For those of you who just can't get enough

Hail, Hail.

Yesterday saw Celtic lose the League Cup final against Kilmarnock and lose any chance of winning only the 4th treble for the club.

Disappointing but things were soon put into perspective when news filtered through that one of the Kilmarnock players father had suffered a heart attack. He has sadly passed away. This puts football results in the shadow.

Sure we will be disappointed but Celtic have all but won the league and in the semi finals of Scottish Cup, so a successful end of season is on the cards. Kilmarnock played well in the game, their keeper made some good saves, and extra time would probably have been fair. It looked like extra time could have been on the way after Stokes appealed for a penalty in injury time however the referee booked Stokes for diving, where i was in the main stand it appeared a penalty, sitting next to the media, they were of the opinion it was a penalty having seen highlights. This was the referee that awared a penalty to Rangers last year at Celtic Park, with his head facing the opposite direction from incident, so we maybe shouldnt have expected much from him!

Congratulations to Kilmarnock though on their first league cup win. Unfortunately their celebrations were cut short due to the sad news.

Our thoughts and prayers should be with the Kelly family and also for young Fabrice Muamba.

Hail, Hail.

Sunday see’s Celtic return to Hampden for the League Cup final against Kilmarnock. Hopefully this will be the first trophy in making up a treble. This season could go down as one of our greatest ever, with Neil Lennon joining Jock Stein and Martin O’Neill as a Celtic treble winning manager.

Who could have foreseen a treble winning season back on 15th October, 3 nil down at halftime away to Kilmarnock, 15 points behind Rangers, things were looking a bit bleak. The second half of this game, saw Celtic come back to draw 3-3 and go on a run of unbeaten games up to this point in the season. The league is pretty much guaranteed, either win it at ibrox on 25th or at Celtic Park the week later. The detractors are already saying this league title is tainted because of Rangers situation, completely forgetting the fact we came from 15 points behind to go 4 points ahead before they went into administration. This League title will be celebrated to the max by me!

Sunday’s game is there for crucial if this team want to be remembered as heroes. We win this cup, we should see the momentum lift us through, to winning the league and securing the Scottish Cup in May.

The next two month’s will be great times for Celtic supporters, we should enjoy and savour every minute of it.

Hail, Hail.

Hail, Hail.

After what was probably one of the greatest weeks for a Celtic supporter, watching the turmoil across the city, Celtic travelled through to Edinburgh to face Hibs. The worry would have been that the players may have shown some complacency due to the points reduction of Rangers* and the fact the league looks like its all but over. However we should have had no such worries. A great performance, all be it  against a struggling Hibs side, who it has to be said will face a massive challenge to stay in the SPL.

Goals from Stokes, Hooper(2), Mulgrew and Ki saw the hoops win a resounding 5 nil to stretch the gap at the top to 17 points following Rangers* defeat at home to Kilmarnock on Saturday. By the time Rangers* face Inverness away on Sunday that lead could be 23 points  with Celtic having two home games to come, a midweek tie against Dunfermline, then Motherwell come to Celtic Park on Saturday.

There is now a good chance, given the run of form Celtic have been on, that they could go to Ibrox to clinch the title on March 24th, if they keep on winning. Murmurs are already coming out that this shouldnt be allowed to happen, police on safety grounds, everyone else on Rangers* grounds!

Hopefully over the next couple of weeks we will see opportunities for some of the fringe players and new signings to show what they can do. Talk is that Rabiu Ibrahim is a talent worth watching so we might see him get a run out sooner than later.

All in all been quite a quiet few days for Celtic fans, apart from the win against Hibs, after the explosion of joy that we seen last week.

Looking forward to a treble to go with my jelly and ice cream!

*Rangers have been deducted 10 points after entering administration.

Hail, Hail.

Yesterday was a momentous day for most Celtic fan’s, the day most of us had been discussing and envisaging for a year finally arrived.  Rangers entered administration.

It would appear administration is just the start of their problems, with talk already turning to liquidation. If this does occur then who know’s what will happen. It would appear most rangers fans and the media feel a newco will spring up and replace the old Rangers in the SPL, debt free, massive stadium and same playing staff, basically Rangers with a slightly different name. This would be wrong.

Rangers have only got themselves to blame for the current predicament. As a football fan, I can feel a bit of sympathy for the ordinary rangers fan and the people who work at the club who might lose their jobs. I don’t feel sorry for anyone who has been involved in the running of the club. The way I see it they have cheated their way to the glories they enjoyed, overspending, not paying tax. The famous quote from an old chairman of theirs that for every £5 celtic spend we will spend £10 has came back to bite them hard.

