sure about Motherwell away. I’m pretty sure Rangers will keep on winning and winning.

I hate saying it, but we look far more less likely to win than them. Here’s hoping, we take any dog chances we get between now and the end of the season. Shane Duffy has been a nightmare. The Greek keeper, an empty jersey, but here’s hoping he turns it around. Frimpong is only eighteen and showing signs of insecurity, taking the easy pass, going backwards in so many ways.

The return of the Griff has been great (anonymous against Milan, but I don’t mind that). Rogic has class. We need more of class. We have the best players in the league—by far—but we make so many amateur mistakes.

In the games that define our season, we’ve lost two and drawn one. Commentators were already adopting that gloomy voice and telling us the last time Celtic lost three games in a row was under Neil Lennon. Ten-in-a-row? I’ll use another cliché. A big ask.     

Celtic 3—0 Aberdeen.

trio of goalscorers.jpg

I predicted 4—1 to Celtic before kick-off. My predictions usually hit the bar and go out for a corner, so no great surprise there. The bookies were laughing, yet again.  Celtic’s hundredth-trophy win, fling in the Scottish Premier League that’s one-hundred and one and if it’s as easy as this then it won’t be long until the Scottish Champions hit two-hundred. Aberdeen got a boost before the game with the omission of Scott Sinclair who has went through most teams in Scotland like an anthrax virus. My mate Rab Wylie gave us a shock when he claimed to know the Celtic team in advance but could list only five players. That might have given Aberdeen a chance, but two of them were Tom Rogic who scored a classic and James Forest, who scored another and his darting run into the box got Celtic a second-half penalty, scored from the spot by Moussa Dembele. The Don’s game plan is familiar to anyone that knows how to string ten men behind the ball (aka Walter Smith) and hope for a breakaway win. Here Aberdeen were pedestrian and Celtic strolled to victory.   In a one off match such as a Scottish Cup tie the diddy teams have a chance, but if Celtic keep strengthening and hang onto the best players – we’ll get one more year out of Dembele before a thirty-million offer and he’s not bye, bye, but sell, sell- then the laws of diminishing returns kicks in. A new era under Brendan Rodgers is underway. In three or four years he’ll be off too, but a perfect day and a perfect start.

Celtic 0—Barcelona 2.

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Lionel Messi was meant to be a sick note, not a seen it, done it message– he only scored two goals in just over ninety minutes here, one a penalty, which doesn’t really count. His first came from another tax dodger currently under investigation by the Spanish authorities (why can’t we do that here?) Up until that point Andy Rat and me had been celebrating each ten minute spell that passed without Barca scoring, me with a pint. Andy with a coke. After all they did beat us 7—0 last time we played. That’s called lulling them into a false sense that we’re shite.  We’d almost hit the 25 minute mark. Celtic had started quite well, by that I mean they sometimes got a hit of the ball, without creating anything. Messi had a couple of half chances he usually scores from, one in particular which he miscontrolled, near the Celtic six-yard box. That was a let off.  But Neymar, from the edge of the Celtic box delicately chipped a ball over static defenders and the other tax dodger whipped it, first time, into the bottom of the net. Craig Gordon, who was Celtic’s best player and later pulled off a stunning save from Suarez, had no chance. Not even I would have saved it.

We all know the rules for these types of games. i) the diddy team’s keeper must be outstanding. Tick there. ii) the other team must be under-par, in other words, play pish. Well, the triumvirate of Messi, Neymar and Messi is as good as it gets, but any midfield without Iniesta is lacking. And when Barcelona where are that very best Xavi and tick and tack was such a beautiful thing to behold that you couldn’t grudge them victory after victory and the great clean sweeps of history. Nobody could stop them. In fact, few teams could get the ball.

