SANDMAN’S DEFINITIVE RATINGS: CELTIC @ PRINCE’S STUDIOS…
“One man’s toxic sludge is another man’s potpourri.” — The Grinch
BANE – 6/10 – Fine display as defensive holding midfielder. Pressed them well…Made the crucial save on their sole breakaway; carried out his villainous role exactly as scripted. Still worshiped in Paisley as the gangster’s gangster.
TONY THE TIGER – 6.5/10 MOTM – Couldn’t repeat the glory of last week, although he was the bhoy closest to saving Christmas. Great endeavour, multiple runs and crosses, worked their keeper but the traitorous pagan Gods defied his superpowers.
GET CARTER – 6/10 – Wasn’t messing about up against their bouncer, Main; handled him well and played with a scowl befitting the night. Only negative was his failure to unsettle them enough when up for corners/cross balls so that something might have broken our way.
RAQUEL – 5.5/10 – Took a booking for lapse but returned a more stable presence than his pysche-ward predecessor. Unfortunately couldn’t nail a header from our numerous corners although in fairness only
about two of them actually made it beyond the first post.
OF JUSTICE – 4/10 – Big chance in first -half, was popping up in their box often. Disappointing presence after the break when I expected he might be a major force. Surprisingly faded out of it and lost effectiveness.
BLOCKCHAIN – 5.5/10 – Appearing the mhan most likely, stung their keeper’s glove with a fine free-kick, then reverted to skelly type with the next. He drove us on but spent his time going side-to-side as the congestion ahead defied his slide-rule passing ability.
CALMAC – 6/10 – The captain sunk with the ship. Got the breakthrough we’d probed for when he found space, but missed the target. He was tireless as ever in his prompting, though mostly lacking penetration with his darts into their box among the red sentinels.
ROGIC – 5.5/10 – We prayed he’d emerge a saviour, but he wasn’t the mhan on the ball enough in the crucial areas. Brief flashes of optimism as he conjured a deft pass or slalom but the magic had no killing flourish.
ABADASS – 3/10 – Time for a spell on the side. Never at it, wasteful and unsure of his roll. Skelps corners like a confused three year-old asked to smack a pinata with a 9-iron. Hopeless.
MIKEY J – 4/10 – Cut inside, Mikey! Cut inside – they’ll never guess… An early burst of quality which produced a fine save had us thinking Mikey might be a match-winner. Nope. Throttled and impotent long before the end. Maybe try cutting inside more?
LITTLE MISS – 5/10 – They tried to prepare. Home dressing room telly showed the ‘Tribble Trouble’ episode of Star Trek before the game to give their defence some idea of what to look out for. Meanwhile, in the away facilities, somebody was sat on a tuffet eating a big energising bowl of curds and whey. And it whey-ed him down… Looked dangerous but no end product as he scampered around searching for an opening. One terrific break summed up our night as his overhit cut evaded everyone.
SUBS:
JURAN JURAN – 6/10 – A fine explosion from the bench as he improved our deliveries 100%. Almost a total hero with a free-kick that was in; in any dimension that obeys the laws of righteous physics.
GEORGE BERNARD – N/A – If only he’d written the play this evening.
ANITA DOBSON – 5/10 – Rotations from the rotisserie chef; hey, I’m just guessing big Ange likes his meat. Jamesy’s fond of a spit-roast too. But here’s where Angeball met Paisleyfall. The filth and the fury of a wet night in Dodge; Only missing the narration of John Gordon Sinclair. The boss couldn’t get the spark out of his rejigged side. Like many Celtic managers before him, he stood on the side at this venue and watched his championship dreams crumble.
What could he have done to thwart the scrappers in red? Well, if we’d had any forwards at all, this was the night for them to come to the fore. But Koyogo was rested and Ange gambled – with his options constrained – on a third-string forward line which was eclipsed by grit and desperation. Whatever he said, didn’t work. Whatever he tried, didn’t pay-off. We became predictable and dislocated, too intent on possession and too timid to shake them up with a few direct plays. Three days is all it took for reality to give him the worst kick in the baws possible at this stage of the season.
MIBBERY – 2/10 – He didn’t even try, or have to. A dodgy booking was all we received with malice; mostly he ran about amazed at our ineptitude and even chucked on 5 tepid minutes of injury time to rub it in.
OVERALL – 4/10 – Merry Xmas, ZOMBICRONS, there’s yer gift. So tonight we got patched-up Celtic versus completely patched St.Mirren who had spent the day raking Feegie for any jakeys and junkies who looked straight enough to lace up a pair of boots. How the SPL/FA hope to market Scottish fitba;’ as a
‘spectacle’ is beyond sanity – it’s like Hitler trying to put together a bar mitsvah.
What could we do but get the business done with as few problems as possible? Go out, fire into them, kill it off and take away three vital points in the title race. And we failed, big time. Tempo was loose, intensity unfocussed – in 90 minutes of attack v defence shooty-inny we gave them too much time to set up and communicate and tragically refused to mix up our style with some more direct, early attempts at prising their backline apart.
Deliveries were hesitant, or in the case of our set-pieces downright abysmal. The elation of Sunday got beaten into wounded agony like a one-legged ginger stepchild caught stealing knickers off the neighbour’s washing line; and our neighbours are as ugly as Davie Dodds’ scrotum. This was a must-win. A three points so important to momentum and psychology you could stick a mortar board atop it and title it ‘Professor Of Flaming Cruciality’.
Were we compacent? Did we expect too much and not impose enough? Why couldn’t these players get over the line when most required? So many questions and no answers you could pinpoint given the way they’ve performed recently. But, this is a two horse title race and one of them’s handicapped as ever; the other’s handicapped mentally but we’ve known that from the hate-kulchur that surrounds it. They’ll take around 4 off this Saints team on Boxing Day; their gasket’s blown after tonight.
So games like this make title-winners. And losers. For all the marvellous moments it’s the minutae of trips to Gangster’s Paradise and the like where the big prize is won and lost. Credit to the home side’s fearless players who stood up and manned it out over a punishing 95 minutes. But…We blew it tonight, merry from Sunday, loaded up the shotgun and took off our right foot. We’re down to the bare bones and down to the one left foot. Only Daniel Day Lewis can save us now.
Humbug.
Go Away Now.
Sandman
Sandman never change I live for your definitive ratings whilst they’re informative and knowledgeable they’re also funny as fook. Keep up the good work my man if Celtic were as good as your patter we’d win the treble every year and the Champions League and throw in the Uefa Cup and the Conference League too. We’d be that good we could play in every competition and win them all. Merry Christmas my man and a Happy New Year to you from Coatbridge HH