Celtic Banter Archive October 26 2015

26 Oct 2015 18:25:36
I am at a crossroads with our manager. The argument for the defence is he will get it right. He will sort out the defence, he will take us forward and give him time.
The argument for the prosecution is he "will" do this he "will" do that.
As far as I can see I not interested in anyone who "will" do anything. I as a celtic supporter are only interested in what he has done.
Anyone can talk a good game but you have to walk the walk. There are plenty of good managers out there out of a job who talked the talk and cudnt get the results required.
So the question is how long does our manager get?
Does he survive another embarrassing result in Europe?
In my opinion no.
If he manages to survive thro the group and even if we get knocked out but with decent results that are left he should be given till CL qualifiers.
But if you fail for the 4th time (I can't believe I actually saying that) you are defo a gonner Ronny.

26 Oct 2015 18:49:02
Let's see how they get on now the defender is fit Rayman. May also be interesting to see if the boy tierney gets a shot at the LB slot.

26 Oct 2015 19:05:37
My concern is Simunovic may make no difference mate. As its not the defenders that u have its how u set up the team. Look at Barcelona and Madrid they don't have poor defenders but leak goals u wudnt believe.
Like Celtic they have to attack no matter what, the difference is in Europe they are good enough to get away with it. We are not so we have to set up differently but RD refuses to do it.

26 Oct 2015 19:18:30
I agree with you rayman, I have no problem with Ronny at domestic level, we have the strongest squad in Scotland, and he would have to be pretty dreadful if he couldn't win the league with it.
I think you have to judge him on European performances, and so far he has come up short. The thing I have found most disappointing about our away performances in Europe is that we don't seem to learn any lessons, in fact things seem to be getting worse.
Last season we scored twice in Salzburg and failed to win, we scored three times in Zagreb and failed to win, but at least it looked as though we were in the games. this season we were abysmal in Malmo and just as bad in Molde, Ronny doesn't seem able to fix the problems.
I think he needs to start finding some answers quickly, as I don't think he could survive yet another failure to qualify for the Champions league.
I'm not convinced about his tactical awareness, as in Europe he seems to be outdone by opposing managers in that department, his motivational skills don't look great to me either as there doesn't look to be a great deal of fight in the team when things start to go wrong.
I think starting against Molde next week, he has to start and show that he can get a grip on these things, as I, and I would imagine most fans couldn't stomach another humiliation.
It's time for him to step up and prove he has the ability that people keep saying he has, otherwise he will have to make way for someone else.

26 Oct 2015 19:24:49
Here are a few things to consider.

1. We lost our CB pairing from last season with VVD going to SOuthampton and Denayer returning to City.

2. Lustig is still not fully fit and is still coming back from his injuries.

3. Boyata has not had the luxury of having time with the same defensive partner.

4. Simunovic has been injured on the most part since his arrival.

I should point out that Ronnie is not using this as an excuse but it is something to keep in mind when thinking about some of our defensive displays this season.

I also hear people going mental about Ambrose getting a game but ask yourself this, who should he play instead?

With regards to the way we set up in Europe (especially away from home), you do have a point and I think Ronnie needs to review his tactics and set us out to counter attack and make it difficult to break us down.

26 Oct 2015 19:40:54
Total contradictioning statements once again Rayman. don't worry your not the only one.

26 Oct 2015 19:43:55
I agree totally. The result (and performance) against United was more down to their ineptitude than our brilliance and we have rarely hit those heights against any other team.
The naivety we show and the basic errors we make in every European game highlight our predicament.
The best of a very bad bunch in Scotland and sliding down the euro coefficient like a rat down a sewage drain.

26 Oct 2015 20:02:51
Rab Mac we are not the only team with injury problems. Look at the players that our opponents had out. When we won 3-2 against Malmo they had 3 players out including their main striker. He came back for return and scored twice. Every team has injuries all the time so not buying that excuss for Ronnie.

26 Oct 2015 20:26:58
D Utd were like a pub team so we can't gauge anything against them. That's the problem, the other teams in Scotland are poor, the fact we are losing to average teams in Europe is the biggest concern! I wrote off last season, but was expecting better this year so to lose to Malmo was unacceptable, especially the way we played in the second leg. I'm desperate for Ronny to do well but at the same time terrified about the qualifiers next year because it means so much. Since his first brilliant season Izzy has been a passenger in Europe so for the next few games he has to try Lustig/Boyata/Simunovic/Tierney, - Lustig is another who made of glass, but at his best is a cracking right back, when he scored that cracker at Tynecastle he was playing the best out all the Celtic players. I think a top striker would make a big difference. We really have to get rid of a good few squad players in Jan. January is huge because with the Euros coming up and with the early Champions League games we really have to get it right!

