SANDMAN’S DEFINITIVE RATINGS: CELTIC v STUTTER
“Success is dependent on effort.” – Sophocles.
THE FRIENDLY GHOST – 2/10 – Oh, dear. Bookmark this – Kasper isn’t going down on that left shoulder anytime between now and the World Cup Finals. Nor is he swinging it over to provide the double-handed block their third required; as with the Scottish Cup final, his reliance is on a sturdy right arm but his reaction speed is now too slow with age and wear and tear to be confident in. Exposed, in big games like this, he’s vulnerable. Domestically, he’s good for a few blinding saves when action around him is intermittent. MON has a big call to make. As for the entitled in the stands booing a Celtic keeper in the middle of a big European tie – you need a good old fashioned Jungle slapping. Green Zombies.
AZTECO – 6.5/10 MOTM – The one player providing a consistent level of energy and enthusiasm for the challenge. One lapse late on couldn’t detract from his professional application throughout. He’s becoming the benchmark others need to emulate.
KATIE – 5/10 – Ultimately beaten for stamina, but KT was a passmark, let down by those ahead unable to
find any co-ordination. His experience should make a difference on nights like this, and if there’s any real criticism it’s that he doesn’t take team-mates in a neck-hold and scream into their ears to get the finger out…
OF JUSTICE – 4/10 – Liam didn’t quite know where to look, play or cover; such was the ineptitude around him.
Much of his game was a scrappy and frantic backtracking prayer of a performance, hoping a late leg-in or jump or contact might cause a skewed finish, rather than his usual carefully-measured pickoffs or blocks.
CRUSTY THE CLOWN – 3/10 – The wrong Crusty showed up – back to intermittent hesitancy and mistimed interventions. Couldn’t make up his mind to play man or ball and often ended up between a rock and a hard place, wandering lost in an alternative lonely footballing dimension of misjudgement, a frustrating dreamscape of chasing white numbers on red shirts and never quite getting to them.
“We win as a team and we lose as a team”
Callum McGregor reflects on Celtic’s tough 4-1 defeat to Stuttgart…
🎙️ @Becky_Ives_
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— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) February 19, 2026
CALMAC – 4/10 – The skipper looked fine in early bursts either half as we tried to play back into contention. But as I keep pointing out, his own pointing seems to amount to nothing when he’s isolated without properly functioning henchmen around him. If you don’t protect the engine room properly at this level – or enhance it with capable components – you’re going to be outrun and outgunned.
SAINT BERNARDO – 2/10 – Big chance. Big night. And once again Paulo cannot find the class we expect and the industry and input we require. Was that his last? Is the saloon now shut?
NEGAN – 5/10 – Well.. “This is mince, where th…” ‘Told ye? There he is! Wave! Yaaas!’ “Ya dancer! And there he is again… Damn, saved!” ‘Aaannnnd… Ah, well. See ye briefly Sunday, Negan…’
LORD KATSUMOTO – 3.5/10 – Another early notification was telegraphed – Daizen’s touch was off again. Could he still be that fantastically useful haunting presence along their backline? Well, not if the rest of his team can’t be bothered deploying a decent press. Wasted energy.
CARAVAN – 6/10 – Another rare shining light. Gave a good account in his physical tussle with their 1970s nightclub bouncer, a brute sporting the identikit face of every Russian serial-killer in the Kremlin archives. It would have been enlightening to see if our big lanky rapier could have made anything of some decent service but he was starved by dreadful deliveries and fed mostly off long-ball scraps.
TUTANKHAMUN – 2.5/10 – Well, it couldn’t last, apparently. Re-possessed by Mikey J, the in-form Tunisian match-winner reverted to sand-dancing instead of turf-scorching, couldn’t find a cross or shot that could in turn find their penalty box or get within ten yards of the nets. So after an uplifting fortnight he gets his deserved starting jersey, but it’s a frustrating return to futility, capped by a painful nutcracker near the end. Sometime today his baws will drop back out of his chest and we’ll see if he gets the nod for Sunday.
Continues on the next page…
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