SANDMAN’S DEFINITIVE RATINGS: CELTIC @ BO PEEP’S PEN…
“The Queen? THE Queen? Oh, sorry, I thought you meant Freddie Mercury.” Rod Stewart.
ROXIE – 7.5/10 – There you are. Wondered where you’d gone. Spent first half being goaded by Aberdeen ball boys about them having more touches of the ball than him. Then the pressure came and the big developing legend did the business the way he relishes; zero chance with the goals but strong wrist to pull off a great save from their spawn mutation and safe commanding hands in the heat of our meltdown.
GREGGS THE BAKER – 6.5/10 – Tough and steady. Plenty going through and around him as we fed Notebook. Seems to be flourishing in the inverted full-back role as he’s getting on the ball as much as our midfielders. When the second-half proved a different breed of sheep entirely, he stuck in the thick of things, battling for the win.
STAR LORD – 6/10 – “Tommy! Tommy! Tommmmaaaayyy!” our Arthur Shelby yelled at Jonny Hayes, time-tripping WW1 survivor. Feeling gallus game after game, still manages to inject a dose of the heebie-jeebies with his body shape occasionally as he lines up to make a pass like a 1970’s kid with rickets just out of leg braces and barrelling into a playground match. Smiled his way past half-time then his yattering racoon manifested around the penalty spot sometime in the 55th minute as they played in a low free-kick. He didn’t bother to close it down; yelling to everyone that it was just a hallucination. As it stroked in their first…
Then it beat him to a cross and the game was level. With spirals in his eyes and lower lip trembling, I feared the
worst but somehow he hauled it together and floated through the remainder of the game kicking anything that looked small and furry with a bad attitude. The answer now is for Get Carter to pin a tail on the ball in times of crisis.
GET CARTER – 7.5/10 – Up North, the guy we’d send to take on a Grizzly, spent his night eating sheep. Almost a one-man fortress as Star Lord got his freak on and the midfield sieve-d it. Got to the ‘none shall pass’ stage as he battled bodies and ball to steady the listing ship. Not often playing in Scotland will he feel swamped but was tested for an uncomfortable period of time, second 45, and will thankfully be the better for the experience.
TONY THE TIGER – 6.5/10 – An unusually sticky game from Tony. Claws out but mainly involved in build-up play first-half. He was a little careless and slow when in possession, but compensated with some fine balls and support play. Of course, when the going gets tough… Well, Tony’s the bhoy to look for when you need dig and he found it, almost literally having to use a shovel to thwart some of their surges; would have been nice to see if it was deemed illegal to wrap a spade round any of the frothing loathsome nappers.
CALMAC – 6.5/10 – Magnificent first period, then toiled as his face fell off at the start of the second half. Despite no vision, he compensated for losing eyes and lips by hollering half-formed moans from his bleeding maw of a mouth as he urged his men back into contention. Held his line well enough as they overran our midfield; not the skipper’s blame.
HAKUNA HATATE – 6/10 – Coasting through the game, then those naughty ex-bhoys Broony and Jonny turned up the heat around him and suddenly he was off the pace, chasing balls down when he’d been peppering them around and learning that Scottish football isn’t always as easy as pumping the Zombies was.
THE BUILDER – 7/10 – A craftsman tonight, surprisingly in for Hammer Of The Dons, Oz, but took up the mantle himself. Some delightful, inspired passing/through balls, and the cheek to pap in his first Celtic goal off the vagazzle of an ex-Ger. Drifted around with impact but lost it a little in the second-half scrap; another who’ll realise the road to Paradise comes laden with muggers. But he gathered himself enough to lay on some late chances that should have been taken.
ABADASS – 5.5/10 – Ah, the wee mhan misfired and couldn’t get it all in synch. Timing and touch were slightly out and it’s enough to upset his game given the pace he likes to play at. Surprised he lasted so long.
LORD KATSUMOTO – 5/10 – Honourable mess-up to miss a sitter in the opening minutes. Set the tone for his night as he foraged around in the image of 90s clumsy speedster, Mark Burchill – all pace and lacking finesse at the crucial times (though let’s give Burchy credit for his beautiful skelping moment).
NOTEBOOK – 8/10 MOTM – What would we do without our prancing horse? Class, looking meaner and more George-on-cocaine-speedballs than Club Tropicana pretty boy. Such a focussed pest, nicking in to open the scoring, testing and teasing their defence with his trickery. All very well, but when the chips are down – and the entire frying pan was going up in flames after their nightmare equaliser (yes, I know I’m mixing metaphors, pedantics, but when don’t I?) – you NEED someone with the presence and ability he has to completely turn the game and light up the night with a finish best described as brilliant and should never be underestimated in its difficulty. He spanked it in like a high-class dominatrix. Jamesy near collapsed in awe.
