Real Madrid 3—3 Manchester City.

I’ve never been to Spain or the Santiago Bernabéu, the state-of-the art domed stadium, where the pitch is rolled out before the multimillionaire players warm up. I saw Real Madrid under the bright lights of Paradise in their white strips. Johnny Doyle (RIP) scored a double and we we went to the home of Real Madrid and got gubbed 3—0. Laurie Cunningham was the star of the show then. More recently, ‘Don’ Carlo Ancelotti came up against Ange ball and did that slightly patronising thing that all managers do of praising the unique atmosphere of Parkhead while grabbing the points. In the return leg the referee gave the Ancelloti’s  multimillion pound team two early penalties for nothing and they ran away with a 5—1 victory, without breaking sweat. Jota celebrated his late free kick as if he’d won the Champions League. Fat chance. These teams are in a different league entirely.

Brendan Rodgers in his first incarnation of saviour (before it all went wrong in a familiar way) did run Josep “Pep” Guardiola Sala close. 3—3 draw at Parkhead. Our previous with these teams is accepting our place in the football world. After the 3—3 draw with Ranger, Real Madrid go it with Champion League holders and favourites and draw 3—3.

I used to watch every and all football matches on the telly. Arsenal v Manchester City, for example, promised much but was a dreadfully boring game in which nothing much happens over 95 minutes.

With three goals in the first 15 minutes, this was much better and more entertaining. I’m not entirely sure what Jack Grealish is for. He seems to get rave reviews for not doing very much more than back-pedalling and falling over. I don’t think he went past the full-back all night. But in two minutes he bought a free kick. Bernardo Silva looked to cross it into the box. Instead, his 25-yard free-kick rounded what little wall there was and past goalkeeper Andriy Lunin, who was late to react, flapped as the ball passed him. Terrible defending and goalkeeping of the lowest order.

Manchester City played a big part in their downfall. Vinícius Júnior caused all kinds of chaos with simple balls played behind the City defence. Eduardo Camavinga’s deflected shot made it 1-1, Rúben Dias gifting an OG in 12 minutes and most improbable of all, Rodrygo giving Madrid the lead two minutes later. The stadium was bouncing as the Madrid turned it around.

Júnior had a big chance to make it 3—1 but hit the side netting after half time.

Phil Foden’s equaliser was a thing of beauty. With Kevin de Bruyne’s injury Foden had stepped into the number ten role behind the striker. I’ve seen lots of Erling Haaland recently. None of it has been good. Foden is a giant of the game, but here he too was dwarfed by the occasion. Mostly non-existent. But when Silva, City’s best player, created a space for Stones to make a pass to Foden on the edge of the box, he instinctively banged it in the top corner. Sixty-six minutes gone and there looked like City’s retention of the ball and overall superiority was going to pay off.

Five minutes later, City went ahead.  Gvardiol took a heavy touch from Grealish’s pass. The ball seemed to get away from him, but he hit in the top corner. It was a game of great goals.

Júnior’s cross looked like one of those floppy crazy things player hang up when they have ran out of ideas. Federico Valverde, who never scores goals, caught is sweet and smashed it into the bottom corner from the edge of the box as if he’d been practicing that move all night and this was the time to show it off.

3—3 with almost ten minutes to go.

Toni Kroos had been substituted for Luka Modrić. The German is touted as one of the best in the world. He did nothing of note.

Let’s talk about Luka Modrić. Phil Foden went off with an injury, but if he wants to play as the highest level he needs to do a Luka. We gave him a standing ovation when Madrid beat us at Parkhead. The little man created a goal and scored another. In this game he helped turn the tide. Shouting and gesturing. Give me the ball. You could see him pointing. There’s talk of him retired or being retired at the end of this season. Celtic should offer him a ten- year contract. We’ve had nothing like him since losing Ľubomír Moravčík. Martin O’Neil once famously said when we were being outnumbered and outgunned in a European tie, ‘give the ball to Lubo’.

Give the ball to Luka and good things will happen. Phil Foden, Jude Bellingham, Vinícius Júnior, Erling Haaland, were pedestrian. Luka caught the eye. This man cannot retire at the end of the season. Nothing much has been decided in the tie. They go head to head next week. City should win. But you never know with Luka in the ranks. This is what a great in the game looks like.

https://amzn.to/48khBJ5

Feyenoord 2—0 Celtic.

