SANDMAN’S DEFINITIVE RATINGS: CELTIC @ INDIE-LABEL MADRID…
“To hope is to risk frustration. Make up your mind to risk frustration.” – Thomas Merton.
ROXIE – 7/10 MOTM – Remember the ball? Not seen since Sunday, it kept tapping him on the shoulder to be picked out the back of the net. Could have been 10. Not Joe’s rating, the amount he conceded, but for his face-saving excellence at times. Top bloke, top keeper, thank god.
GREGGS THE BAKER – 5.5/10 – No matter what, he’ll stick at it. Kudos for remaining willing when others gave up the ghost. Frantic he may be. Outclassed, yes. But no effort spared in the CL.
WAYNE GRETZKY – 4/10 – It all started so well… AJ tonight’s allegory for the whole – terrific tackle to set the scene, which was a brief few minutes of happiness engulfed by a horror show. Then he was drawn into the malaise as they dominated and he made poor crucial choices with clearances and cover.
OF JUSTICE – 5/10 – Now ye’re baptised properly… Has cruised through this CL in sparkling form and for 45 minutes remained locked in, until their second. Turned by a long diagonal, lost by his man, and suddenly he was back in a Dons jersey staring down the barrel. It went off.
GET CARTER – 5.5/10 – Likewise, the big mhan sucker-punched in injury time; culpable as Liam for negligence on the cusp of relief. Second 45, what he dreaded came to pass – swarmed by eager quality sniffing goals, with little he could do to repel; like swatting at angry wasps with a stick.
CALMAC – 5.5/10 – Some tremendous defending by the skip led the way early on and for a brief spell he appeared to be taking charge of the middle; All was well in Whoville. Then, of course, the true nature of our fortune this CL season emerges and he’s rattling around closing down shadows until shown mercy with an early hook.
THE BUILDER – 2/10 – A two for the two decent touches Matty managed. I mean, what the hell happened? Did that hiatus in Dingwall cause him to question his career choices? Did he fall in love with a crofter’s heifer daughter and decide to quit it all and go live on a mountainside by a rushing burn and build a stone hut with heather-thatched roof while she weaves tapestries to the Braveheart soundtrack? Because that’s what he might well have been better advised doing tonight than stumbling about club footy’s biggest stage like a Hogmanay rubber man in George Square. Hooked at half-time as enquiries start in to Novichok poisoning administered by their scurrilous manager, Dougall Salmonella.
SAINT BERNARDO – 3/10 – Dubious pick. Ran about like he knew that. Ineffectual in Dingwall, somehow the notion he could be sensational in Madrid wouldn’t have been my deviation theory. And as it turned out…
LORD KATSUMOTO – N/A – There it is – all the summarising of this season’s CL luck in one attempted block as Daizen closed down like the closing down machine he is. Was hardly even a yellow as the ratfuck student of Dougall Salmonella’s South American shenanigans writhed until the vegan soy-boy gimp on VAR finished his Mocha Java Granola and squealed in the ear of the simping Slovak with the whistle. Then we got freeze-framed fit-ups and Daized received the most pathetic red of the tournament. Universe, sod off.
KILLER MUSHROOM – 5/10 – Tell you what – Kyogo equalled the shuttle sprint record of 80s squash superstar Jahangir Khan before subbed, but Jahangir sure saw more of the ball. No service, no Kyogo, no party; them’s the rules.
BRIAN DE – 5.5/10 – You tell him, Brian! Bhoy’s got the baws to let the incompetents behind the decisions know what he thinks. And get booked, and banned…Doh. Responsible for our solitary weak SOT, he departed with me wishing he’d slapped the ref instead of the ball.
SUBS –
YING – N/A – Like a kitten chasing a laser pen.
THE ALLFATHER – N/A – Kid brought on for energy; well, he expended plenty just trying to get a touch of the ball.
OH BHOY – N/A – Thankless lonesome half of trying to rumble 4 defenders. At one point he drew five to him with our most productive run of the game. Then fell over.
TONIO IWATAO – N/A – Finally. And finally – barely on for the finale and whistle. Play him, Rodgers, damn you!
EDDIE TURNBULL – N/A – “Aye, the old Vincente Caulderon’s fair changed since I wis last here buying a mattress fur that Spanish burd ay mine. Whit wis’ her name again? Oh aye, ‘The Mattress’…”
THE SHNAKE – 5/10 – Well, here we are again. Another CL away at a notable club and another reaming. The more things change the more they stay the same, Roy, eh? Playing big rangy Paulo Nuttini as a sleight-of-hand resulted in an open-palm smack across the arse that will sting, while his rep as a competitive ‘elite’ manager takes an additional kicking.
So the Brendan-O-Meter swings towards ‘Ratbarsteward’ once more, from gaining impressive traction into ‘Brendan’ over the last month or so. It stops just after ‘BR’ at ‘Rodgers’ due to the inadequate evidence on which to convict thanks to diabolical officiating yet again. But we’ll be expecting some return from the last 2 games; like 6 points…
OVERALL – 3/10 – Capitulation’s an overwrought word in football. Second half it felt we tried
to embody it but that’s a harsh accusation to cast at a team reduced physically and mentally by spineless refereeing and facing an invigorated Indie-label Madrid side stacked with Panini album collectables.
For the first 20 minutes, barring their deflected spawny opener, Celtic were positive, adventurous; hope sprung eternal until that pathetic incident summed up all that’s wrong with modern football and the myopic interpretations of blunt fools who fail to conceive of the game as a contact sport and the allowances due for the physics of it therein.
The only single savage criticism I’d lay at the hooped boots was switching right off for that second goal in first-half injury time; criminal ball-watching from players thinking they were up the tunnel 0-1. That did more to frame the second-half mauling than the red card; hope was abandoned like a Zombie in the Holyland and the dressing room outlook went from scrapping belief we might get something to wondering who’d get the best seats on the bus back to the airport. We got the chasing normally reserved for SPL canon-fodder and the Zombies when we’re in the mood.
I doubt it will impact the season much; in fact it should fill the players with indignation and injustice. Truly the story of the CL this time round has been of worst-case happenstance and inverted karma. On level playing fields, so to speak, we’ve competed well and been due much more than has gone our way.
A skelping at this level is nothing new, but frustrating beyond belief when it’s delivered by forces out of our control and tainted by incompetence if not corruption. Be as well shaking this off like a one-night stand gone sour – where was Jamesy, by the way? – and get back down to dirty shearing business by taking it out on The Sheep come Sunday; So we can win the league and have more marvellous evenings like this next season too.
Errr…
Go Away Now
Sandman
READ THIS…Atletico Madrid 6-0 Celtic – At least we didn’t embarrass the Hoops
The only way we will progress in europe is to cheat and bribe
it’s the same picture year after year. Nothing will change. eufa
is corrupt,goverments everywhere corrupt it’s corruption all
over the world and it gets worse every day. Honesty and morals
long gone