If we see Rangers liquidated, be prepared to be told that Celtic need Rangers, that Scottish football will die, i’ve already heard it on the radio and tv. This is their way of getting a newco straight into the SPL. Celtic will not die, Scottish football will not die. Celtic may have to tighten its belt a bit, Scottish football will continue in some form. If a newco is what happens then they should start in the 3rd division and work there way up through the league. What about the TV deal? scrap it and make a new one, where the money is equally distributed amongst the SPL, tv money is only worth approx 1.5 to 2 million pounds for Celtic, nothing.

If they are liquidated it could be a new beginning for Scottish football. If they start in division 3, no doubt some sort of tv deal will be put towards the SFL, money that they wouldn’t usually generate, larger crowds at lower division games due to Rangers trying to move through the leagues will also generate income. They would probably get back to the SPL in 3 years. I’m sure the SPL can survive that. We could even reinvigorate the SPL, most fans are fed up with the current system, this could be the time to make the changes. Increase the league, maybe play twice a season, reintroduce sectional early rounds of league cup, which would mean we would get to play rangers still!

Remember the 1980′s? I can, just about, I was 10 when we won the league in 1988, that decade saw Aberdeen and Dundee United win the league a couple of times. Hearts lost out to Celtic in 85 on last day of season. The problem that happened was that Rangers created a monster by changing the market for the worse, every other tema overspent trying to catch up. Only Celtic and Rangers have won the league since. I would rather we saw a more level playing field within the scottish football environment and a new revival.

Oh, and it looks like we will win the league now, 14 points clear.

Enjoy.

Hail, Hail.

Celtic are back at Hampden tomorrow for the semi final of League Cup against first division Falkirk. Many could see this as an unnecessary distraction to the main goal of winning the SPL. Not me. If Celtic can win the League Cup, we would see a boost in confidence and the prosept of going for a treble. Having only witnessed one treble winning team in my lifetime, I would love to see us do it again.

Hopefully the players remain focused for the game tomorrow as we don’t want another first division team gaining a cup upset against us.

The transfer window closes on Tuesday and it would appear Celtic are still trying to add a striker to the squad. Mollina from Betis, being mentioned one day by papers then the next telling us Celtic can’t afford him. Todays headlines implying that Celtic are going to struggle to sign anyone due to financial constraints. Yet the same papers have Rangers linked with about 6 players, this is the team that had a handful of trialists at start of week, with most leaving the trial within a day or two. As we all know Rangers do have financial problems, i’m curious to see how any signings can be funded by them.

The latest stiker we are supposedly taking on loan until end of season is Pawel Brozek, who it has just been tweeted about is in Glasgow and passed a medical, in the process Celtic beating Rangers to his signing. We will wait and see if this is true over the next few days. He currently plays in Turkey with Trabzonspor, played 19 games this season scoring 3 goals. not the best stats. He’s played 32 times for Poland scoring 8. If he does sign then gives us another option up front, hopefully be enough to lead us to the treble.

Hail, Hail.

Hail, Hail.

Been a while since I last wrote the blog. My wife has delivered a beautiful wee boy, so looking after him has been taking up most of my time.

When I last wrote I was hoping we could get to within touching distance of Rangers going into the derby game and transfer window. Well as we all know Celtic have went on a great run of victories which has moved us from 15 points behind to now moving 2 points ahead of Rangers. A massive swing.

Celtic are now seeing some of the injured players coming back, Izaguirre has had a couple of run outs now, Commons is on the way back. Kelvin Wilson played against Peterhead last week, a player we have still to see the best of due to him being injured most of the season. It appears the manager is looking for an experienced centre forward to add to the squad during the window. If we can find a target man to hold the ball up for Stokes and Hooper then things can only get better. The squad in general doesn’t need too much done to it, I would probably like to see another centre half added, midfield we are ok, the loss of Kayal is a blow but we have enough strength in depth to counter his loss.

Next week Celtic travel to Paisley to take on St Mirren, hopefully another win will keep the pressure on Rangers.

Short blog this week, will be trying to write one every week again.

Hail, Hail.

Hail, Hail.

The last blog I wrote was saying how we had a big week coming up. I couldnt have envisaged how good a week it would turn out for us.  A win against Dunfermline then a cracking win agaisnt St Mirren, allied to Rangers losing at Kilmarnock has moved Celtic to 4 points behind Rangers in the League. From 12 points to 4 in the space of a couple of weeks should give us all confidence of going on and over taking them in the near future.