Three minutes of additional time in the first-half. You’d hope Celtic would see it out. Go in at half-time goal-less, perhaps Celtic fans feeling we were slightly unlucky not to score.  A free kick thirty yards out. You’d hope Kyogo—the smallest man on the pitch as Martin O’Neil pointed out—wouldn’t be in a key position in the wall. He didn’t stay strong. You’d hope Joe Hart would save a ball that bounced on the way into net. Calvin Stengs’s free kick was nothing special. It wasn’t even in the good variety. Feyenoord are given a half-time lead. The win in their hands without doing anything of note.  

You’d get odds of around 5/1 for a Celtic win against Feyenoord at De Kuip before the game started. The win at Ibrox took much of the pressure of Brendan Rodgers. Not many of us expected a win. Most of us would settle for a draw. Especially when we are a goal down and playing away in Europe. Our defensive frailties have been highlighted and for good reason. Carl Starfelt wasn’t good enough for Celtic. Gustaf Lagerbielke looks a dud.

Midway in the second-half. I’m not sure if it was a foul or a penalty. He’d already picked up a yellow in the first half for a stupid challenge he didn’t need to make. Celtic down to ten men. Even with Hart’s save from Paixo on penalty duties the game looks beyond us. No talk of redemption for Hart. A howler is a howler. But I’m a big fan of the dog’s chance. We were still kinda in it.

Brendan Rodgers had rolled the dice before the penalty. He’d brought on Yang for Luis Palma and Odin Holm for an out of touch Hatate. Holm had showed up well as a substitute at Ibrox. Here he put the wrong kind of mark on the game. A straight red for a studs-up challenge on Wieffer. Checked by VAR. Game over. Celtic down to nine men. The best we could hope for was keeping the score down.

From the resultant free kick the right back Geertruida scores. But it is chopped off by VAR. A later Feynoord goal was also chopped off for offside. 15 minutes left to go and seven minutes stoppage time. It was too much.

Lingr gets to the byline. Johnston knocks the ball to the edge of the box. Alireza Jahanbakhsh fizzes it past Hart. Game over. But still plenty of time for Feyenoord to score more.

Terrible goal to lose at half time. Two red cars. Two goals disallowed by VAR. Palma’s penalty claim was also looked at by VAR but not given. Celtic were in this game, but flung it away. We’ve been at Champions’ League nights were we were torn to shreds. This wasn’t one of them. In some ways, this was worse. We could have taken a point or three. Not just bad luck, but ill-discipline and quite simply poor defending. We’ve been talking about it for five years.

We brought in Nat Philips and he gets injured. That’s just central defence. We’re reliant on Liam Scales. A player we were quite happy to send back to Aberdeen, who played mainly left back for the Dons. We should have better. We can afford better. This was one Celtic could have won. Down to reserve-reserve players.  Gutted.  

Will he stay or will he go?

Strange days. A Scottish Cup Final tomorrow, and if Inverness Caley win (sixth in the First Division) it will be a bigger upset than Berwick Rangers beating Glasgow Rangers. Jock Wallace was in goals that day. But it wasn’t for Glasgow Rangers, but the mighty Berwick. What I’m trying to say it Celtic, despite a couple of games, our second-string players—with the possible exception of Oh—proved not up to the job. But we will win at a canter tomorrow.  (Inverness Caley 35/1 to win at Hampden.)

Yet, the rumours that started last week have put a pall over Ange Postecoglou’s Celtic team, winning the treble, and five trophies out of six since his arrival. Generally, we’re not talking about how he overhauled the squad, helped shape an attacking team, and when it mattered beat Rangers in the process. He overhauled a 25 point deficit, in what seems those historical times, when Neil Lennon was Celtic manager, and Stevie G, was a Rangers’ icon. It was the only time I was thankful for Covid-18. All Rangers supporters, like the fat Humpty Dumpty in the English Parliament, Boris Johnson, became common criminals breaking the law when they celebrated in George Square.