26 Oct 2015 21:29:21
I cannot understand all this talk about Deila having to have victoriies in Europe
Why? It 48 yrs since we won the European Cup and unless we are plying our weekly football outside of Scotland, it's very unlikely that we will win it again .
We have survived no Europen football post Christmas for near 30 yrs without sacking manager every 16 /18 mths .
Murray use to crow about having two teams, one for Europe and one for domestic .
We have a v successful domestic team, and a less than successful team for Europe😀😃.

26 Oct 2015 21:52:58
Is not so much about must having victories in Europe, is more about playing well in Europe, some of the performances under Ronnie, are the worst collection of abyssmal performanses than under any other manager, and its not because we don't have the players its because Ronnie does'nt utilise the ones available to the best of their abilities, in their best positions.

26 Oct 2015 21:55:02
@Johnnymac - You are missing my point. Yes part of it related to injuries but the entirety of the point was that we have lost the heart of our defense and we have not been able to get a settled defence since the loss of Denayer and VVD. I recall Man Utd under Ferguson suffering a bad run of inuries to all his defenders so he could not get a settled back 4 and they leaked a lot of goals that season.

To back up what Old Bhoy said, people seem to think that we should be hammering Molde and Malmo but if you look at Molde's form they have pumped Fenerbache away and got a good result against Ajax and Malmo have beaten Shaqtar Donetsk. So neither of these teams are as bad as some people would have us believe.

26 Oct 2015 22:03:32
Old Bhoy, I would imagine you would be very welcome to join the board.
By your logic, teams like Hearts, Dundee, Inverness, etc. should just pull out of the league as they haven't won it for years, so they may as well give up.
If Celtic want to be known worldwide, then they have to be performing on the highest stage possible, if we are just content with domestic football we will end up shrinking in size till our crowds would be down to about 15,000 as that is probably all that would be needed to dominate in Scotland the state the game is here at the moment.
I think Celtic are a lot bigger than that, and should aim as high as they can.

26 Oct 2015 22:04:03
Old Bhoy the reason we are successful in the SPL is because we have the largest squad, the best players, best facilities, scouting etc. We can't afford that just from playing in the SPL. So we can downsize then we will find it more difficult to be as successful in Scotland as we are. So when I hear Ed and yourself all of a sudden getting fed up with European football it simply has to be part of the way we generate revenue.

{Ed007's Note - It's not all of a sudden from me, I lost interest in international football years ago and the European game is just going the same way, UEFA are openly corrupt and yet people would sell their granny to be a part of it. I know plenty of people who have no interest in the CL or EL, Ed001 is one of them, then there's Ed003 doesn't watch the EPL or the CL/EL, he prefers lower league football because he seen the corruption first hand the season Blackpool spent in the EPL.
For me it seems to be the youngsters that get all excited by the CL, that's why most of the support seem to be only there to post selfies on social media rather than watch the football, than in itself probably explains a lot about their lack of knowledge of the game as well.
So I think it's best if I leave the kiddies with their new 'must have' competition, they seem to think the CL is the be all and end all of football and they're welcome to it, when they get bored with CFC not winning the CL and have moved on to follow the next hipster sport to be seen at like basketball, robot boxing or a 365 night run of Kevin Bridges' shows I'll still be sitting at Celtic Park watching Celtic winning and losing matches, winning leagues and cups and enjoying every minute of it, hopefully surrounded by people there to support the team through thick and thin, good times and bad.
The attendance figures show you that there is a large number of our supporters who are Champions League supporters rather than CFC supporters, they've allowed themselves to be brainwashed by TV pundits and the media that if a game isn't worth millions of pounds it's not worth being at. It's football snobbery and it's a horrible, ugly trait in a club's support.
I wonder how they would have coped in the old knock-out system where there were years we played two games and that was it for another year in Europe - and yet only 4 years ago a manager failed in the qualifying stages of BOTH European tournaments and nobody batted an eyelid, in fact he got another three seasons to turn things round.
It might not be the CL I'm getting sick of now I think about it, I think I'm more sick of some of the people attached to our club as supporters, every day more and more of them disgust me. I don't want to mix with the type of people who only turn up and support their team when it's the CL or the worst of the lot that, they appear out the woodwork like a venomous puss any time there's a cup final.}

26 Oct 2015 22:17:20
Rabmac we both know some results have been poor .
Other leagues with massive budgets have managers not performing too well either There are definitely posters on here who seem to be hoping and waiting for Deila to slip up .