Initially, here, Celtic were successful in getting the ball back, pushing high up the pitch and winning throw ins and even corners. Mascherano looking particularly vulnerable to Dembele’s muscularity and skill.  iii) the diddy team must score first and defend to the last.  Celtic went in at half time a goal down. Lustig was being got at on one side of the pitch by Neymar and Jordi Alba and on the other side Messi was prowling, with Iziguerre often in the same time zone. I like Emilio, he’s a great replacement for Tierney, and Scottish football is a bit of breeze, but, like Barca, his best years are behind him (although he’s not that old) and he is liable to get caught. By that time Sinclair was off. That’s a big blow because he’s got pace and, most importantly of all, goals, the top scorer in Scottish football, behind Dembele. And it’s a blow for the league cup final, when Celtic need to play like Barca and Aberdeen not play like Celtic and give away the second goal. Game over.

But we had the dog’s chance. James Forest came on, and played well, and I don’t often say that, and as this level that’s a real compliment. McGregor, for example, was a null and void bet. Rogic missing in action. And Armstrong although he showed great running skills couldn’t pass the pall in a tenement close mouth – he was rubbish. Only Scott Brown could hold his head up and that’s something he rarely does. Forest skinned a few players, flung a cross into the box. Dembele had one of Celtic’s few chances before half time, which he largely created himself and was unlucky, but which produced a great save from Ter Stegen. It wasn’t actually a great save. It was the kind of average save an under-sixteen keeper would have made spectacular, but we lived in hope. Dembele’s big chance replayed again and again until he scores. (iv) Diddy teams must take their big chance. Forest’s ball curved onto Dembele’s napper. Five yards out. Got to score. Doesn’t.

Minutes later Izaguerre caught out by Suarez in the box, no surprise there, you might say, the attacker falling holding onto the defender’s hand so that it looks like a penalty. It was a penalty and Messi scored. Game over. Twenty minutes to go, enough time for Neymar to get petulant and not this time with the tax authorities, but with Lustig and the ref. Barca coaches played safe and took him off. They could have taken off another six or seven (v) Diddy team always loses.

So here Celtic are, the league won, the league cup on Sunday and only the Scottish cup final in May to look forward to. Then, two weeks later, it’s back to the biggest games of the season, the qualifiers for this competition, because not only is it the best it brings out the best. Celtic sit bottom of the group. Barcelona top. Manchester City, who are next up – and I look forward to that game – second. Borussia into the Europa league, where realistically we’d hoped to be. We finished exactly were pundits predicted we would finish, but so what? It’s been brilliant. Loved every minute and we’ve still got ninety to go. The old Scottish champions playing the would-be English champions. Bring it on. Let’s hope the above rules run true and we hit a run of i-v and the other mob don’t score, because we’re the Barca of Scotland, to be shot at and brought down low.  God bless the Celts.

Rangers 0—1 Celtic.

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Those with long memories can remember a certain Ranger’s goalie being virtually unbeatable, Celtic doing everything but score and Brian Laudrup galloping up the park and winning it for Rangers. Matt Gilks played a great impression of Andy Goram, but there was no great Dane to run away with it for the underdogs. Leigh Griffiths, in 87 minutes, set up the other best striker in Scottish football, Moussa Dembele whose sublime touch won the game for Celtic. The referee played his part (costing me £66 as my bet for first goalscorer was declared void) as Erik Sviatchenko’s header into the bottom of the net is disallowed, prompting bygone talks of Masonic conspiracy, but let’s be charitable and say the referee was  as knackered as Tom Rogic gets after half-an-hour of football, and the man in black spent more of the game following play and running into the Ranger’s box than any of the thin blue line. There was no 5—1 score line here, but on chances missed it certainly should have been. Gilks presenting Rogic with a miskicked pass in the six-yard box was the pick of the bunch. Sinclair’s free kick against the bar another standout. Matt Gilks was Ranger’s man of the match, in fact, he was man of the match overall, slightly ahead on points of Celtic’s captain, Scott Brown. If it were a boxing match it would have been stopped long before the end.

