SANDMAN’S DEFINITIVE RATINGS: CELTIC v INTERNET PASSWORD…
“We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope.” Martin Luther King Jr.
ROXIE – 6/10 – Wore a black Celtic away strip in expectation of filling in at sweeper. That was a fanciful notion quickly disavowed as they proved to be capable of firing in more shots in the first ten minutes than theRangers in 90. No chance with any of the three.
GREGGS THE BAKER – 3.5/10 – Fussy and lukewarm to begin – much like recent sausage rolls… – as he too was surprised by the intensity of Bodo’s press. For all the effort he’s put into establishing his place in the first eleven and squad as a whole, he unravelled a lot of that good work tonight with careless, slovenly play.
STAR LORD – 6/10 – Made the pass of his life in the second minute to release Lord Katsumoto in their box. Managed another before his customary frazz-out but wrangled himself back into competitive mode with some Shelby grit and nattering rodent voices in his heid. Did not a lot wrong despite conceding three.
GET CARTER – 6.5/10 – Won their keeper ‘Brave Norwegian Of The Month’ award at a clattering encounter. Dented the sacred turf but was back upright like a 2001 Space Odyssey monolith after the med staff quickly rigged up a pulley system utilising the Bodo crossbar. This match showed he can be sprightly on those deep sea diver boots and keep his wits about him. Became our main playmaker second-half; an indication something was awry.
JURAN JURAN – 5.5/10 – Shy and retiring as always; even the ref wouldn’t mess with him and carded their winger to keep Juran from eviscerating him. He seemed to provide the angry spark we needed to get to their competitive level, but that extinguished soon after the break and he – and the Hoops – never recovered.
CALMAC – 6.5/10 – Our leader and solo cylinder in the Hoops engine block first half. Used to dictating, he was chasing superior athletes outnumbering him in the tight midfield centre; No fault of his. But as ever, his persistence threatened to beat their resistance. Sadly, not enough cohesion around him to make his
design imprint on the game.
THE BUILDER – 7/10 MOTM – Damn, the kid’s got footballing genetics right in the Celtic tradition. Not the fastest nor fittest, but he carries the Rogic ability and was our main hope of crafting some joy. Which meant it was more that surprising and deflating to see him hooked and denied the chance to exploit late gaps. Basil!
ROGIC – 4/10 – The missing link. Such a fine line in games like this. You get Oz in synch with The Builder and Calmac and their intense pressing and furious hustling gets nullified by sweeping football. Not so. Oz failed to amble out the starting gates and we ran the race handicapped.
ABADASS – 4/10 – Failed to function. Promise, as ever, was there but the curse of his final ball made a comeback and the big left back ran around him – and a lot of our players – like Brian Glover in ‘Kes’ (look the football scene up on YouTube, kids, it’ll give you the only ironic laugh you’ll get today…) In fact, Celtic should sign the big guy based solely on this performance. A left back born to play Angeball.
LORD KATSUMOTO – 6/10 – A trier, always. The pace and willingness to bust a lung was not fully serviced; it took until that snifter of a header for us to provide the service his input deserves. Not got the touch to match the toil but his reliability is without question.
NOTEBOOK – 3.5/10 – Whit? The Talisman, faltering like an Owen Archdeacon tribute? One night we really required the difference he brings and he turned A Different Corner. Like an Andrew Ridgeley songwriting exercise, he couldn’t get anything right, bar one strike on goal, and stayed on the park due to reputation alone.
SUBS:
HAKUNA HATATE – 5/10 – Surprised to see him on the bench and didn’t look the right call as it all transpired. When he appeared, he struggled to get the pace of the game and that culminated in him sclaffing a ball in the middle to allow their scoring retaliation right after we’d set the place alight.
JAMESY – 6/10 – An away end full of Norwegian burds and you wait until the 75th minute to throw on Jamesy… Of course he was raring to get in there; proved it with the only good delivery of our entire night for the goal and almost nicked a second with a reactive header at a deflected cross in injury time; went with the wrong heid, Jamesy…
SON OF JACKIE – 5.5/10 – Another who might have wondered why he didn’t start, given their physicality. But when he entered he gave us a better ability to shake their backline up; a useful nuisance.
ANITA DOBSON – 4/10 – Well, Ange got sacked. That’s a grid iron term folks, don’t panic. Creeps into yer vocabulary when you stay up all night watching the Superbowl just to see if Eminem makes an appearance in the half-time show. He did. And it’s definitely been the highlight of the week after last night.
‘Sacked’ means the opposition’s human bulldozers get through your line of human bulldozers and catch your
quartermaster still taking stock of supplies when he’s meant to have thrown the rugby ball to bounce off the
motorbike helmet of one of the crack-addict flying wingers who keep running way from him every time he
shouts Pizza Hut.
Our quartermaster was bamboozled by Bodo’s high-velocity harassment, underestimating their ability to close
midfield space so quickly and unable to combat it as he’d gone with two cultured but calculating creatives
who offered little resistance to an athletic press. No doubt he’ll ruminate and conjour up something to take to the North Pole, but it’s an ask and a half.
