"The monkeys start to squeal, lie and create conspiracy plots" - Scottish Football 2012/13

hmmm, Celtic have hired a GAA coach for youth development :/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/northern-ireland/20254492

"Donegal's All-Ireland winning Gaelic Football manager Jim McGuinness is to take up a role with Celtic as a performance consultant.
A statement from Celtic on Friday confirmed speculation that McGuinness would be joining the club to help with the development of young players."

Spotted you. My old seat still behind a pillar, I see :)

This is a fantastic way to scratch your head and waste your time. I got 33, missed a couple of blindingly obvious ones:

http://www.sporcle.com/games/ThomDubya/first-spl-goalscorers-by-nationality

I started doing earlier today that then chucked it because I couldn't be arsed working out how to spell.

I spent ages trying variations on Johansen/Johannson/Johanssen before realising there was probably someone else Finnish before him. Forgot fecking Brattbakk, which is ridiculous when you realise I remembered the existence of Thomas Flogel and Hicham Zerouali.

Can't really expect to win games with only one player awake - and he doesn't get on till half time. St Johnstone defended really well. Celtic possibly spent so long without the ball on Wednesday they've forgotten how to use it again.

Hasselbaink's a lively wee pain in the arse. Lomas never seems to play him and Tade at the same time against us, which I think would be more effective.

Well done to the supporters today on a respectful 90 minute's silence.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/nov/14/scotland-football-success-scott-murray

That's great.

^^^good read

I was going to start a "come anticipate Billy Stark's 90 minutes in charge" thread but I couldn't be arsed.

Quality shite goal for Rhodes puts us 1-0 up vs Luxembourg. Positive line-up with Rhodes, Shinnie, Miller* and Naismith all sharing forward positions.

*I suppose when you fly from Canada for the game when a dozen others called off you guarantee yourself a start. Hopefully another goal before half-time will see Griffiths replacing him at the break.

Not a lot of caps of this bench, maybe an all-time low?
Samson, Webster, Barr, Davidson, Kelly, Griffiths, Bell.

Brave new dawn.

Floodgates open. Rhodes again for 2-0.

On the march wi' Billy's army

FUCK OFF BILLY STARK

Didn't really see that much of it, because my dad insists on watching with the sound off which leads my mum to yap all the way through it, and it's very distracting. Looked a mixture of "zzzzzzzzz" and "yay we have a striker that isn't Kenny Miller and has actual instincts, wooh", tbh, but as I say, wasn't exactly giving it my full attention. Shinnie a keeper? (as in "should we keep him", not "would he be more convincing between the sticks than Matt Gilks", to which I suspect I know the answer...)

Good game so far. Aberdeen looking threatening on the ball - McGinn and Fraser both troubling the Celtic defence. Celtic are mostly in charge but looking a bit out of ideas up front. We seem to have adopted the long throw as a key attacking strategy :/

ESPN commentator* has twice described Gavin Rae as a "midfield general" - I think that's once more than Rae has touched the ball. He must mean one of those generals who sits back and sends everyone else into battle.

*Is it Derek Rae? Maybe they're related.

Midfield General Gavin Rae hooked at half time.

Aberdeen's biggest crowd in three years, good to see.

Aye, most of our chances at one stage were coming from set pieces or our conversion of Adam Matthews into Rory Delap :(

Nice assist from Wanyama for Lassad's goal though.

Maybe he meant he looked like Midfield General, the chubby babyfaced dj who hung about with fatboy slim

What has happened to Hibs?

also lolling at concept of Gavin Rae being babyfaced

Maybe-not-over-the-line goal then a penalty a couple of minutes later seems to have killed a game Hibs were very much in.

Surprised to find us top of the league after today.

Worst league in the world to bet on atm - only five points separating eight teams who all look as likely to lose as win each week.

Only 6 out of 42 Scottish football managers have been in post for longer than three years. Rookie new boy Neil Lennon is the 9th longest serving manager in the country o_O

Blimey, that's a stat. Who are the six - Brown, Butcher, Billy Reid, maybe McCall?

Billy Reid
Harry Cairney
Gardner Speirs
Dick Campbell
Ross Jack
Terry Butcher

Cheers, thought Brown and McCall might've sneaked in there. Have no concept of passage of time.

Barca winning tonight means we are in some kind of Europe after Christmas. Good stuff. A wee draw or better tonight would be nice.

Tony Mowbray's first 14 league games at Celtic: W9 D3 L2 F30 A14 - 30 points (and one of those defeats was to Rangers)
Neil Lennon's last 14 league games at Celtic: W7 D4 L3 - F24 A13 - 25 points (with no Rangers to drop points to)

We had four more points last year when we were 10 behind Rangers and everyone was calling for Lennon's head!

american 20 yo juan agudelo trailing with celtic, might transfer. promising, needs to work harder, played on a terrible mls team last year

Thanks anky, someone mentioned a new signing today and I had no idea what they were talking about.

Feel slightly vindicated for not being entirely Team Lennon despite entire timternet disagreeing (apparently beating Barcelona negates chucking 57 year record against Killie - not for me). Also notice slump in home form coincides with me not attending games any more.