A tifo of Jock Stein was a thing of beauty that covered Paradise last week as Celtic returned to form and thrashed Aberdeen, who didn’t get a shot on goal. Jock Stein gave us the Lisbon Lions, a team that lived within 12 miles of Glasgow. They humbled Europe’s elite. In a testimonial against Real Madrid, they couldn’t get the ball off Jimmy Johnstone. We beat England’s best, Leeds United in a European Cup tie with one of the biggest crowds recorded at the match (my da was there). It was obviously, an underestimate, because as we know, kids were handed over turnstiles. When I was growing up in the seventies, we had the Quality Street reserve team that included Dalglish, McGrain, and former manager, Davy Hay and helped give Celtic nine consecutive league titles. We will not see the likes of Jock, or nine flag flapping on a tin roof, again.

Postecoglou isn’t in that bracket. I know it feels as if I’m writing in his wake and passing. The irony is another treble winner at Celtic, Brendan Rodgers is rumoured to be returning. Rodgers as we know brought Moussa Dembele and gave us a decent enough team. Three treble trebles, the fourth completed by Lennon. But when Rodgers walked mid-season, citing several reasons that sounded as fabricated as Boris Johnston’s Brexit promise to give the NHS £160 million extra ever week, nobody was buying it. Judas.

Martin O’Neil won the treble in his first season. Henrik Larsson was still here. We’d Lubo. We’d a decent team. But the Northern Irishman made us better. He took us all the way to Seville in the sun. We all want to forget Helicopter Sunday. But he did a more than decent job.

Postecoglou is in O’Neil’s bracket. But O’Neil was a pragmatist. Let’s not forget the colossus, Bobo Balde (poached from Kilmarnock). Bobo, as we know, couldn’t hit the ball with anything below the waist. His size 16 boots were for flippering the ball forward or out of the park. But any forward’s chance of winning the balls in the air were easily swept aside. Scotland’s (English) forward Lyndon Dykes, for example, would have won nothing against Bobo. But Gordon Strachan didn’t fancy him.

And Postecoglou is an idealist. Yuki Kobayashi, for example, can carry and pass the ball, but can’t defend and is too easily bullied. This doesn’t matter because he’s backup. Postecoglou’s Plan B was more of Plan A. It worked well, but not in Europe.

We cling to the hope, with Champions’ League cash, we can invest in our squad and do better. But, like many, I think Postecoglou is gone.

My fear is Plan B will be John Kennedy. A continuation of the same, but different. What Postecoglou brought to the club was a list of Asian player that he knew would make Celtic better. He brought many of them to the club. I don’t think there’ll be a sudden exit, but perhaps a drift. But Kennedy has nothing he can offer in terms of Asian, North American or Australian markets. He’s no list of players. He’s a Neil Lennon in waiting.

If or when Postecoglou announces he’s leaving for Spurs, I wouldn’t brand him a Judas as I did Brendan Rodgers. I can’t really stretch to wishing him well. I’d be largely indifferent. The only team I support is Celtic. The only team that concerns me is Celtic. The only team I hate with a passion is Rangers. Managers come and go. It’s in my blood. Celtic today, tomorrow—always—oh, yeh, we’ve a cup final to look forward to.   

Celtic v Rangers, Scottish Cup semi-final.

Whatever Kris Boyd says I usually think the opposite. But here we are agreeing on something. Whoever wins at Hampden on Sunday will win the Scottish Cup. For Celtic it’s the treble. And for Rangers, well, I’ll leave that to Kris Boyd.

Martin O’Neil got in the act. Standards in Scottish football have dropped, he said. The team he took to Seville would beat the current Celtic team. One thing he picked up on is this Celtic team is smaller. Carter-Vickers may be described as a tank, but Bobo was literally head and shoulders above him. Bobo, of course, couldn’t play football. Any ball below the knee was hoiked up the park with a pair of size 15 flippers, pronto. Midfield giants Lennon, Lambert, Thompson and Petrov could all play football, but rarely passed the ball backwards to Bobo. Most balls were played up the line or in behind. The Motherwell forward, Kevin van Veen, in the recent Motherwell draw at Parkhead, held off Greg Taylor and went on to score. It was a poor goal to lose. But imagine John Hartson up there. Greg Taylor would still be running around him until this Sunday trying to get the ball. Nobody was better than Chris Sutton at holding off players. Every shy up the line was onto his chest and back into play. Kyogo is good, he’s coming up for 30 goals in a season. I’d say that’s a minimum a Celtic centre-forward should expect. Even Scott McDonald managed that. Larsson regularly hit 50 or more. He’d just about everything, including an ability to hang in the air for ten minutes, no other Scottish player with the exception of Eric Black had that uncanny ability. I think we know the Seville forward line would absolutely murder a backline that includes Starfelt who is a poor man’s Joos Valgaeren. But blessed Martin O’Neil concedes this Celtic team is a joy to watch. And if you look at the statistics, the players that take the most touches tend to be Carter-Vickers and Starfelt. They need to defend corners and free kicks in the way the Seville team did, but they are also expected to play the beautiful game from the back.

