The Offical Glasgow Celtic thread

[T Fearon]

Bullshit.Its one of the worst Inter teams of all time,and they're still not interested in Europa League.Having said that Happoel will still be in Europe after Xmas unlike Celtic

[tonto1888]

Just give it up tiny

[tonto1888]

What a brilliant performance and result for Dundalk.All the more creditable considering they played on Monday night,and to think the clown managing Celtic tried to blame the league match three days earlier for the Barcelona humiliation

AZ Alkmar have no interest in the Europa league. One of the worst AZ teams in history. See tiny, these nonsense arguments work both ways.

[Hectic]

Hilarious. Was just coming on to say that one of the crap teams we beat won comfortably in Milan but I am well off the pace. So any positive indicator should be ignored but when we get hammered by the worlds best team it should be an open and shut case that our manager is a clown. Moving forward on this thread I am treating a certain poster as a Sevco troll intent on destabilizing the Celtic support.

[MoChara]

http://dlyr.ec/RMeijT

Keanos view.Read and absorb.

The only thing that article made me wonder was what curse word is B***y, it must be Bloody, but when did that become a word that had to be censored, its almost like the paper were trying to sensationalize this.

Also Keanes a knob end and isn't worth listening to as usual.

[T Fearon]

Keano's right.We can't consider ourselves to be a big club and get humiliated 7 nil by anyone.Mindsets (including those who think our manager is delivering when he clearly isn't) have to change.We must think like a big club and deliver like one.

[tonto1888]

Keano's right.We can't consider ourselves to be a big club and get humiliated 7 nil by anyone.Mindsets (including those who think our manager is delivering when he clearly isn't) have to change.We must think like a big club and deliver like one.

1. We are not a big club anymore. We have a big fanbase and a good history but we aren't a big club.
2. The manager is delivering. Keeping repeating a lie doesn't make it true

[Hectic]

Sure hopefully we will lose at Inverness and then you will be able to add that as fuel.

[winghalfback]

Keano's right.We can't consider ourselves to be a big club and get humiliated 7 nil by anyone.Mindsets (including those who think our manager is delivering when he clearly isn't) have to change.We must think like a big club and deliver like one.

Tony you're bleeting on about how the manager is not delivering from he has come in barring the humiliation the other night what has he not delivered on? I'll be interested to know.

[T Fearon]

He has not delivered anything.As Keane said we stumbled,and finally tripped over to find ourselves in the Champions League Group stage,bewildered as was evidenced the other night.

He has won a few games in the SPL,lucky enough versus Hearts,and definitely should have put Rangers away before half time last week.

We have no cohesion,no game plan,nothing and the clown has delivered the most embarrassing result and the biggest European defeat in our history.

At this stage of the season after a few months in the job, a competent manager would have had us devouring all domestic opposition (for a club of our stature and resources we should be achieving routine domestic results on a par with Real Madrid and Barcelona) and in the Champions League playing with confidence,with an adaptable game plan to render us competitive anywhere against any opposition.

In short,the only difference I see between last year and this year is that we luckily qualified for the Champions League group stages,yet Ronny didn't have the luxury of bringing in Toure,Sinclair etc

[Main Street]

The idiocy continues unabated as fools queue up to talk to the troll.
Like a dog obsessively chewing on it's own leg, with the sight and smell of blood increasing the appetite.

[Hectic]

Yeah look he is some boy to be talking about our manager not delivering when his own manager and chairman are sailing the good ship Sevco down the same river that Rangers, Gretna, Third Lanark etc sailed.

Glass houses and all that.

[BennyHarp]

The idiocy continues unabated as fools queue up to talk to the troll.
Like a dog obsessively chewing on it's own leg, with the sight and smell of blood increasing the appetite.

You do realise that you are referencing him more than any other single poster on this thread?

[Hectic]

T Fearon you're children will be Celtic supporters.

[seafoid]

Michael Walker: Uefa may trumpet Celtic's return, but this side is a tribute act
Barcelona thrashing highlights big clubs' dominance and Uefa's abdication of leadership
 
Not one club has successfully defended the Champions League title – or European Cup – since AC Milan defeated Benfica in Vienna in 1990 to retain the trophy they won against Steaua Bucharest a year earlier.
This fact contains some of the competition's great appeals: its degree of difficulty and its unpredictability.
The 26 finals since Frank Rijkaard's winner in Vienna have seen 14 different clubs from eight countries collect the trophy with the big ears. That suggests variety, and you know what they say about it.

