The Offical Glasgow Celtic thread

[lynchbhoy]

I think we all must accept that the league race is over, and for the first time since John Barnes, we are not going to be either Champions or involved in the title race until the very last day of the season. That is how far things have regressed in a mere half a season,and its nothing short of shameful given the respective current resources of Rangers and Celtic. If Rangers were miraculously banned from playing another game this season, I still wouldn't bet on Celtic winning the league, such is the current shambles.

I thought Strachan's side last season needed minimal alterations, ie a proven goalscorer, a midfield replacement for Nakamura, and a left back. Mowbray has destroyed the nucleus of a team adequate to challenge for the league yet not one of his replacements show iota of a hint that they are better than those released,and in fact there is evidence to show thery are not nearly as good.

Add to that the wretched form of Mc Geady etc and you et a scale of the mess that has been made.

strachans teams for his entire tenure required decent centre halves, a left back, left winger (as naka was too lightweight for most of the games) and two strikers.
However strachan sold the young promising LB Mulgrew after falling out with him, sidelined McGeady after - yes you guesed it- falling out with him and failed to sign scoring strikers - esp a six yard box poacher. Scott mcdonald was ok for the spl but notgood enough imo and I said that as he joined an dthroughout his career at Celtic.
So dont go saying strachan signed players for positions that were obviously lacking and mowbray didnt - at least mogga did take steps (way too late imo) by getting players in at Christmas.

[T Fearon]

I'd still take any of Strachan's teams ahead of the current mess, and he delivered trophies as well.

At the end of the day you can argue plus and minuses etc, but it is my simple contention that with the salary they're paying and resources they have (ie to spend on players), in contrast to their rivals, Celtic should be able to recruit a manager of sufficient calibre and nous to win the Scottish League or at least sustain a credible challenge, as they have done for the last decade, and a Hiddink like figure is hardly required.

Strachan did all that was asked of him, but Mowbray cannot and will not deliver, and I said this all along

[lynchbhoy]

yer giving comparisons, but when these are actually compared and smashed - you go off on other tangents - ie namely money...even then strachan had more to spend than mowbray
strachan lost two leagues when his teams capitulated to rangers after having being 9 - 10 points ahead at one stage.
Cast your mind back, strachans team did not win the league last season, the rangers team then were in a worse condition than they are now ! they have stability.
if you want to compare, then Mowbray has to be given a few seasons in charge like strachan was. Only then can you compare. Half a season through (andeven a few months into the job) people are whinging about a new manager when he doesnt win all around him.
I think the likes of MON and Alex ferguson as wll as mourinho at Chelsea shows that your kind of impatience doesnt augur well for the development of any team or manager !

If Celtic had the cash to spend they would have brought in a more exp manager- I wish they did, but with feck all cash to spend , they have to go for bargain basement managers like strachan and mowbray until something better comes along.

[Celt_Man]

Anyone have any links to highlights of the game?  Didn't get to see any of it and I'm not sure I can stomach brief highlights....

[J OGorman]

Anyone have any links to highlights of the game?  Didn't get to see any of it and I'm not sure I can stomach brief highlights....

http://www.101greatgoals.com/videodisplay/4905247/

[bingobus]

WHAT ABOUT THE KNICKERS???

[Celt_Man]

Anyone have any links to highlights of the game?  Didn't get to see any of it and I'm not sure I can stomach brief highlights....

http://www.101greatgoals.com/videodisplay/4905247/

Cheers

[Celt_Man]

Yep highlights were as depressing as I thought they would be....

Sending off was a joke, one was as bad as the other. Two yellows would have been enough but one went the other had to walk to.

Boruc should have held onto the ball for the goal, maybe not the first time but definitely the second....

[Lamh Dhearg Alba]

If the ref was so biased towards Rangers why did he disallow a Rangers goal and not award them a penalty when there was a foul in the box? Many felt he should have sent off N' Guemo. He got the Brown decision wrong and Bougherra should have walked too but those werent the only mistakes he made. You cant pick and choose which incidents should be highlighted. Given some of the calls given in Celtic's favour in Scottish football its laughable to suggest there is an agenda against them. Blaming the officials however is the easy option and allows some fans to deflect attention on to somebody else rather than the failings of their own club.