We know who is going to play in defence. Hart, Johnson, Carter-Vickers, Taylor.

Midfield is harder to guess. Callum McGregor is an automatic first pick. Reo Hatate, is the ace in the pack, one of the best midfielders in Britain. Far better than the Alan Thompson of Seville fame. But Hatate been injured. And for all his ability, he’s had some poorish games against Rangers and Alan Thompson always played great against Rangers. I don’t think Hatate will start, but hope he does.

Aaron Mooy too was exceptional before his injury. He came back into the team that beat Rangers at Parkhead, but looked off the pace. He was the worst man on the park. I don’t think he’ll start either.

Matt O’Riley has had a mixed season. He scored two great goals against Kilmarnock, but the rise of Hatate and Mooy meant he spent much of his time coming off the bench. Odds on to start this match. I hope it’s the flamboyant O’Riley that emerges and not a player that too frequently disappears against our Glasgow rivals.

Tomoki Iwata came on for Mooy in the last Old Firm game and steadied the team. He hasn’t the flare of Hatate or Mooy, more a defensive midfielder, but the former Japanese player of the year is a great passer and, with our injuries, I think he’ll start.

We know Kyogo will start. His record against Rangers is one reason we keep winning. Daizen Maeda is our bullet train for closing down, and he scores goals too. He’ll start.

That leaves the right wing up for grabs. James Forrest is injured. So what, you might be thinking. Liel Abada has also been injured. We’ve all heard the stories linking him with clubs such as Ajax. That’s not our concern now. The only thing that matters is winning on Sunday. Abada has a good scoring record against Rangers, but I think he’ll be on the bench. Often he contributes more coming on as a substitute.

Jota would start if he was fit. He’s our most gifted winger that does the old fashioned bit of taking full backs on and dribbling.

  Sead Haksabanovic started against Motherwell. We lacked width and penetration because neither of our wide men could take on the massed ranks of defenders. The Montenegrin has come off the bench and sparkled with some great goals and cameos. But on Saturday he was poor. His first few dinked passes failed to reach a team mate. Rudi Vata done more with the ball in his short time on the park. When it gets frenetic, Haksabanovic finds time and space. He’ll find more of that at Hampden. Here’s hoping he scores one of his wonder goals.

My ideal team includes obviously Hatate and Jota. And a fit-again Mooy. But I suspect none of this trio will start. Most pundits expect a high-scoring game. I think Celtic will win, 1—0. Kyogo to score. What’s your prediction?

Jimmy Johnstone, Life Stories, BBC Alba

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07xdrv3/jimmy-johnston

James Connolly Johnstone was born on the 30^th September 1944. He died on 13^th March 2006. We all know who Jinky is. We voted him Celtic’s best-ever player and if you look at the footage of that night, you’ll see a young looking Martin O’Neil and a grinning number seven with dreadlocks called Henrik Larsson. A statue of Jinky is outside Parkhead, but he rests in our hearts. Because Celtic is our religion and he’s one of us.

I’d met Billy Smith in Dalmuir, one of the older guys that used to train our Guild team. He remained remarkably young looking up until he got Motor Neurone Disease.  

‘How you getting on Jake?’ he asked.

‘No bad,’ I said. ‘But I heard you’ve got that thing, like that Fernando Ricksen?’

Fernando Ricksen had been in the Daily Record and the other media. He’d been to his spiritual home at Ibrox, but was in a wheelchair.

Billy was quick to shake his head and correct me. ‘No, no like Fernando Ricksen, like Jimmy Johnstone.’

