SANDMAN’S DEFINITIVE RATINGS: CELTIC v FAKE LIZZIES…
“The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that some games are meaningless.” – Tolstoy.
BANE – 6.5/10 – Disgraced supervillain ousted by showgirl makes busy comeback. That’s the headline, which fails to capture the volatility of a Bane performance in which he refused to catch the ball with his hands in the first-half, but made some decent stops, including their first goal which he superbly touched onto a
post then selfishly stole the limelight by hitch-kicking in the rebound. You know what you get with Baney, ever since his hilarious debut at Mordror, and that’s mostly WTF?
FIELD MARSHALL – 5.5/10 – No shortage of confidence from the wean with the 90s Madchester bob, but he was erratic tonight; Lot of time was off the pace or late to the ball, touch evading him, runs not quite timed.
BLOCKCHAIN – 6.5/10 – Captain for most of the game, exhibiting a fine range of counter-passing and general nous to contain and punish their free-flowing attacks. Then he got slack later in the game, lost runners, the
armband and almost his heid in a nasty assault by Rawhide. But relieved he’s okay.
RAQUEL – 6/10 – Commitment to the cause exemplified as she risked a damaged hairdo to nod home within minutes. Thereafter given a testing evening by their quality big centre whose mobility troubled Raquel’s concentration and eventually resulted in a goal. But overall, she came through a difficult five hours (dear
knows, they’re probably still playing while you read this…) quite well.
McCARTHYISM – 6/10 – Asked to run around quite a bit, he did seem to enjoy himself and play with more freedom than we’ve seen to date. Then got injured and nullified after an hour. Still, that’s a personal career best.
GEORGE BERNARD – 6.5/10 – Playwrights seldom make good midfielders in my experience, which is zero. This one was composed as a Marlowe classic (see what I did there, Shakespearean skeptics?) and acquitted himself pretty well out of his normal position.
MAN OF – 5.5/10 – Has developed a yellow card habit worse than Scarface’s coke habit. Ironically, it was a wee theatrical nuisance of a Mexican drug mule that brought about the confused ref’s wrath and a thankfully sane VAR team didn’t get flustered by the bullet-peppered execution routine. But it meant another long period of tightrope walking which must surely curb his natural combative style, possibly resulting in the hook way before the end.
OF JUSTICE – 7/10 – One of the more experienced old heads on the park tonight…Looked accomplished and capable of mixing it on this level. Didn’t waste much and stalked the pitch, covering well with a high level of intensity.
ABADASS – 6/10 – Hmm, felt as though he just wasn’t going to produce, then as we flagged a bit he seemed to come to life and redeem himself. From no impact to match-winning impact as his late game endeavour opened them up and resulted in the pen.
THE YETI – N/A – What would we get, we wondered? Well, twenty minutes of angry argy-bargy and a nearly-goal as he closed down their hesitant keeper; only to result in a nasty hammy which must make him feel cursed. And angrier.
RAWHIDE – 7.5/10 MOTM – “Well, go out an’ show us what ya got, kid…” Released from the ranch by Clint Eastwood, young Rawhide caused quite a stir pre-match by hitching his horse to the Jock Stein statue. Once the polis had circle-jerked among themselves to ticket it, the nag spent the game in hospitality with the suits, where Ian Bankier mistook it for Bernard Higgins and tried to ride it. Allegedly. On the park, the kid did Champion The Wonder Horse proud. In the thick of it through a torrid opening period, facing up to former Barca samba singer/dancer Carmen Miranda who’s tutti-fruiti headgear threatened to overwhelm Rawhide continually. But he stood up to that, and was terrific the rest of the. game. A force of energy and athleticism, and no-nonsense defensive discipline that must have him in line for serious first-team consideration. Got a bit gallus late on and sunk the heid into our Mossad assassin, then narrowly survived a revenge poison dart to
the arse from the tip of Blockchain’s boot. Whew. Would’ve been a waste of a promising talent. Enjoy the ride home, kid, stay on the trail.
SUBS:
MR.KOBAYASHI – N/A – If there’s a Ghod in heaven, please noooooo….
MIKEY J – 6.5/10 – Made one, at fault for two, should have scored a one-on-one when clean through at the death. Quiet 20 minutes for our retro impact-winger. Who’ll be centre forward come the weekend…
HENDERSON TWIN – 6.5/10 – One touch, one goal, one twin… No idea which one it was, but the bhoy done good. Always looks comfortable to be pitched into feisty occasions. Both of them, that is.
CALMAC – N/A – What am I doing on? Well, as ever, playing neat football and carrying the similar prayers of the crowd that you walk off the park intact.
EDDIE TURNBULL – 6/10 – A bloke of that vintage coming into a night like this… Feared the worst but ended impressed at the most clinical penalty dispatch we’ve managed since Andy Lynch in the 1977 Cup Final. Remember that, lurking Bears? Pumped ye.
ANITA DOBSON – 5/10 – As we hoped/expected, Ange took the chance to rest the Alpha and throw in the Beta v Betis. Interesting to see how deep his tactics embed themselves on the training pitch when it’s the reserves, more or less, attempting to mirror the first choices’ strategy. And it was good, well worth watching, well worth the effort, full of design and promise. Then…
No, Ange NO! Don’t put him on… But he did it. And he tempted football’s Dark Gods. And they laughed. And they rewarded stupid brinkmanship and casual folly in the usual manner. And lo, the Hero with the Mitsibushi Zero, he was decked. Oh, Ange, why, why, why… A nothing game that may have cost us everything. There’s only one striking option left to you now, a belter delivered by Loki himself – a phone call to Dundee….
OVERALL – 7/10 – Silent Night is upon us. There was a hush round the stadium as someone searched in vain for a virgin to give birth. Instead, we settled for abusing a donkey and Celtic’s prospective head of security, The Singing Lead-Swinging Kettle-r received yet more Xmas good wishes from the assembled avengers. A match that was shaping up to be titanic until the bhoys got distracted for ten minutes by the inverse proportion of attractive freueins in Leverkusen, meant this evening brought the first proper meaningless fixture since the whole of last season.
Yet, never a dull moment with this season’s Celtic incarnation. So it turned out that a match forgotten before it even kicked off became an unforgettable occasion for many reasons. Sadly, the balance tilting towards grim.The injury toll by full-time was worse than day one of The Somme. No Japanese perished at Hiroshima with the force of atomic woe as was felt around the stadium as Kyogo collapsed. Jesus wept, by the end of it we had Celts attacking Celts as our defensive last stand devolved into frenzied head-butting carnage.
Happy Friday troops, let's lift the mood a bit and remind ourselves of the time James Forrest tried to get his hole during a Celtic tv interview. pic.twitter.com/znE2fQPror
— 🏴 Boyle🇻🇦 (@Boyle_67) December 10, 2021
The date – 91221 – was actually the amount of minutes played by a ref whose strict timekeeping will one day result in a game lasting through two generations and a new pandemic. So we won an entertaining match with half a team, against the 3rd team in La Liga’s half a team, but in doing so we lost half a team to injury and now we wait with baited breath and twitching prayer beads (see what I did there, theologically sensitive?) to see if
our season might be half over only halfway through.
What a flaming stupid festive night. Ba Humbug.
Go Away Now
Sandman
