SANDMAN’S DEFINITIVE RATINGS: CELTIC v BARON MUNCHAUSEN…
“Same old slippers, Same old rice, same old glimpse of Paradise.”
– William James Lampton
THE FRIENDLY GHOST – 8/10 – It’s all in the feet when you’re an experienced netminder. Just like Necromancer at the opposite end, our Danish viking Ghod has incorporated his boots into his goalkeeping arsenal. He can certainly play out comfortably but tonight his shot-stopping with those longboat feet was exceptional. A wonderful signing for these elevated heights.
GREGGS THE BAKER – 5/10 – Damn. Levels. Greggs found his, and it wasn’t the lofty perches of previous top-level bake-offs. From the early moments the wizardry he faced had him spooked and hemmed in. Which meant two things – ONE: he was condemned to a night of one-on-one and severely outmatched; although most full-backs in world football would be. TWO: we were starved of his additional inverted presence in midfield, meaning a harder shift for the bhoys in there because – you-know-who, Brendanistas – ‘doesn’t believe’ in a Holding/Defensive midfielder. More of THAT later. So Greggs, worn, covered in flour, flapping about like wet dough slogged on, popped a few passes out the park but held his own until the fateful moment; just a millisecond of fatal indecision about whether or not to take the long ball high with his head or let it drop…Bzzzz! wrong. it’s CL, don’t think; act. 0-1, 5 seconds to half-time. His toils continued until the hook. Not his worst. Not his best. But those fine lines – got to try and stay the right side of them…
WAYNE GRETZKY – 8.5/10 MOTM – A megalithic rock amongst mere men. Terrific aerial defensive presence. Surprisingly; it was AJ winning the majority of crucial headers in our own goalmouth; The desperate irony of the only one he didn’t meet all night led to their winner. But that’s NOT really on him at all. His job had evidently been defined – go win those crosses – and we’d seen it in spectacular style, with goal-stopping physical domination. That wasn’t all – The Moose got loose on them second-half and was the major attacking influence down our right. Been absolute justice if he had seen his thumping strike bulge the net for a grandstand finale, instead of being clawed wide by the flailing hands of one of the planet’s best goalies; who defied AJ’s stunning almost-equalising crossfield swooper of a ball to Jota in a similar loathsome Third-Reich-Kommandant-Poster-Kinder manner.
CRUSTY THE CLOWN – 6.5/10 – A busy night for the big ghuy. And overall, he got through it okay under some severe pressure. Nothing daft; competed well and kept his focus. Reminded me of the Atalanta game where he really arrived in The Hoops. Stood up as well as he did there to quality attacking threats.
GET CARTER – 5.5/10 – Got to say I’m disappointed. All his regular excellence was on show at different points in the evening but the suicidal tie-defining moment has to lie on the big shoulders of the man in charge of organising the defence. To let that lisping perennial loser float unnoticed at the backpost killing zone is a criminal offence on the level of your Ryan Air pilot hitting Thirty Thousand feet and asking, “Hey, did anyone shut the door?” They’ll still be running it back and debating just HOW as I type. Hopefully.
Seriously, the ref?, did you miss him giving them 3 corners, none of which were actually corners, and from one they scored. Add to that that he robbed us of all forward impetus by denying us at least two corners, both of which were clearly corners.
Very poor display imo.
linesman/men, Jim. The corners were on them.
I think you’ll find he over ruled them on a few occasions, and appeared to ignore them mostly .
Where’s Rabbie Burns with his disdain for Daizen?
Keep up, dafty! Been givin praise where it’s due. And slagged him when it was due. And tae be fair, he was invisible for 60 minutes out wide.
Let’s not pretend the Daizen with end product this season is the same as the Daizen of the seasons prior.
If you believe that you’re even dafter than we aw think you are, Joey.