26 Oct 2015 23:07:06
Its not just the results that have been poor, its the performances, criticising Ronnie does'nt equate to wanting him to slip up, Iwant him to improve and get his act together, but he's less likely to do that if some of the sycophants that post on here keep praising him.

27 Oct 2015 04:24:34
@aindoh no matter what Deila does, you will always be gunning for him. You have had an agenda against him from day 1.

27 Oct 2015 10:41:01
Thats not true, DN, I welcomed Ronnies appointment, it was only when I saw some of his team selections and tactics that I began to have my doubts, I think some people have watched his public speaking video and have been so mesmerised by it, they are practically clapping and dancing in the aisles at his every word and move, he can do no wrong in their eyes, I appreciate that he has needed to find a new defence, but he should be more cautious until he knows he has a defence he can rely on, and he has to start dropping people that are'nt playing well, I think this forum is split into sycophants and realists, take the Commons substitution against Molde ( I think Commons reaction was totally wrong and should have waited till the dressing room), the realists were holding their hands up and saying ' why is he making that substitution ', and the sycophants were saying ' that Commons is'nt and never was a team player ', I know which faction I was with.

27 Oct 2015 09:08:28
Ed, I support Celtic, week in week out, it costs me a small fortune every season getting to and from matches, I hope a 620 mile round trip for matches including midweek games shows I am not a glory hunter.
I don't like all the money in football these days, but you either go along with it or shut yourself away from it. I want Celtic to be as good as they can be, and as a club week should be well capable of mixing it with the rest of Europe. Every team at whatever level surely tries to get as far as they can, if you are a team in the second division, that may be their level, but it doesn't stop them trying to get to the first division.
I want Celtic to reach their potential, I don't look on it as snobbery. If week don't keep trying to improve, there is a new club on the other side of town, who will eventually overtake us, and we will end up not even winning domestic trophies.

{Ed007's Note - Are you screaming for the manager to be sacked us losing a game, or picking certain players, were you screaming for the manager to be sacked and that Aberdeen were going to win the league? Are you STILL harping on about a game we lost a week ago even though we won 5-0 at the weekend?
Will you turn up to watch Celtic no matter who they're playing as long as funds etc allow or is attending Europa League games 'beneath' you, are you one of the 'supporters' that has consistently whined since RD took over to the point you seem to take great delight in seeing us getting beat just so you can make yourself feel better because 'you told us so'.
Are you one of the 'supporters' that gave the last manager Neil Lennon 4 attempts at just qualifying for Europe only to manage the EL, knocked out the CL qualifiers and EL qualifiers in 2010-11 and then also knocked out the CL qualifiers in the following season and having to settle for the EL but now want a manager sacked for providing European football after Christmas in his first year?
You're not, Gerry, I can tell from your posts you're a decent and reasonable man and there's plenty like you in our support, it's the other clowns who think they know everything that are dragging the club down, giving our enemies in the media their headlines and revelling in any mistake we make.
We have a young manager with a young team who are going to make mistakes, the thing is to learn from them, for one reason or another we've not had a settled back four, Peter Lawwell and John Park left us high and dry on the transfer front AGAIN, everyone knew the positions we need strengthened but it was ignored again until the last minute when Simunovic (who I think could make a huge difference to our defence, so why wasn't he signed in June?) and Ciftci who is another panic buy of what was left available at the last minute like we experience nearly every summer.
I'd much prefer watching Celtic win the League Cup than see us getting scudded 7-1 on aggregate by Barcelona.
So you don't think it's football snobbery that if we were playing Fenerbahce in the CL Celtic Park would be busting at the seams yet when it's the EL there's only 42,000, why such a difference? There's the same amount of time to arrange time of work, travel etc as there would be for a CL tie, or is it the fact that some our supporters can't be arsed unless it's a 'big' game, a game they can tell everyone at work and on social media that they were there, the actual football means very little to them.}

27 Oct 2015 14:33:38
Ed007
I think u have put a finger on something I have been thinking for years . Some posters post negative shoite about Celtic, the media who always have had it in for Celtic elaborate and give "it" more legs, other Celtic fans read it in papers and believe it must be true and the cycle of negativity continues .
Supports should support that means encourage .
Journalists are critics therefore they criticise .

27 Oct 2015 18:16:58
Hi DN me old mucker where u been hiding? What have I been contradictioning lol, can u be more specifical pmsl.