And yet even as Andrés Iniesta lashed in a glorious volley to make it Barcelona 4 Celtic 0 (after less than an hour) on Tuesday night in Catalonia, there were other feelings mingling with the pleasure at seeing this Barcelona team's ruthless smile. Sadness for one, not for Celtic, but for Scottish football; frustration for another, at the long, slow death of variety.

Just three years before that Rijkaard goal, Dundee United were winning 2-1 in the Nou Camp, Paul Sturrock was a beautiful scamp and Hamburg and PSV Eindhoven were powers in Europe.

Now we can comfortably predict the last eight in this season's Champions League, or at least half of them. This is because for the past four seasons Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Paris St-Germain have reached the quarter finals.
The last time Barcelona failed to reach the quarters was 10 seasons ago; Real Madrid have been in the semi-final or final for the past six seasons. The 'unpredictable' Champions League claim is not so convincing.
Desire for nostalgia
For the past four seasons Bayern have been champions in Germany and PSG in France. Six of the last eight La Liga titles have been won by Barcelona. On we go. And it isn't about to change. This is not a whinge about the past, a desire for nostalgia; it's concern for the future.
Variety has been trampled down by monopoly. It is the way of these things: those who propose and propel deregulation in the name of 'choice' tend to be the same people who benefit from its opposite. Understandably, big businesses want to remain big businesses and newcomers, alternatives – variety – threaten that. Big business supports deregulation as it enables it to get hands on turf previously ruled out-of-bounds. Hence it gets bigger, the mantra of 'growth'.
This is why competition – sporting or otherwise – requires administration and governance, to ensure there is competition. But that administrative structure must be strong and too often it has been weak. It feels lax now.
The English Football Association effectively walked away from its responsibilities to the wider game when it sanctioned the breakaway Premier League in 1992 and everything that has flowed from that rupture.
"That abdication of leadership gave the clubs notice that they had a free hand, that the governing body wasn't up to doing much governing at all," is how David Conn put it in his book The Beautiful Game?.
Conn quotes the England manager of the time, Graham Taylor, saying: "I think a lot of this is based on greed."
Which brings us back to Uefa, the Champions League and an elite group of clubs whose success and wealth is self-perpetuating. They govern Uefa.

Cartels are excluding and unattractive – unless you're on the inside. From there it looks great and you can dictate. Why should the Barcelona hierarchy fret about the gradual downgrading of Celtic or Ajax or Anderlecht? Their concern is Barcelona.
However, the authorities, La Liga and Uefa, should be at least intrigued by the 7-0, 6-0 and 5-0 scorelines the opening nights of the Champions League group stage have given us. Uefa might want to think about Barcelona's 10-year record in the competition and ask themselves if they want the next 10 years to be the same. Because if they do, if they think Barcelona reaching 20 consecutive quarter-finals is something to aim for, then they too are guilty of an abdication of leadership.
Progress
If in, say 2022, Barcelona beat Celtic 8-0, will that be considered progress?
But that is the way it's going. There is a concentration of money that renews the powerful. Uefa may trumpet Celtic being back, the Parkhead atmosphere, the colour and noise blah blah. But this is Celtic as a tribute act; Uefa know Celtic won't be troubling the Champions League after Christmas.

And there's something not very sporting about that predictability.
It's as if there is a dread, a fear within Uefa about the established clubs not dominating. Yet among neutrals, who can say they have missed Chelsea or Manchester United this week?
The good news, the refreshment, has been Leicester City. They have brought novelty and genuine excitement. Maybe Leicester will inspire others, though we must doubt the economic capacity of others to be inspired.
Yes, Barcelona 7 Celtic 0 was mesmerising; but this was more than a match, this was a statement about how things are, and will be.

Celtic play Inverness Caledonian Thistle tomorrow. Therein lies their problem. From Barcelona to Inverness is not the issue, it's the other way round. ICT offers no preparation – sporting, economic, cultural, scale – for the Champions League.
That said, Celtic cannot just hide behind the big Barcelona flag. What happened on Tuesday may have been historic in its scoreline, but Celtic have hardly been unfamiliar with European embarrassment over the past few years. It was only in July that they lost to Lincoln Red Imps in Gibraltar.
Bratislava, Utrecht, Warsaw, these are other places associated with Celtic failings. The structure of football is not to their advantage, but those results suggest Celtic have needed to defend better for some time.