SANDMAN’S DEFINITIVE RATINGS: CELTIC @ RIGAN IN THE RIGGIN’…

B.A BARKIS – 6/10

Got me on a plane, fools! Duck tape and rohypnol (supplied by Griff) got our reluctant stoner keeper across the Baltic to freeze his baltics off in Latvia, the home of the Cafe Latvie; though it’s probably not. Nothing much to do except scare the bejesus out of us with some gallus passing across his own empty six yard box. From the wing.

GREGGS THE BAKER – 5/10

They don’t have a Greggs in Latvia, making it truly a 3rd world commie sympathiser hovel. Pity, because Greggs was in a stock-checkmood. Check. Check. Check. Cross. The. Flaming. Ball. Early. Occasionally. He’s our conservative candidate for the Left Side.

BITTON – 7.5/10

What a waste. Cleaned their nippy Brazilian out with a perfectly-timed industrial tackle after 4 minutes, Mossad eye-blink-comical-blindside-reverse-face-smack when shielding at the byline after 5 minutes, utterly CRUCIAL goal-saving block when isolated in a 3 v 1 break (nowhere near enough credit given to his sense of timing to intercept the killer pass), and smashed another to the turf winning a header soon after. Big Nir was on it, and Big Nir was required to be in the thick of it as we struggled. But he remained at the left side of the defence when he might have been instrumental if switched into the middle. Still, great solid game.

ALAN LADD – 5.5/10

Big Shane wrestles coos to warm up. And he likes a wrestle on the pitch. But… he’s not designed to play the refined role Lennony asked of him last night – the Jullien Clary VVD impersonation does not suit Shane’s all-out ball-winning approach; he’s a centre-back in need of a sweeper alongside, or in the case of a 3-5-2, a deeper-lying midfielder. Asking him to be the focal point of build-up play from the back slows us down; someone from the midfield needed to take responsibility and inject pace.

AJER – 5.5/10

Confused? He looked it. Should he stay or should he go, asked Mick Jones, and Kris didn’t know either. A- he thought his ancestors ransacked this place centuries ago, and B – is used to a suave Frenchman showboating beside him, he now has a savage Irish monolith rocking around. He lacked the direct push from the back he’s been refining well, and became another pawn in the side-to-side retention. We need commitment, Ironside, on and off the park.

BROON – 6/10

Well Broon does his captain’s job – comfortably retaining possession, sorting out their upstarts, taking a booking and… He awaits others fulfilling their roles. He waited a long time. He’ll hopefully have something to say about that in the dressing room.

SAM JACKSON – 5.5/10

Muthutucka too cautious in that daym Reds hellhole – rocked up to take the game to them, got muthutuckin’ caught up in the midfield jam and subdued as the rest despite unleashing a muthutuckin’ hand-cannon on them on the half hour which the keeper tipped over. Thought that might be the muthutuckin’ start of it but he, and we, failed to exert any righteous judgement.

CALMAC – 6.5/10

Where was the influencer of previous wins? For some reason, despite his usual tidiness, Calmac was plagued by the apprehensive approach of his teammates, drifting too wide when we could have done with him sparking things off centrally. It looked a coach’s problem – i.e define the roles: Corpus and Calmac looked like they were deferring to each other when one of them should have been bursting central to link with Eddy. We ended up with Calmac left, Corpus spinning wide right and Eddy versus five defenders in the middle.

CORPUS CHRISTIE – 7/10

Man, the Saviour with the tangerine sandals certainly can’t deliver a cross as well as one of his sermons. He performed his familiar cultured role of dropping off the front and turning when there’s no gaps to run into. And everything was set nicely for him to be our match-winner – movement, touch, a persistent edge making him a tough prospect to mark, almost scored a sweet one…

But… Waaay off with crucial deliveries from great positions. Percentage return must be low. A fine detail that just needs adjusting in the moment, yet something so vital to our game as we flood the box only to see the ball fail to pass the first man (defensive first man that you see winning ALL our corners and crosses, noobs – old football adage: ‘Get the cross beyond their ‘first man.’)

Burning the orange boots might be a start. Ask yer Da’.

FORREST – N/A

Jamesy lasted half an hour (ladies…). But some sort of genital strain had him limping out of it in a baffling few minutes when we checked the team-sheet to see if he’d been on from the start in any case.

FRENCH EDDY – 6/10

Le frustration. Not 100% sharp means he looks sluggish on the ball as those deft touches don’t match the acceleration. A full-on Eddy had a hat-trick tonight, but reality was a half-yard off the pace. And required a strike partner to take the weight…

SUBS:

PINGPONG – 8.5/10 MOTM

Thank Ghod for the wee mhan. Exuberance and energy and dynamic, direct wing play seemed the antithesis of
this Celtic display, yet was what made the difference in the end. Buzzed in, around and at them, tormenting their left side; Jinky-esque relentlessness.

The dividend was paid out at the death after two near things, and he’s credited with setting up a winner and possibly saving face, a Euro season, and jobs. Phew.

THE YETI – 7/10

It was almost too much to expect that he grabs another vital goal, and in the spirit of disbelief we were
experiencing he contrived to do anything but score from a yard out in a schoolyard scramble. Twice. But he was lively and sharp in the danger zone.

ELSHAGYONLASSIE – 8/10

What a touch. Tension headaches subside all round as he guides that in with all the class he often promises. The sub nobody wanted scores the winner we all did.

LENNONY – 6/10

Two up front? Well, for 11 minutes… Then he took off our top striker as we chased a desperate win. And… his sub scores the winner. So, eh, ya-boo to you whingers…But past Celtic Euro triumphs under Lennony have been marked by the sides’ great tempo from the start – something we used to complain about when The Snake set us up to get savaged.

Yet last night Lennony had it far too relaxed, to the extent we flirted with disaster instead of having the tie dusted by half-time protein bars. We hope he was as bemused as you or I at the ineffectiveness of his formation; nullified by a simple regimented defensive block. By default he found the answer – a winger to get in behind and turn the back line. Will he learn? Will we see another winger (left) in before the window closes? Hmm…

OVERALL – 5.5/10

And Riga take the Rangers’ “wuruld recurd” of being the youngest club Celtic have ever played in competitive action. And they used to be called Caramba, a Bart Simpson expression of surprise. So ‘Ay Caramba!’ it was in the 90th minute as Elshag popped up to make the Duff beer taste sweeter; A good thing, because the previous 89 had been diluted Colin Nish.. Anemic, tepid, hesitant play with the ball frequently mistaken for a shuffleboard puck as the players googled ‘urgency’ on their phones. Side to side we went, side to side Riga went, organised, determined and pushing themselves to the limit of their abilities.

Credit to them for the outstanding effort – if they’d scored first late on they’d have won. Shocking complacency from our bhoys – we seemed to forget how to sweep aside lesser teams and fell into the classic sinful approach, making it grim viewing and no doubt many television sets will require therapy after being sworn at so aggressively.

We chalk this up as a vital win, though we need some sort of mental reset to find team cohesion again, rather than playing as a loose collection of individual talent relying on a handful of good performances to see us through every week. Perhaps the end of the transfer window will see a more settled Celtic ready to forge on.

We can hope. We can also hope we won’t see such inept tomfleckery almost disgrace the Hoops in Europe ever again, against a side no better than middling SPL fodder. Almost papped out of Europe by Motherwell. Jesus wept. But we got there in the end.

Go Away Now

Sandman

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