The Offical Glasgow Celtic thread

[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.

[T Fearon]

LB O'Neill left a team that was over the hill, Sutton, Thompson, Hartson etc. Strachan did well to rehabilitate the team, and win the league in his first year.

I agree that O'Neill is a better manager but he had more funds and most importantly Larsson.

Where Strachan  triumphs over Mowbray is in mental toughness. Also with Mowbray, you get the impression that f he had Messi, Kaka, Rooney and Ronaldo he still wouldn't produce a winning team. As others have said there is no sign of progress whatsoever and I see no reason in persisting with a busted flush

[Lamh Dhearg Alba]

Clearly you werent looking as carefully as you claim lynchbhoy. There was a clear foul in the box by Hinkel on Edu which Ive actually just been watching on BBC Scotland. That well know Rangers man Pat Nevin saying it was a penalty too. I see Craig Dargo put in two dangerous tackles in the St Mirren - Accies game as well and wasnt sent off, must be that infamous anti Hamilton bias of the officials . If people want to blame officials despite looking closer to home to see the real source of their teams problems thats fair enough though, its certainly the easier option.

As for Mulgrew having a good game against Celtic is hardly a great achievement thesedays. He was moved on by Celtic due to his dodgy defensive abilities, moved on by Wolves and it seems likely he will be moved on by Aberdeen in the summer. He can hit a superb dead ball but is a weak link defensively at left back yet doesnt do enough going forward to play left midfield. Saw him at close quarters being ripped to shreds by a part time winger last season.

[Hound]

I thought the ref had a good game. He let the game flow as much as possible (for these type of games), he generally only blew up for proper fouls and only gave yellows for dirty fouls.

I'm sure Bougherra was one foul away from a 2nd yellow, but after Celtic went down to 10 men, he kept his nose clean. Thompson and McCulloch did nothing wrong, just got rightly stuck in as you'd expect your midfielders to do in such a game.

The Brown red was a big error of course. To suggest the ref was cheating is laughable. Brown was silly to get involved, and from the ref's angle and Lafferty's reaction, it looked a lot worse than it was. The simple fact is that Lafferty conned the ref and got Brown the red card (no surprise that he was whipped off straight away). The ref's biggest mistake was not consulting his linesman who standing a few yards away and saw everything clearly.

Can't understand how Fortune and Samaras get into the Celtic team ahead of Rasmussen. Maybe they look better footballers in training or something, but Rasmussen is a predator and a goalscorer, very much unlike the other two.

[lynchbhoy]

Clearly you werent looking as carefully as you claim lynchbhoy. There was a clear foul in the box by Hinkel on Edu which Ive actually just been watching on BBC Scotland. That well know Rangers man Pat Nevin saying it was a penalty too. I see Craig Dargo put in two dangerous tackles in the St Mirren - Accies game as well and wasnt sent off, must be that infamous anti Hamilton bias of the officials . If people want to blame officials despite looking closer to home to see the real source of their teams problems thats fair enough though, its certainly the easier option.

As for Mulgrew having a good game against Celtic is hardly a great achievement thesedays. He was moved on by Celtic due to his dodgy defensive abilities, moved on by Wolves and it seems likely he will be moved on by Aberdeen in the summer. He can hit a superb dead ball but is a weak link defensively at left back yet doesnt do enough going forward to play left midfield. Saw him at close quarters being ripped to shreds by a part time winger last season.

certainly didnt see it - was it in the first 60 mins?
again - mulgrew is no worse than a litany of left backs Celtic had and imo and the opinion of many others- esp at the time, he was better than what Celtic had. It is a case of what if - Celtic let him go and he ends up like a lot of players that get rejected, dont fit in etc - but he has given attacking perf and some decent def ones too that are as good as most LB's. Celticmoved him on as like many others he fell foul of strachans inability to man manage (or fall out with players as we call it!)

[T Fearon]

You hardly need a left back of Danny Mc Grain or Tommy Gemmell proportions these days in Scotland.

The main difference on Sunday was that every Rangers player played up to his potential  and with conviction, ffs Davis controlled midfield at times as if he was Platini, whereas the likes of Mc Geady and Brown were pale shadows of themselves (they were ten times better last season under Strachan), with arguably only Boruc playing to his for Celtic. That has to be down to the respective managers.

Also if Strachan was a poor man manager how come so many lads were very happy to rejoin him at Middlesbro?

I can only assume that the total lack of any credible alternative and a big pay off, is the only thing that is now keeping Mowbray in place at Celtic Park.

[lynchbhoy]

You hardly need a left back of Danny Mc Grain or Tommy Gemmell proportions these days in Scotland.

The main difference on Sunday was that every Rangers player played up to his potential  and with conviction, ffs Davis controlled midfield at times as if he was Platini, whereas the likes of Mc Geady and Brown were pale shadows of themselves (they were ten times better last season under Strachan), with arguably only Boruc playing to his for Celtic. That has to be down to the respective managers.

Also if Strachan was a poor man manager how come so many lads were very happy to rejoin him at Middlesbro?

I can only assume that the total lack of any credible alternative and a big pay off, is the only thing that is now keeping Mowbray in place at Celtic Park.

caldwell really wanted to rejoin him didnt he !
killeen and flood were told they would not be part of the first team , and I suspect that Robson and mcmanus were told they wouldnt be guaranteed a place so they moved - I am sure that the percentage cut in a transfer (if it happens) would be a big lure also.

Do you recall mulgrew at Celtic Tony - I do and he looked darn good to me at the time.

[T Fearon]

I recall many potential superstars at Celtic Park that failed to reach their potential. If Mulgrew was seriously any good, then he wouldn't be playing for Aberdeen.

[tyroneStatto]

think these stats say it all really...

                 Pld     Won  Drawn  Lost  Win%
Barnes         29     19        2         8         65.5

Brady (Season 1)    55    33      12      10        60

Mowbray               41    20      9      12        48.78

at least Brady & Barnes had decent Rangers teams to contend with.