SANDMAN’S DEFINITIVE RATINGS: CELTIC v RAMMSTEIN
Joke of the week :
Q: What do you call five Rangers players at a party in the middle of a pandemic lockdown, who then train with the entire first-team, squad the following morning?
A: Nothing to see here.
BANE – 7/10 – Beckenbauer impressario extraordinaire as he got bored and played sweeper second-half. Definitely has evolved as a footballing keeper – as can be evidenced by lack of scrotal tingling ever time he puts a boot on the ball. Brave safe hands at the death as he played Davy Crockett in the team’s Flashmob Theatre impromptu production of The Alamo.
GREGGS THE BAKER – 7/10 – Mr.Industry. No wonder he churns out so many rolls. Winning detractors like me over with his sheer professional endeavour. If he could find a cutback he’d be a world-beater. But…He will be there when you require. No doubt his participation will be 100%. You can only admire that ethic and stand back and hope the hard work pays off with developing quality. Then you get the McGrains of the world appear before your eyes.
JONJO O’NEIL – 6.5/10 – Defeat? Whit’s that? Everyone needs a wee lucky mascot, and we seem to have found one in the legendary jockey. Five games, five wins. More baffling competence and efficiency. Where were you when the Bears were getting high?
AJER – 8/10 MOTM – Back on the rampage, throwing terrified virgins aside; somehow felt more secure defensively and pushed forward at every opportunity. Wonder why that was? This is the big bhoy who was fingered (No, Griff…) as one of the early season wantaways. Yet this is the big bhoy who’s shown most desire and hunger to win, to achieve, of them all. He was a rock tonight, holding the fort, thwarting every attempt to go through his guard like a linebacker; not so much ‘The Fridge’ as The Iceman If there is to be any proper attempt to keep wantaway players this summer, put him top of the list and throw in a captain’s armband.
RAQUEL – 7/10 – Well, that defence sure is a lot prettier. Surprise quick return for the young immortal beauty. Played as if she’d never been out – another steadfast, sensible display of unfussed defending. Coped well with late pressure as we were on the… (what a…) rack. (fnarr-fnarr).
And as a bonus, a controversial delicate hand thrown into the mix when Kamberi played the ball off it. Rightly
a non-pen, but also known as a ‘One Two-spotter’ which is immediately given in the Mordor realm, followed by a yellow card and a later additional spot award conjured out of the ether. You’d have to be a right bitter entitled One to froth about such an innocuous decision. Derek Mcinnes, the sour grappa vineyard of spitting phishness is all yours…
MAN OF – 6.5/10 – Where’ve ye been? Well briefed by Broony as we saw him smash anything Ugly – McCrorie got it, then the Fergushun gene pool xenomorph creature got a couple of useful thwacks, before… Where ye goin’? As Lennony reveals he doesn’t read this mince and reprises the McStay/Collins conundrum and sacrifices his most mobile defensive midfielder; in order to ‘consolidate’…???? Yeah, me too…
CALMAC – 6/10 – Snappy Calmac made an appearance and we were treated to some vintage bursts of pace and guile. Such was his dynamic presence, I was positively vibrating with expectation at half time. Then the second half happened. And we didn’t.
EDDIE TURNBULL – 6.5 – Foot like a traction engine. Reinforced his right to be at the point of the diamond with that thumper. Showed some class around about it too, yet faded badly in the second period; as did they all.
CORPUS CHRISTIE – 6/10 – Hits a delivery like flaming Happy Gilmour. Also, now CEO of the Corpus Self-Preservation Society. Not willing to over-commit or mix it. Wembley’s on the horizon… Against a McInnes side, Celtic players need to be ready for aggro. Remarkably, remained on the park and did eventually get in a telling block and a cultured pass or two, but his participation somehow felt begrudged.
THE YETI – 5/10 – Yes, we await notable impact but tonight his work-rate drained their resources enough to open fleeting glimpses of space. Hauled off prematurely as the team malfunctioned as a whole.
FRENCH EDDY – 5.5/10 – Like Jacques Cousteau, loves the deep. Drifting around the wooly backline, felt his way into it, then when the space began to open, class came into play. Felt like he’d go on and score, but as Aberdeen got gallus his isolation was imposed again as service petered out and he faltered.
SUBS:
ROGIC – N/A – An ambling space-filler cameo from Oz, wondering why he didn’t get the chance to score against them from the start. Like he always does.
BROON – 6.5/10 – I wouldn’t have put me on… Said Broony as he replaced our dynamo. But he put himself about – thumping stops and some fine needlework on Fergushunn, not to mention sacrificial defensive head-banging in the midst of the siege.
KLIMALA KLIMAX – 6/10 – ‘Sake, Paddy – been nice to see him score that chance but at least he utilised his pace and energy enough to work it. I’m of the opinion he deserves a run alongside Eddy.
ELSHAGYONLASSIE – N/A – All smile, no guile as the game battered past him.
Is that yer da ? pic.twitter.com/mt9O0KQcRZ
— Highland__Paddy (@Highland__paddy) February 17, 2021
LENNONY – 6/10 – Sit down. Broon AND Soro can play in the same team. Also, the diamond works and you need to give it time and not panic into multi-sub-shuffling like an epileptic coke-addict with a Rubik’s Cube watching an egg timer. There’s a simple answer to why we lose control of games we’ve not managed to kill off, Lennony, and it started last summer; y’all were to busy answering the question: ‘What’s it like to equal legends?’, when you should have realised you were on the verge of becoming new legends and gone full tilt for history. Ach, later, next…
OVERALL – 6/10
So what have we learned? Well, now we know the SNP are absolutely riddled with Unionist sympathisers and when it comes to justly applying the laws of the land they’re about as trustworthy as leaving David Murray in charge of your Damien Hirst, diamond-encrusted prosthetic leg art piece; Ones are Ones, as yer gran-pappy used to tell ye. On the football side, we keep winning and I keep wishing I was writing this sentence last October.
Yet tonight, more evidence our conditioning is nowhere near the levels required to slay upstarts and win comfortably, even slenderly, consistently. It’s become embarrassingly obvious when viewed in comparison with the Invincibles; we were never capable of maintaining the title-busting surges of previous seasons. More on that another time. Tonight, all the good stuff came in the first half and the encouraging stuff was borne on the shoulders of young men up for a fight.
The best of the evening came off the park, on Celtic TV – Darren O’Dea talks the most sense of any co-commentator ever and might make a good manager – follow him into the showers, someone…Whilst Tosh McKinlay provided the hilarity by rocking up looking like a meth-head Peaky Blinder. On we got to the Heelands in search of six, ironically closing on a ten we won’t really care about…
Go Away Now
Sandman