No statute for Billy Smith, but I understood what he was saying, without wanting to find out what it meant. It’s endgame and part of the Jimmy Johnstone story. Archie Macpherson said it was like being in a room when the walls closed in. But Jimmy didn’t die alone. Agnes, his wife, his son and two daughters were beside him.  His Celtic family were there for him. The team that won the European Cup in 1967 supported him through his illness. Bertie Auld, who was never lost for words, but now, sadly, has dementia visited Jimmy almost every day. When asked why, for once, Bertie was stuck for words. ‘That’s just…who he was,’ he says. Hail, Hail, Bertie.

And a special word, for a special friend, the Rangers winger, Willie Henderson. He was there for Jimmy too. But he said he found it hard. Hail, Hail, Willie Henderson.

My brother Stephen (SEV, may he RIP) told me the story of working for Lawrence and asking this wee labourer to get him some two-by-two planks. Then he realised it was Jimmy Johnstone. Much has been made of Messi’s standoff with Barcelona. The Argentinian was willing to take a pay cut from his annual salary of twenty million Euros (which didn’t include bonuses or image rights). But here was wee Jinky, whom 100 000 Spaniards in the Bernabéu stadium, cried ‘Ole, Ole,’ every time he touched the ball in  Alfredo Di Stéfano’s  testimonial match, following their European Cup win. Jinky, was quite simply, the best player in the world. Yet, here he was working in a building site, after offering to sell all his medals for £10 000 to William Haughey. It’s difficult to imagine Messi doing that.

But it was a different world then. We used to think that guys like Billy McNeil and Dixie Deans would be alright because they had their own pub. They would always have money and an income, we thought.

My brother and Jimmy had something in common. They were both alkies. No pubs for them. One day at a time.  Jimmy’s son, James, shakes his head, when he remembers what his da had become. Anyone that has been to Alcoholic Anonymous meetings know what happens when the guys that at the top table get competitive and start telling stories of their fall from grace. One guy might say he ate a baby seal pup in front of its mother. And the next guy will tell you he did something similar, but didn’t stop with one seal pup. But Jimmy could say he’d held up the European Cup. He’d done a lot of stupid things and played for teams he didn’t want to, but it was a job, and one he could do.

He played in with San Jose Earthquakes, but he couldn’t be doing with all that American stuff as if it was show business. He wanted to get back to Viewpark, and home. He’d spells with Sheffield United and played three times for Dundee. Tommy Gemmill was the manager, and he was being kind when he said he brought him in to do a job. Gordon Strachan remembers getting drunk with Jinky and thinking he’d hit the big time. Jinky played with Shelbourne and ended his career with Elgin City.

His heart remained at Parkhead. He tells the story of crying in the car park, after Jock Stein had let him go. Archie Macpherson said that if Jock had a favourite, it was Jinky, but Jock Stein was ruthless when it came to our team. He cut Jinky loose and the wee man unravelled. Like Benny Lynch, he turned to the drink, and thought he could sweat it off.

Jinky might have been the greatest ever, but he fancied himself a bit of a singer. When Rod Stewart visited he told him to shut up and give him the microphone. He sung a duet with Simple Minds’ Jim Kerr. Jinky’s daughter remembered Billy Connelly sleeping on the floor.

Jinky believed in UFO’s, and John Clark tells a story of how Jinky wanted him to take him to some godforsaken place to hunt for aliens. But Jinky never strayed far from his home in Viewpark. Like another legend, Tommy Burns (also on BBC Alba), he was devout and was buried in his local parish. Jimmy Johnstone was our Messi. But he was just an ordinary wee guy with extraordinary football ability that worked as a labourer, did what we all dreamed of a kid, played for Celtic and loved the club. Hail, Hail. May he RIP.   

Ten-in-a-row—No, No, were you at the game caller?

Ten-in-a-row—No, No, were you at the game caller?

Nah—and neither were the Celtic team. It was that bad we’ve even got Barry Ferguson sympathising with Neil Lennon. 

Martin Powell, the only MP I trusted, used to go for long walks when Celtic were playing Rangers. That was during the Martin O’Neil era.  I thought that was crazy. But he might well have had a point. I’m old enough now to take up golf.

During Scoreboard, Hugh Keevins  asked a Celtic die-hard, are you seriously saying that the league is finished with 28 games to go? 

