SANDMAN’S DEFINITIVE RATINGS: CELTIC v SHAKA KHAN…
“Roll up, Roll up, Napoli to score five or more – 6/1 – yer CL blues washed away…” – the circus hits Naples.
ROXIE – 7/10 – Brilliant goalkeeping; Foiled the wunderkind with a scintillating burst off his line to block. Then came the moment – “Hit it, ya burk. Go on…” And the big glakit future superstar did. And even our experienced world-class keeper was left clutching air. Sigh…
GREGGS THE BAKER – 6.5/10 – Left-back or right-back? Mattered not a jot to Greggsy as he rampaged all first-half. Then, curiously, he faded in the second period when we really needed those penetrating runs.
BIG MERCEDES – 7/10 – One poor pass all game seems to be his customary blip. After, and around it, he was exactly the centre back we required at this level – keen and accurate in both tackling and distribution.
GET CARTER – 7/10 – Big mhan must be ragin’ – so many forays forward rewarded with indescribably poor deliveries. At least half a dozen chances to let him rustle them deep in their box and every one passed up. Defensively, we got what we expect – solid, focussed, exemplary application.
JURAN JURAN – 6.5/10 – You had one job to do, JJ… And you did it well…Until you ushered Bible John Haaland inside – as we ALL advised you to do, onto his weaker foot…Not much to say there – top class international Croat beaten by the next EPL 50 million bucks superstar. Damn, so close.
THE BUILDER – 7.5/10 – What an extraordinary talent Celtic have unearthed; the correct analogy as the buried Viking hordes do relinquish untold treasures. 21 years old, competing at the very top-level, holding it together against a decent side designed to break and punish. Out of natural position. Extraordinary performance. Fact.
Great to see that @mattoriley8, deployed deeper than usual, became MoM
UEFA's Technical Observer: "He was excellent in central midfield as a playmaker in distributing passes. O'Riley was also defensively balanced, winning back possession and stopping counterattacks." pic.twitter.com/VBizpzOiw8
— Guillem Balague (@GuillemBalague) October 26, 2022
HAKUNA HATATE – 6/10 – Moments, Reo, moments… So many cute and enlivening opportunities just wouldn’t play out for him. Fractions and fractals, sayeth the universe, and nothing ran for our Japanese Iniesta. The matchwinner just couldn’t catch a break to apply his killer touches; percentages will show the laws of physics to be a sham.
ABADASS – 3/10 – So much hope. Yet… Nothing. The volatile wonderkid was unable to make any kind of impact. Everything about the occassion was his to exploit – dominance, pressure, pace… Yet he never utilised his ability to carve open cumbersome backlines or meet opposing crosses.
MR.KOBAYASHI – 5/10 – Goddamn. And that’s polite. The moment came and the moment went; what we wished for and what we believed in – give him just one more great chance and surely…Nice movement and workrate, but the requisite killer touch eluded Kyogo for the 5th CL game running. And the last hope. Goddamn.
SON OF JACKIE – 8/10 MOTM – The ball spun. The ball dropped before him. The ball was slammed into the net. Champions League – that’s what your strikers are supposed to do. No denying the swaggering menace of our Aegean warrior – service him, he’ll score. YES, he will!However, yet again he was forced to thrive on spartan opportunities. But he did come through – he struck, he laid on Kyogo – he should have been on a winning side. Ange, notes to be taken…
HACKY SACK – 6/10 – See Greggsy; a great showing first period, lacking only in a final ball. He has the beguiling feet of a matchwinner but we were reaching tonight after their equaliser and he wasn’t able to make the definitive plays.
SUBS –
MOOEY – 6.5/10 – Very decent circulation of the ball – a man ready to pitch in against the top-tier; makes you wonder if he was a viable option from the start for more game-control.
EDDIE TURNBULL – N/A – Would have taken some miraculous turn of events to see the old bhoy win the match. As it was, taking a corner was about his limit.
JAMESY – 6/10 – Didn’t Jamesy look lively, ladies? Yes, he did. And no – we didn’t exploit his effervescence enough given their tiring legs and his propensity for scoring big-match winners.
LORD KATSUMOTO – 6.5/10 – He was bloody everywhere, Daizen, providing a late-game hustle that I was sure would upset them enough for us to nick a winner. Damn, wrong.
ANITA DOBSON – 7.5/10 – Balls. That’s what this Athenian Bhoy has got. And they’re big enough to throw the full Mowbray at the CL and trust Angeball will win the day. Again. Only, Angeball hasn’t won the day in the CL. At all. Yet – tuck it away, Zombie lurkers – he’s been so, so very close. Probably closer than any Celtic manager in recent history – since Lenny papping Barca ten
years ago. Ignore The Snake learning his lesson – Angeball is far more robust at this level; this exhalted NEW level of CL excellence; money and quality beyond anything prior to 2017.
He’ll be frustrated – he was almost there bar a ringpull breaking on the last of the six-pack. Angeball, has kept us in these games of rarefied atmosphere for at least an hour; tonight ALL game. THAT is the difference the SMSM will prevaricate upon to the incessant fluffing of the failed tribute act across the city.
But the TRUTH is – Ange’s tactics and team belongs here, has something to add, to say, in those stratospheric realms of club football. Keep going, big fella – next year will be your magnum opus.
OVERALL – 7/10 – Wow. Everything seemed right and everything played out how we’d expected…They weren’t the great shakes they’d seemed to be given results and they could be pressed and pinned and picked off…
They only had the one real threat – Bible John Haaland who’d gotten lucky against us last time and wouldn’t be a real thre… Fleck.
Fleck x 2. Har-de-har. Madrid, Leipzig, and us – fooled by the Shaktar-are-mince myth.
What a bizarre CL experience – we’ve been SO much better and impactful as stats would have considered. We’ve created 5 times more chances than we might have dreamed of against quality sides Tonight, we let ourselves down in terms of final ball and utterly abject delivery – how many times did we load the box with big bruisers and fail to beat the first man with a cross? Mental. It was strikingly abject, and amazingly predicable – No matter the hooped jersey, nobody seemed able to deliver.
At 1-0, another would have done them in. They relied on their future superstar too much. They deserved punished by our stars. But therein lies the difference…Again, we’ve let a team off the hook at the highest level. BUT… We’ve let a team off the hook at the highest level…
You weren’t even dreaming of that a mere 18 months ago. So STFU and applaud those Bhoys. Minus their captain and star player for 40% of their CL examinations? Mental.
Yet dogged they were, and stylish, and exciting. And so close…Such fine margins.
God Bless the Hoops.
Go Away Now
Sandman
Excellent as usual Sandman. Praise where it was due with a smattering of criticism without going overboard.
Having read some of the match threads, some people need to get a grip of themselves, short memories over where we were 18 months ago. The abuse of MO’R in particular by some was disgusting.