But Gilks must have taken a head knock, in his after-match interview he talked of Rangers being the better team. The coaching staff better get that looked at. Mark Warbuton, the Ranger’s manager must have headed every ball as well, because he seemed slightly concussed, gibbering that the gap between his team and Celtic has shortened. I’d check his eyesight too. The best rejoinder I heard was that was because Celtic had now lapped them.

Aberdeen in the league cup final. It will be a closer game than this one, because we know they’ll do, what they always do, go Walter Smith, sit in, and try and score on the breakaway. They’ve done it before. But they’d need their keeper to play like Gilks. A referee to disallow a couple of goals. Breakway and go up the park and score. In fact they need Brian Laudrup. And while they’re there might as well bring his brother Michael along. Look forward to the first trophy of the season.

The Old Firm Game, League Cup Semi-final, Hampden Park, tomorrow.

liam henderson

I stood up and cheered when we got drawn with Rangers in the League Cup. We’ve not played them for three years. We want to rub their noses in it. We’ve missed it (but only if we win). Chris Sutton is getting some stick for saying what many Rangers’ fans believe: Celtic could win playing with their men blindfolded. That’s true. We’ve got the best young players in Scotland. And in Liam Henderson we have the most exciting talent since Ian Durrant (prior to getting smashed by Neil Simpson).  Henderson, like Durrant, has no fear. He’s gangly, his first touch is good, he likes to go forwards, rather than backwards and he can score goals. I think Celtic’s youth team is better than and could beat the current Rangers’ first team. They might even triumph over the Celtic first team. What I’m saying is the bookies are giving odds of a minimum of 8/1 for Rangers to beat Celtic. That sounds about right. Celtic have better players in every single position. Even in the old days when asked to pick what Rangers’ player I’d want in the Celtic team I used to ruefully admit I’d take their goalie. Now even our goalie is better than the Rangers’ keeper. And here’s a strange thing. I don’t even know who that is. Go back three or four years and not only would I be able to tell you who would start for Celtic and who would be a sub, I could also pick the Rangers’ team man for man. Now I can hazard a guess that Kenny Miller will play. Kenny Black. Nicky Ball. That’s about it. The rest is a blank where Rangers’ bank balance used to be.

Rangers’ fans will clutch at straws. They’ll point to Chelsea’s recent defeat. Manchester City’s defeat. Tottenham’s defeat. I’ll fling in Bayern Munich’s more recent 4-1 away defeat at Wolfsburg. It wouldn’t surprise me if any of these underdogs defeated Celtic. We are not a great team, but we are a better team than Rangers.

There are certain advantages at playing at Hampden. It’s a big playing surface. That suits Celtic. Rangers will want to sit in and frustrate. They’ll look at Ross County’s recent credible 0-0 draw at Parkhead, a game in which the underdog could have and perhaps should have won the match with a clear-cut chance in the last few minutes. That’s what Rangers will be hoping for, a Ross County with that chance going in and cup glory. Everything else becomes bullshit and they get the bragging rights.

There is another, perhaps, more likely scenario. Rangers score first. After today’s New Firm semi-final between Dundee United (managed by ex-Celt, McNamarra) and Aberdeen (managed by ex-Hun, McInnes) the pitch will be scarred. Celtic’s silky soccer will be disrupted. Rangers will want to outmuscle the Celtic players and knock them off their stride. The problem with that is physically if you look at both teams, Celtic are the taller and a stronger looking proposition.  Virgil van Dijk is the best defender and header of the ball in Scottish football. He looks like scoring at every free kick and corner and frequently does. Rangers will find that hard to counter.

For Rangers to win they must play like Ross County and get lucky. For Celtic to win they must play like the champions they are. It’s not cut and dried but if you only had enough money to back either team to get your bus fare home, or walk forty miles, who would you back? Celtic to win and meet Dundee United in the final.

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