OVERALL – 4/10 – Meh. What a deflating echo of last season’s grind that was. Tempo out of sorts, passing awry, unable to combat their nervous energy and hunger. By the time we’d shaken ourselves we were trailing and they were on a different level of awareness.
We went at it like a domestic chore. They approached it like they did with Roma; excited for the history they might make. Reminded me of Celtic sides’ great Euro performances like Barca, Milan – last night we were on the receiving end of a team committed to death or glory while our players were still trying to spell their name.
Two Norwegian titles in a row. Deserved on that evidence. Celtic deserved what we got; humbled by ‘unknowns’, a
lesson in collective unity, tactical thoroughness, tremendous focus on the task in hand. Now we get to show the Celtic version of the classic Ali mantra – ain’t nothing wrong in going down; it’s staying down that’s wrong. Or, as Alan Partridge might have it – time to Bounce Back.
Either way, we’d best shake that aberration off and get on it again Sunday – there’s a far more important title
to win than conquerors of Plucky North Pole FC.
Go Away Now
Sandman
Parcel 💚 pic.twitter.com/TWkznlKUw8
— half man half outnumbered (@yossarian67) February 17, 2022
It was JJ, not Jamesy that crossed in for the goal. I gave pass marks to Calmac, oRiley & CCV .. the rest nowhere near good enough. Starfelt left his runner & drawn to the ball for 1st goal, so he def DID do things wrong .. quite a lot, actually! We need a left footed, tall CB there as Starfelt again showing he’s just not good enough & provides barely nothing going forward as he’s so awkward/ uncomfortable on the ball (even though he just plays it/ passes the buck to CCV 99% of the time). Rogic & oRiley will not start again in the same team, i’m sure. We sorely miss Kyogo as GG doesn’t seem to know the offside rule & Maeda still to really settle in. Bodo a VERY good team, who would destroy Dortmund & will “shock” a few other teams. They are a few seasons into their manager’s project & we haven’t even had a full season with ours, we will get better & a good lesson for the players in this dumb tourny, which I’m not bothered about .. a Thursday night rest might do some players good!
Agree with RB.BG were really excellent and thankfully,we won’t face a team this good in Scotland again this season.
Could I make some points about the game in Germany? Bookies,take note.A Hun that I ‘know’ had a rather large bet on the 10 year olds winning by two goals??? I caught the end of their game waiting for ours.Strange behaviour at the end.Player walking off with arm round McGregor,players swapping jerseys after being pumped at home,some home players applauding their own booing fans,nobody looking bothered except Dortmund’s coach who sat raging in the dugout.Mmmm,if this had been a snooker ‘upset’ questions would certainly be being asked.Paranoia? Perhaps,but then again….
That result last night proved what Ange has been saying we’re nowhere near where he wants us to be. Bodo Glimdt are a good side they played the same way we do but they’re better at it. You don’t beat Roma 6-1 and get a 2-2 draw at the Stadio Olimpco if you’re a bad side. I’m not interested in this competition my only interest is winning the league this season. Having said that if ever we needed a wake up call at the levels we have to reach last night proved we’re miles away. We were outfought and outthought on the night and only CalMac gets pass marks for his performance on the night. I’m not sure if we were just poor or we were only as good as they allowed us to be and I can’t see us turning it around over there on a plastic pitch either. The game reminded me of the Livingston games this year where we’ve struggled to play through a low block, the only difference being that when Bodo did come out they had an end product. I’ve said for years that in Europe these kind of results are going to be more commonplace but with no disrespect to Bodo I meant against the big guns like PSG, Real Madrid or Juventus. Bodo Glimdt are a good side, they’re well drilled and coached by a good manager too and they’ll beat better teams footballing wise than us but I expected a bit more from us last night. Having said all that I don’t care about this tournament for me the league’s more important than anything else this season, we need to be in the Champions League group stages end of story. In Scotland we’re the biggest fish in the pond but in Europe we’re now a little fish and it pains me to say that, we’re a massive club in stature but no longer in footballing terms outside Scotland. We can’t compete with the big boys financially any more and the gap is only going to get wider on the park unless FIFA and UEFA make it a more level playing field. It’s abundantly clear to me that the money in the game at the moment can’t be sustained and a lot of clubs are going to go to the wall, look at Barcelona for a start they’re struggling and are probably billions of pounds in debt and are having to cut their cloth accordingly or face extinction. Closer to home we only need to look at Derby County they’re close to going out of business trying to attain EPL status. I know they’re not in European competition but they’re like Sevco and living way beyond their means, a once giant of the English game to a club hanging on by their finger tips. It’s sad to see Derby in it’s current state, a once great giant of the game reduced to potential oblivion. The other thing that’s sad to see is that we’re way out of our depth in European football as we might cause an occasional upset but we’re more likely to roll over tamely and that’s why for me the league’s always going to remain the priority over anything else.