Yesterday saw us move to 7 points behind, after Rangers won on Saturday, the pressure was firmly on Celtic to keep up the run we have been on. Fortunately we kept it going, a fine Gary Hooper goal was the difference in the match. Tannadice is never an easy place to go to so any win there is good. We need to keep the gap to at most 4 points over the next few weeks, until the derby game on 28th December. Win that and we will be looking good. I get the feeling that the belief and confidence is returning to the team and the fans. We also have our injured players starting to return back, we also have a new addition coming in January with the signing of Lustig and the media have us looking for another striker. A target man would be what i would be looking for and possibly another centre half, although we have still to see Kelvin Wilson get a good run going after his injury problems.

Every team goes through a dodgy spell in the season, let’s hope we have been through our’s and we can keep the good run going.

Hail, Hail

A welcome return to SPL action saw Celtic earn a good win at Inverness. The weekend got better as Rangers drew at home with St Johnstone, which moved Celtic to 10 points behind the leaders.

The 2-0 win over ICT thanks to two goals from the in form Anthony Stokes put a bit of pressure on Rangers before they played later in the day. We have now given ourselves a chink of light to get back in the title race. Celtic play two games before Rangers play Kilmarnock on Sunday at Rugby Park, one of which is our game in hand against Dunfermline on Wednesday night. Should Celtic win these two games we could be 4 points behind the Ibrox club before kick off on Sunday.

This is undoubtedly a big week for the hoops, two must win games to put some more pressure on Rangers. If we can see a good run of wins up to and including the derby game on the 28th Dec at Celtic Park, then the title race will be blown wide open. The fact the transfer window opens just after the derby game, when we may see a few additions to the team and the possible sale of a few Rangers players due to financial problems then the momentum could swing right back in our favour.

We all have our part to play, let’s get right behind the players and management in this crucial run of games up to January and see where it takes us. Hopefully within a couple of points of top position.

Hail,Hail

Hail, Hail.

Celtic got a boost last night with the win against Rennes in the Europa league. A fine 3-1 win at Celtic Park will hopefully be the springboard to a good run of wins in the SPL, starting on Sunday against 2nd place Motherwell.

The Celtic fans went into the game last night with spirits dented after the lacklustre draw against Hibs last Saturday, which put them 12 points behind Rangers and 3 points behind Motherwell in the league. With 7 first team players absent due to injury, most people had probably given up hope of a result against a good Ligue 1 team.

The game started in typical Celtic european style with Rennes going 1 up after 100 seconds! The celts rallied back to lead 2-1 before the break, thanks to an Anthony Stokes double. The first a tap in after the Rennes keeper parried a Forrest shot into Stokes path. The second came from a knock down from Samaras with Stokes beating the defence to cooly slot the ball past the keeper. The second half was nervy at spells, with Fraser Forster having a couple of saves. Then came the goal that confirmed Celtic’s first victory in the Europa this season. It was a classic counter attack from Celtic, the ball cleared from the defence, found Hooper who played it out to Samaras on the left. he burst forward and played a great pass back into Hooper who took a touch then fired it home, great counter attacking football. Several players looked like they had found the form we all knew they had, namely Kayal, Stokes, Wanyama, with the much maligned Samaras having one of his best games in the hoops. Celtic also had Paddy McCourt get 60 minutes under his belt and welcomed the return of one of the star players from last season, Kris Commons who got the last 30 minutes.

This result should give the players confidence but we may have to wait until after the Motherwell game on Sunday and then a run of wins before we can say Celtic are back on form.

Hail, Hail

Hail, Hail.

The revival continued on Wednesday night with the 4-1 win against Hibs in the league cup. After a shaky first half, where Hibs were 1 nil up and missed a great chance to double there lead, the Celts showed there strengths in the second half to wipe Hibs aside. Some good play and good goals made it an enjoyable second half, where we showed the sort of play we had seen in the second half of last season. Let’s hope we can keep it up and go on a good run.

It was good to see Stokes and Hooper on the scoresheet on Wednesday, I’ve been quite critical of Hooper lately and going with the first half performance I could have been justified with my opinions. As with the whole team, his second half performance moved up a gear and he took his goal well. Stokes has probably been our most lively striker this season and deserved a goal.

The player who gave us the impetus to get back into the game, as well as the Kilmarnock game a couple of weeks ago, was James Forrest. When he plays with the confidence and energy he displayed on Wednesday, few defenders stand in his way. If he can keep improving as he has done then we will have a real quality player on our hands. His two goals on Wednesday were the highlights of the game for me, his second involving a one-two with Stokes was a lovely move.

We are back to league duty on Saturday with a home game against Hibs again, hopefully we can start where we left off at Easter Road. Mulgrew will be back in contention and may take the place of Majstorovic, hopefully Rogne will keep his place in defence and play alongside Mulgrew. The players need to remain focused as any slip ups with us being 10 points behind would be fatal to our league aspirations. A win, by a few goals again would do me nicely.

Enjoy the game.

Hail, Hail.