Let’s go for a long walk.

Football management is like a game of poker.

Lennon went incandescent because his team was leaked before the game. Kenny Miller is being fingered as villain-in-chief.  He shouldn’t have been. Lennon should know who was going to play for Rangers, in what positions, and what they could do and couldn’t do. And what opportunities it offers Celtic. You’re only as strong as your weakest hand.

No surprises for Celtic. No surprises for Rangers.

Celtic played exactly how Steven Gerrard expected. They were predictable and pedestrian.

Rangers didn’t play well. They didn’t need to. Morelos was petulant, off the pace, and should have been booked earlier than he was for flicking his hand in Scott Brown’s face. Barker ran about, like the majority of the Celtic team, with little direction or purpose. Stevie G said in the post-match interview they needed to stay humble. They’ve a lot to be humble about.

Stevie G knows what cards to play and when to play them. In a game of poker, he’s called Lennon’s bluff and won twice at Parkhead. At Hampden, Stevie G can count himself unlucky.  No posturing at the final whistle for the Ibrox manager and players. They know they’ve got the beating of Celtic now.

Goalkeeper makes saves.

We used to have this conversation that no Rangers’ player would get in the Celtic team during the Martin O’Neil era, and more recently. Obviously, we didn’t include Rab Douglas and whether he cost us the final in Seville is a moot point. Goram, the flying pig, Kloss, McGregor and an older and wiser McGregor again are so much better.

If there is still reserve-team football during lockdown, it’s difficult to imagine the current Celtic keeper getting a game in Rangers’ reserves.

Celtic let Craig Gordon leave. The management team kept Scott Bain as back-up. There was talk of signing Scotland, and ex-Celtic keeper, David Marshall. We went for a Greek internationalist, Vasilis Barkas, and paying premium rates for a keeper than doesn’t  make saves.

The problem left back spot

Money wasted on buying a dud who flies to Spain and doesn’t tell Lennon.

Taylor is not a dud, neither is he Tierney. Neither is he Andy Lynch, Tosh McKinlay or Anton Rogan. He’s a mixture of the good, the bad and the Anton, I’ll kick everything for the cause, because, but Taylor doesn’t cut it.

We brought in Laxalt on loan because Lennon knows that.

Johnny Hayes, like Craig Gordon, has left the building? Why?

Celtic’s loan-signing policy.

Rangers had no loan signings in the team that outplayed us.

Loan signings are a try before you buy. In, for example, Charly Musonda and another few nameless faces. It’s been great business because you can just return them to their parent club. 

Craig Bellamy, Paddy Roberts, and Fraser Forster were guys here in the short-term that made a positive difference. Players we would have kept in a heartbeat.

In the Fergus McCann football business, you don’t have an extra Celtic jersey. Loan signings are giving other teams money. Or in Fergus’s case, other financial institutions.  Rangers had no loan signings playing in the Old Firm derby. Glen Kamara only cost £50,000 from Dundee and helped run the show. Remember Didier Agathe £100 000 from Hibs? Bargain basement. Rangers had Steven Davis playing. He was a loan signing that was made a permanent deal and cost zero.  Fergus would have liked that. Nobody was slating him because of his age, in the way Scott Brown is hounded. Steven Davis was another that didn’t have a particularly good game, but he was in the winning team.

We’ve come a long way from Jock Stein and the 1967 European Cup winning team. Eleven players that lived within a twelve-mile radius of Glasgow (Bobby Lennox, furthest away in Saltcoats). But Jock Stein wasn’t a cuddly bear that was lucky. He was ruthless. Jimmy Johnstone when his legs were gone was sold. Stein was hesitant to let Johnstone play in a pre-season friendly, and have a final hurrah, before he was sold to Dundee. That too was a must-win Celtic game. As Scotland manager, he told Ipswich player, John Wark, if you can’t go box to box and score goals, you’re no use to me. It’s not difficult to imagine what Stein would have said of a Celtic team that never managed to have a significant shot on goal in an Old Firm derby.

Shane Duffy v Connor Goldson.

We all know how this went Goldson scored two goals, early in the first and second half—game over.