Its quite reasonable to suggest managers be given time to put their own stamp on a team but in the case of Celtic in the SPL, where they have far greater resources than 10 of the other teams, it should be possible for any competent manager to go through a period of transistion and still put in a real challenge for all the domestic trophies. Mowbray has failed to manage this. Its not a case of people moaning because Mowbray doesnt "win all around him", its the fact he has fallen so far behind a rank Rangers team. Incidentally the suggestion this Rangers team is better than last season's is very dubious, as is the idea that Charlie Mulgrew could ever have been Celtic class (he's currently struggling in a poor Aberdeen team).
The Strachan comparison is irrelevant anyway, the fact is Mowbray has done a really poor job. The idea he is building for the long term is severly weakened too by the fact he has so many players on short term loan deals.

[tyroneman]

One of the biggest factors that everyone seems to ignore in this is the impact of rangers management. WGS for the most part had leGuen to compete against. When Smith arrived WGS quickly started going downhill. Strachan lost the league last year against the same rangers team with - as tony et al say - a better Celtic team than TM has assembled. Smith is no Capello but he does know how to win SPL titles.

Fair to say therefore that Mobray has done as well as WGS in the smith era yet managed to start rebuilding the team. WGS got an easy run of things the first few seasons truth be told. He also introduced the most dire football I have ever witnessed at CP.

What would worry me about TM is that his quality signings will not be there next year. Keane will be long gone as will Kamara. I would also hazard THG will be cashed in on along with Aidinho (not necessarily a bad thing)

As I said before though who will come in??? We paid 2 mill for TM. Heaven knows what a big name would cost. If they could even be enticed.

[T Fearon]

Your hypothesis doesn't add up. In his two full seasons in direct competition with Smith, Strachan won the league once and lost it on the final day. Also you omit that Strachan won the league in his very first season, against Alec Mc Leish, who himself won two titles against Martin O'Neill.

Also the reconstruction of the team was at least as arduous for Strachan in his first season, as it was for Mowbray this season, yet he won the league against a better Rangers team than this one, under Alex Mc Leish.

I would contend that Celtic did far better under Strachan (who wasn't dancing cartweels the night Man Ure were beaten and qualification for the last 16 secured. Could you ever see Mowbray sending out a team to beat Man Ure?), than they ever will under Mowbray. The football this year is far from rivetting, yet I would take trphy contention any day than attractive football (we had plenty of that under Tommy Burns but precious little success).

[red hander]

I've been racking my brains since yesterday to think if I've seen a worse footballer than Lafferty, but I can't come up with one ... how did a guy that bad get to that level, it's mind-boggling? 

[lynchbhoy]

If the ref was so biased towards Rangers why did he disallow a Rangers goal and not award them a penalty when there was a foul in the box? Many felt he should have sent off N' Guemo. He got the Brown decision wrong and Bougherra should have walked too but those werent the only mistakes he made. You cant pick and choose which incidents should be highlighted. Given some of the calls given in Celtic's favour in Scottish football its laughable to suggest there is an agenda against them. Blaming the officials however is the easy option and allows some fans to deflect attention on to somebody else rather than the failings of their own club.

Its quite reasonable to suggest managers be given time to put their own stamp on a team but in the case of Celtic in the SPL, where they have far greater resources than 10 of the other teams, it should be possible for any competent manager to go through a period of transistion and still put in a real challenge for all the domestic trophies. Mowbray has failed to manage this. Its not a case of people moaning because Mowbray doesnt "win all around him", its the fact he has fallen so far behind a rank Rangers team. Incidentally the suggestion this Rangers team is better than last season's is very dubious, as is the idea that Charlie Mulgrew could ever have been Celtic class (he's currently struggling in a poor Aberdeen team).
The Strachan comparison is irrelevant anyway, the fact is Mowbray has done a really poor job. The idea he is building for the long term is severly weakened too by the fact he has so many players on short term loan deals.