27 Oct 2015 18:49:02
Ed I know it's annoying when fans don't turn up for so called lesser matches, but I think that's a thing that most clubs suffer from.
There was a match on TV last night between Cardiff and Bristol City, there were thousands of empty seats yet a couple of years ago, Cardiff were selling out their stadium when they were in the premier league. So it's not just us that suffer from this.
I think the amount of season ticket holders that there are at Celtic is quite impressive when you consider the league we play in, there are a lot of decent sized clubs in England who would love to get anywhere near the amount of season ticket holders we have here.
From my point of view whatever competition Celtic are playing in, is the most important at that particular time, but that doesn't mean that I don't want Celtic to go as far as they can and go a step further, I would rather lose heavily to Barcelona than be humiliated by Molde, at least the club makes some money out of losing in the Champions league, which with a decent board, should lead to us getting better players than the likes of Cifti, etc.

{Ed007's Note - One thing I think we need to do and pretty damn quickly is that we need to stop comparing ourselves to English clubs, clubs in Belgium, Holland or Scandinavia don't constantly compare their clubs to the English league.
I was pilloried on here for years for saying that CFC should be investing at a level to guarantee not just CL qualification but the minimum aim being 3rd in the group and dropping down to the EL, that was in 2012 when we had one of the top 10 matchday incomes in Europe, ahead of teams like Spurs, but the board failed to invest then and now they are facing the consequences, this is the culmination of years of long term neglect on the board's part to invest in the most important part of the club - the team.}

27 Oct 2015 22:19:30
The problem we have had for the last 10 years is IMO that the managers at the time cannot seem to get enough players to play above themselves . Too often when we look back on a game we are reflecting on a mistake a player made that cost us, instead of thinking about half the team playing very well and us wondering who should have been in the running for man of the match . After Sunday we were looking back on a number of good performances, but that isn't usual.

26 Oct 2015 13:00:33
Been watching a lot of Spanish football and have adopted little Rayo Vallecano as my Spanish team.
They have an exiting player called Lass Baungura who has lots of pace and crosses decent balls, saw him recently against Barcelona and he was a stand out.
This is a small club and their players cannot be on big money, surely Celtic should be looking at players like this from small clubs in decent leagues.

26 Oct 2015 13:28:46
Timalloy they have also a player called MIKU as long as we are not looking at him lol.

26 Oct 2015 21:31:40
There always has been players who can star for a team, and then fail at a different team in a different league.

26 Oct 2015 11:21:26
Ed do you know if scott allan is injured or is he avalible for selection? Cheers.

{Ed007's Note - He's still carrying slight a knock but shouldn't be far too far away from being available, whether he will be selected is another matter altogether.}

26 Oct 2015 13:37:49
The signing of Scott Allen puzzled me at the time and his lengthy injury seemed to have appeared from nowhere. Between him, Ciftci and Christie, we certainly ballsed up another transfer window in my opinion.

{Ed007's Note - I don't even see where Allan will fit into the team.}

26 Oct 2015 14:32:04
I would rather we bought less players in transfer windows, but better quality in the ones we do buy.
If you look at the signings we have made in the last few years, a lot of them were, or are no better than we already had at the club. I would prefer to target the weak links in the team and spend a bit more money in improving them.
An awful lot of the signings like Boeriggter, Scepovic, Pukki, Balde, and many others, have just been a drain on the clubs finances, it leaves nothing else for decent players.
If we were to try and sign players of a higher standard, and could improve them, then surely this would bring more money into the club, as the crowds would hopefully rise, and these players would be worth far more in the transfer market than we are getting for a lot of the duds we have now.

26 Oct 2015 14:35:15
Cheers ed thanx for taking the time!

My thoughts have only switched to allan because of our lack of creativity

No winger taking on players up the wing lack of crosses. lack of a player to pick a player in a packed box

I no we got the big fella cole but can see him making a differance if we'r lacking in all these creativity deparments.

{Ed007's Note - It's a big step up playing against second tier teams full of part timers and playing for the biggest team from in the country, I hope I'm wrong but I can't see Scott Allan have much impact on CFC's future.}

26 Oct 2015 16:45:10
Don't think Allan would have any problem at all stepping into the Celtic midfield, maybe instead of Johanssen.

26 Oct 2015 21:10:18
***** TEXT AUTOMATICALLY DELETED FOR MULTIPLE USE OF OBSCENE OR OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE *****

{Ed007's Note - You'll need to send that in again without so many sweary words mate. Surely nobody can feel that strongly about Scott Allan!}

26 Oct 2015 21:40:24
Allan played Tonight Monday in development match against Hearts.