Neither Duffy or Goldson are great passer of the ball with their feet. Duffy had more touches of the ball than anyone else on the field.  Their strength is in the air. Duffy was a marquee signing for Celtic. Loan fees and paying his wages was a gamble Celtic were willing to take.

Goldson was the cheaper option. Straight fee. Pennies by Celtic standard. His wages would be laughable. Fergus McCann would be asking hard questions about value for money. Why didn’t we buy the cheap option, sooner?

Why with Celtic’s superior resources, reserve team football and money in the bank do we need loan signings?

Goldson was lauded (not by me, obviously) but it could and should have been different. Elyounoussi easily rolled Goldstone and should have made it 1—1 after twenty minutes.

Elyounoussi is, of course, another loan signing. Is he any better than what we’ve got? Is he better than Rogic? David Turnbull, top midfield scorer for Motherwell, came off the bench, so I was told? Paddy McCourt? Obviously not as good as Paddy. But hey, you’ve got to laugh.

Celtic’s signing policy is related to their resale value (that’s not news)

Virgil van Dijk. That’s all I need to say. He was promised the dream and then he was sold for what we thought was buttons. That will never happen again has coloured our thinking. Players that don’t want to be at Paradise should be sold— not immediately, that’s bad for business, and we are a business, but sooner rather than later.

The French trois. Edouard didn’t play. That wasn’t much of a shock, but a setback. It was mitigated by his form—any scouts turning up looking for a £35 million striker would have been baffled. Sell.

Ntcham wants away and has been engineering a move for the last two seasons. Take the hit. Again, missing in action—let him go.

Christopher Jullien rag dolled by Lyndon Dykes and, more recently, the Kilmarnock centre forward. We bought him for £7 million, hoping for a standout and sell-on profit. His is a longer term deal. And I think there is a player in there. Whether it is as a Celtic player, I don’t know.

Ryan Christie would have started. I think he’s the best midfielder in Scotland (well, apart from McGregor) but he wants away and has been, like the rest of the Celtic team, ineffectual against Rangers in other Old Firm meetings. Keep.  

Nir Bitton wants away. See you later, pal.

Tom Rogic. I’m a big fan. I was scared when Brendan Rodgers left he’d come back and take Rogic. Now I’m texting Judas Rodgers,  Rogic’s number. The love affair with Celtic is over. Lennon doesn’t fancy him. Ironically, Rodgers might be at the club longer than Lennon. New managers have a different vision.

The game is nothing without fans.

Chris Sutton, former player and pundit, suggests that having no fans favours a Rangers team that are serial bottlers. Stats from the locked-down Bundesliga showed that playing at home wasn’t as much an advantage. Away teams won more. Bayern Munich kept winning. Class tells.

Rangers are not the Barcelona of old, but they’ll win pretty much every week. Celtic seems largely incapable of that. The Old Firm team that won the first game went on to win the title in four out of five seasons. That’s not us. We didn’t even look as if we could manage a draw. Only one team looks like bottlers. Here I hope I’m wrong.

Is it time for Lennon to go?

I’ll put it another way. Stevie G has his number. A novice manager has got the beating of him. As Lennon said, coming second in Glasgow is coming last. Jock Stein or his apprentice, Alex Ferguson, would have had the hairdryer full on at half-time. At full time, well, we know the story. We’re hit with the same managerial clichés.

Will Celtic win ten-in-a-row?

No.

Celtic’s Treble Treble.

There have been disappointing times as a Celtic supporter, but this era isn’t one of them. Celtic defeated Hearts on Saturday to complete a clean sweep of Scottish trophies for the third season running. Out of nine competitions, in three years, Celtic have won all nine. Yet, amid the joy there was a bubble and babble of discontent. Neil Lennon had been appointed the new Celtic manager.

I remember him when he was the old Celtic manager. I remember him playing for Celtic. I even remember watching Harry Hood, who joined Stevie Chalmers and Billy McNeil in Paradise. My da loved Harry Hood, he scored goals when you needed them. Like many older players he retired to become a publican. Future-proof and sorted.

I remember when we got to a cup final against Raith Rovers in Rangers, you spend a fiver, and we’ll spend a tenner era. We lost. But we found the man with the bubble perm, Wim Jansen. Some you Wim and some you lose. Thank god we were winners and that nine never became ten.