not being smart - I only saw up to about the 60th min so up until that point there was nothing even close to rangers
having a decent penalty claim.the rangers 'goal' was an obv decision against the gers so while the ref was despicable
he at least didnt do it as blatantly as that.
As for people calling for N'Guemo to be sent off well from watching it, there were four or five rangers players bordering
on thuggery let alone persistently fouling - before you would come to N'Guemo in that match for rough or foul play.
At least three rangers players deserved to see red, bougherra, thompson and mcullouch with two or three more guilty of
as much if not more than N'Guemo.
Difference was that for the same kind of tackles, the ref awarded free kicks against N'Guemo but allowed play
to continue when the rangers lads did the same or worse!
So far from being paranoid, I was using my eyesight and while people can claim a level of biasedness, in general
I dont get carried away with the hysteria - but the lack of parity from tackling alone was obvious - but ask Robbie Keane
who now cant play for Ireland tomorrow night.

As for Mulgrew- you said that before, then a few weeks later he went on to star against Celtic. He may not be a roberto
carlos or wayne bridge, but he woul dhave been better than most left backs than Celtic have had in the past few years.
Imagine how good he could have been if staying at Celtic and coached plus playing alongside 'better' players.
Aberdeen have great youth system, but they dont seem to have the same great coaching once these lads go senior-
so thats prob why mulgrew never progressed as he should.
Celtic have options on these lads on loan - thats the best of both worlds imo !

[lynchbhoy]

Your hypothesis doesn't add up. In his two full seasons in direct competition with Smith, Strachan won the league once and lost it on the final day. Also you omit that Strachan won the league in his very first season, against Alec Mc Leish, who himself won two titles against Martin O'Neill.

Also the reconstruction of the team was at least as arduous for Strachan in his first season, as it was for Mowbray this season, yet he won the league against a better Rangers team than this one, under Alex Mc Leish.

I would contend that Celtic did far better under Strachan (who wasn't dancing cartweels the night Man Ure were beaten and qualification for the last 16 secured. Could you ever see Mowbray sending out a team to beat Man Ure?), than they ever will under Mowbray. The football this year is far from rivetting, yet I would take trphy contention any day than attractive football (we had plenty of that under Tommy Burns but precious little success).

youd want to think again Tony. While MON's Celtic were not as good as they were, they were still good enough for strachan to win the league with - MON did make a mess of it the prev season, but as mentioned here before- he did
have a pretty good reason for that. That rangers had been destroyed by MON helped a lot too.
However once they recovered under smith, that was curtains for strachan.
As I posted before, all MON teams do well the season after he leaves. Check out Wycome or leicesters records.
He puts in great structures - he certainly did with Celtic.
what mess did strachan leave behind ? second rate players in defence (and elsewhere) and falling out with half the team trying to get the board to sell them - two of which our best and most lucrative players (boruc and McGeady).

Yes Strachans team beat man u (undeservingly a lot of people would think -but youd take a win any way you can)but his other performances in europe show that these two occasions proved the cl opponents in the group were of a
lesser standard - certainly a lesser standard than the teams MON's side played against - or would you 'contend' that strachans team were better than MON's ?

the style of soccer doesnt interest me that much - winning does. Mowbray is not doing well this season.
However unless Celtic have money and a proven good manager to replace him, then hes as good as they can get and as good as strachan - between them they wouldnt measure up to MON, strachan had some good aspects and some bad ones
mowbray the same. strachan has left a mess behind that mon would have sorted out, but we dont have MON, we have Mogga and that is our lot right now.

Yesterdays game reminded me of the 80's and 90's with the dire refereeing. The Celtic 'source' that bemoaned the ref in advance of the game was proven right, however given the referees and their decisions in the two prev games , it wasnt
hard to predict ! Not paranoid, just had to watch the game and see !

[Myles Na G.]

Celtic were poor in every department. We needed improvement on last year and instead we've gone backwards in spectacular fashion. Mowbray has shipped out players who were SPL champions and replaced them with youngsters and journeymen. A few bad results would be tolerable if there was at least some sign that the team was moving in the right direction, but the opposite is the case. There's no pattern to the play, no cohesion, no leadership, no creativity. In a must win match, Fortune had one good chance and Keane had a couple of half chances, other than that there was nothing. Not a single corner the whole game, while at the other end Boruc had to make several good saves. All this against a Rangers team that has a 64 year old at centre back, Kyle Lafferty in midfield and which can't afford a new pair of shinpads.