Situation is this, Celtic board cranks – give them £10 million and tell them to go away and never speak to him again. You can shift him on for around £45 million to some EPL whores in summer 2025 once he’s smashed them into oblivion and us into CL knockouts. Trust me.
SUBS:
BLOCKCHAIN – 6.5/10 – Underestimated impact – not so much his footwork but the way he closed up the acres of space they’d been finding between our lines. His natural defensive poise had them playing around him and across, rather tan cutting through us like they’d enjoyed from the first whistle after the break.
SON OF JACKIE – 6/10 – Go on and be a nuisance. And he was, very nicely eating up time, moaning like crazy, bumping them around and draining their nervous energy by irritating them.
OZ – N/A – “Boss, it’s fecklin’ freezin, cobber…”
‘I don’t care Tommy, they’re scared of ya, mayte – just get on there and smile them off their game for the last
foive…”
JAMESY – N/A – As the sound of Jamesy’s zip coming down emanated from the dugout, the rustling of sweetie papers in the main stand reached fever-pitch and there was a mini-stampede of Dolly the sheep’s cloned flock. But he was only taking off his trackies.
ANITA DOBSON – 7/10 – Sheesh, mayte. Ya did it – three in a row and the SMSM critics fuming. But last night might have given him some Koala burgers to chew on as our cuddly first-half display evaporated in a fifteen minute scramble to stay afloat in a crocodile-infested penalty area. but enough cheesy Aussie metaphors – your
Neighbours might complain about the groaning…Hey, least I’m consistently corny, Home and Away…
Ange may have thought he’d picked it perfectly but Glass’s alteration and the Dons front-foot aggressive posturing to turn the score seemed to catch him off-guard. We got overrun in the middle and picked off as the defence was outnumbered on numerous attacks. Notable that Ange made no HT changes as per Motherwell – possibly expecting the starting 11 to continue their dominance and finish the game off early. Not so, but eventually he came out of his fugue and sorted things to see it out.
MIBBERY – 6/10 – Nippy wee oddity – flashing yellows at Bhoys, but missing big opportunities to slay us: the offside claim at the winner and the penalty claim against The Builder; held my breath, astonished and amused to see Gollum wrestle with his inner forelock-tugging demons as he failed to make the negative calls.
OVERALL – 7/10 – Phew, the Northern Frights of old Aberdeen. How to turn a nice cruise into the Battle of Cape Lopez, ferocious pirates sacking our impregnable defence only for our own swashbuckling buccaneer to raise the black and wreak his own immediate vengeance. Arr…
We got through – another big, big result in the macro scope of the season. Ex-heroes, legends, and ex-horribles refused to die peacefully and put our new heroes to a thorough test. But the cruel way we punished their impudence – and the swiftness of our killer counter – will fortify our squad’s belief. Not yours, or the number of despairing who’d dragged out the sewing machine and started on the ‘reaper-cushions’ disparaging posts as Angeball looked to have run into a lamp-post; our nerves are not of the steel of those Bhoys who looked up from young Fergie’s strike that set his uncle pumping his Da’…
They shook it off and went right up the park and won the game. Again. And soon, pretty soon, we’ll hit another TEN of meaning; Ten league games to go. The countdown will be on, and you just can’t count these Bhoys out, ever.
Dedicated to the memory of Davie Cattanach, a player who drifted through and around the realms of Celtic’s greatest days – a Forrest Gump for those ages, bearing witness to our epic historical moments from the inside, doing his bit when called upon, living out a dream of millions.
You can read his excellent bio by Matt Corr on the Celtic Star HERE.
RIP Davie.
Go Away Now
Sandman
Watch all the unique angle highlights from Celtic TV below…
⏰ 𝑼𝒏𝒊𝒒𝒖𝒆 𝑨𝒏𝒈𝒍𝒆 ⏰
⚽️ 𝑱𝒐𝒕𝒂
⚽️ 𝑶’𝑹𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒚
⚽️ 𝑱𝒐𝒕𝒂𝑨 𝑷𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒐𝒅𝒓𝒊𝒆 𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝒂𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑩𝒉𝒐𝒚𝒔 𝒃𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒍𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒗𝒊𝒄𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚#ABECEL pic.twitter.com/IBHMPPFDwp
— Celtic TV (@CelticTV) February 10, 2022
Here are a few video from the back row at Pittodrie…watching Glasgow Celtic, putting on a show!
Here are the teams coming out…
“We’re at the Top of the League, looking down on the Rangers…”
We Shall Not be Moved…The Post Match Celtic celebrations…
Happy Hoops heading for the exits..