I remember the coming of the Sainted Martin O’Neil. Henrik and Lubo were already there, all he had to do was dominate Scottish football. And we’d a glorious trip in a friendly to play Man Utd, half of Clydebank was there and we gubbed them. The whole of the green side of Clydebank was in Seville. Glorious defeat, our speciality. Our season in the sun.  Maybe we should arrange a friendly against Man City and the treble winners in England should play the treble winners in Scotland? We could call it the Get it Right Up Yeh, cup.

We’ve already played Man City in the Champions league. Drawing two of the games. The second game didn’t matter to Man City, but it mattered to us. Every game matters when Celtic play. The jersey doesn’t shrink to fit the player.

We had wee Gordon Strachan, who contrived to lose the first game 5-0 to a team in Europe nobody had heard of. Oh, dear. Remember Nakamurra’s free kick against Man Utd. Home win.

Tony Mowbray and us getting scudded 4—0 at half time by St Mirren. I’d good memories of Paisley. I was there that magical night when we won 5—0 and Dundee and Walter Kidd beat Hearts. Glory, Glory.

I was there when that Murdo MacLeod rocket hit the back of the net and Ten Men Won the League, tra-la-la-la.

Remember when we beat one of the best teams of all time, Barcelona at Parkhead, 2—1, with a Tony Watt goal, and we only got to kick the ball twice than night. Neil Lennon was the manager. Glory, Glory.

Remember all the media shit about a certain Celtic centre half ripping it up in Scottish fitba but never being worth £10 million? Neil Lennon’s protégé did OK, as did Victor Wanyama. Celtic are no longer contesting European finals, but former players showcase the hoop’s mentality.

When Lennon felt he could go no further, we had the interim and experimental manager, Ronnie Deliah. He was a nice guy, but the job was too big for him. Rangers beat us in a penalty shoot-out at Hampden and Deliah was done.

Then we had Brendan Rodgers. Let’s not forget he delivered eight of those nine trophies. In his first season he could do no wrong. When playing Rangers we used to cheer their players because they were so awful and a four or five goal gubbing was pretty standard. We were football gods.

This season has been a slog. We used to be four or five steps ahead of Rangers. This year we were one. Rodgers walked into mediocrity for ‘professional reasons’ in the most unprofessional way. If he had seen the season out nobody with any sense would have batted an eyelid. It would have been the honourable thing to do, the professional thing to do.

Lennon stepped in and it’s like that film somebody up there likes me. He left Hibs or Hibs left him. Nobody cares. Then he gets the Celtic gig. Lennon goes with the old guard to get us over the line. Jozo Šimunović, number 5, scored that goal in 67 minutes that helped us finish first. Every goal we get seems to be a last minute effort. Even on Saturday, we get a penalty and then a late goal. The stars align.

The question now, of course, is what happens when the stars don’t align? We need five players, maybe six. We need a massive clear-out. Unlike our indebted Glasgow neighbours, we’ve got the money for the job. Is Lennon the man for the job?

Well, there’s money and there’s money. Champion League winners (Spurs or Liverpool and I don’t really care which it is) will pocket around £6 million. Aston Villa win £170 million, going up to around £300 million in the first year of the Premiership. Celtic won about £3 million in prize money. If they make the Champion League you can factor in another £30 million. You can pay for a better quality player.

Brendan Rodgers had a run in with Peter Lawwell and there was only one winner. Neil Lennon in his first incarnation did the same. Peter Lawwell runs Celtic. John McGinn, who scored the second goal that took Aston Villa to the money- tree of milk and honey, would have been a Celtic player if Brendan Rodgers had his way. He didn’t.

Neil Lennon is smart enough to know who is in charge. You might not need to shrink from fitting the jersey, but you need to shrink from questioning the logic of the money men. In Lennon we trust. You can bank on it. You can bank on the supporters, but please don’t patronise us in the way that Rodgers did, with the bullshit I’d like to return some day. Fuck off and follow the money. Lennon is a genuine Celtic supporter.

Can he do the job? Well, he’s got a head start. Every manager needs his share of luck, I just hope Lennon hasn’t used all of his in these end of season fixtures. They sure weren’t pretty. Winning is simply enough, but not so simple. At Celtic we demand more. We dream of more. Money can’t buy that. Our dreams are not for sale.