Feeling "vindicated" by defeat seems an odd reaction imo. Like us losing justifies your lack of faith in the guy who managed to turn a shit team around last year, win the league, qualify for the Champs League and do mad unheard of things like scoring and winning repeatedly away from home in Europe. Beating Barca doesn't justify losing to Killie, but neither does losing to Killie negate all our good results.

The league form is poor and he's making mistakes. I think he and the players are being too complacent about the league challenge.

- he needs to bite the bullet and bin Brown out of the team until he's either fit or retired
- he needs to stop switching Samaras to centre forward every time it's going wrong as that rarely makes it go better
- he needs to train Commons out of shooting from ridiculous impossible positions when he's missing easy chances
- he needs to sub players who aren't playing. How Hooper stayed on the pitch longer than Tony Watt is beyond me. Watt was poor too but he at last got on the ball
- he needs to stop arguing with clowns on twitter at 1.30am when he has a match the next day. If he wants professionalism from his players he needs to show it himself

I think they're struggling to adjust from chasing the ball in Europe to being expected to dictate the game domestically. Spending repeated midweeks having better players run you around the pitch can't be good for confidence. Injuries aren't helping either, he's having to cobble teams together every week and can't get any kind of consistency in any of his pairings.

I don't rate Lennon as highly as others seem to, never have, get roundly pilloried for it, feel constantly like I'm challopsing, and people are starting to agree with me and I'm glad that I'm not entirely mad and unique in not having emperors new clothes syndrome. I never said I *enjoyed* any of it.

I read this in the barber's this morning. Not often I say it but Bill Leckie is mostly bang on.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/sport/columnists/billleckiesports/4665776/Blind-as-a-brat.html

Oh come on, does any Celtic fan seriously think that they might not win the SPL? Losing at home to Caley must suck but it's not like it will effect where the title goes

Ah well, it's as well I'm staying well away from Celtic Park these days innit.

(that post was brought to you by the word "well")

0-0 at HT at a chilly McDiarmid Park. Fairly even so far, maybe Saints in more control towards the break. I may have to stop moaning about dirty opposition teams as it seems they're all as bad as each other. Tade getting a hard time fromthe Hibs defence. Thomson is a terrible ref.

Think this is the longest i've ever had a 3G signal at a game.

yup celtic still going to canter league

Och.

BBC headline is "McGlynn baffled by defeat". Wish I was.

Oh dear, typical Saints.

I know we've won games this season that we probably didn't deserve to, but it's always shite to be on the receiving end. Even worse, I'm even feeling a touch of sympathy for Kenny Shiels.

It's what happens when you waste chances and have a penalty (and follow up) saved. Thought Saints played well, otherwise, and it was largely an enjoyable game. Hibs keeper did well, a lot of easy saves to make but thought he had a couple of good ones to make too.

I am aware I seem to find myself moaning after every game about dirty/physical opposition and shite refs. I'm starting to wonder if the latter is just normal supporter paranoia (though I'm convinced Thomson is particularly shite), and the former just my own lack of knowledge/understanding of the game. That said, Hibs were very physical tonight. In general I'm sick of seeing players clinging on to and blatantly obstructing other players. I texted a friend early on saying I expected someone would be sent off, either Hibs for the physicality or Saints for rising to it. In fairness, I think Saints are much more physical under Lomas than under McInnes.

I don't think it would be fair to state my opinion of Leigh Griffiths. Can understand why Hibees may love him, but...

Oh, and David Robertson getting his leg broken after five minutes on the park didn't help either.

And now an eight game ban for Lomas. I haven't seen it - what did he do?!

Kicked a water bottle in frustration after the penalty miss - Hasselbaink is not our penalty taker. Already had a suspended ban.

http://www.whoateallthepies.tv/fail/148886/fc-emmens-jeffrey-de-visscher-has-contract-terminated-for-pooping-in-the-woods-claims-to-be-innocent.html

Former Aberdeen played sacked from Dutch club for drunk driving and shitting at the roadside.

Fergie got a knighthood for similar iirc.

Don't let the door hit yer arse etc

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/james-traynor-why-this-is-my-last-ever-newspaper-1470416

lol

That is something, isn't it? Such a complete lack of self-awareness! I do like how he chunters on and on about the woeful inaccuracy of everyone that isn't him, while saying shit like "Rangers and their fans, who deserve enormous credit for having saved their club". Um, does anyone want to break it to him?

Clown. Now just get him off the radio an'all and I'll be happy.

KILMARNOCK v ROSS COUNTY OR INVERNESS CT
DUNDEE v TURIFF UTD or MORTON
DUNDEE UTD v RANGERS
FALKIRK v FORFAR
HIBERNIAN v ABERDEEN OR MOTHERWELL
DUNFERMLINE V DUMBARTON OR HAMILTON
ST MIRREN V COWDENBEATH OR ST JOHNSTONE
RAITH ROVERS v CELTIC OR ARBROATH

Is this is a giant wind-up by the timternet or is Traynor really away to be Rangers' PR chief?

I read last night that his farewell column was a job application. It certainly reads that way. Can't imagine why you'd make someone with no PR experience (other than being spoonfed it and regurgitating it) your PR. Maybe he's onto an editorial job at the Orangers News.