Sandman’s Definitive Ratings: Celtic v The Fraud Squad at Stalag 2012

SANDMAN’S DEFINITIVE RATINGS: CELTIC v THE FRAUD SQUAD @STALAG 2012…

“The dawn is brief and the day full often belies its promise”. J.R.R.Tolkien, match report.

B.A.BARKAS – 6/10

What does a guy have to do to get a touch these days? One clean snatch first half, well handled. And nothing else to do except flail at a flukey nudge from his skipper as witchcraft cursed his tenure in nets. That, and the defensive coaching failings I’ve ranted about for years alongside man-to-man marking – MEN ON THE FLAMING POSTS AT CORNERS. Especially when your set-piece defending is as rank as Celtic’s recently.

BITTON – 5/10

So cool. Too cool. Too not a proper defender. Too ambivalent to the danger of aimless through balls that find a busy little escapee from the Island Of Doctor Moreau latching onto it because he thinks it’s full of dope. The only dope was Nir. A deserved yellow.

Yeah, a deserved YELLOW. Rules were altered to allow ref discretion in possible ‘last man’ scenarios. That’s ‘last man’ bearing directly on goal, centrally, cover excluded. This was angled, Ajer was the cover; You saw Ajer’s pace chasing down the shaved weasel. But, good old Bobby Bluenose just stretched his interpretation enough to find the same card Jozo got in the same position. There was NO need for it. A ‘soft’ straight red, they might say with a shrug. But, of course it was…

Aye? In THIS game. At THAT time? In the season of the TEN? Well, screw that. Sycophants will empathise. Realists will rationalise. Us ‘paranoid’ Celts will ‘fantasize’; Don’t we always? Didn’t we always? Nothing to see here, Bhoys. No cheating. No tax evasion. It was all in your heads, all along…Get off your knees. The truth is out there. Maddenly

AJER – 8/10 MOTM

Imposing, dominant. An absolute rock who raged until the death. And beyond, if you saw him leaving the park sharing wisdom with the MIB vermin. Block of the season from The Creature, recovery lope of the season to reel in the Kamp Kapo. Everything about his game deserved a glorious victory.

DREXL – 6/10

Fazed not one bit. Instrumental from the start hemming them in. Superb tackle to halt their only dangerous break first half, nicked in to thwart Son Of Leatherface with exquisite timing. Faded second 45 with the team in general.

PINGPONG – 6.5/10

Sizzled like the finest Danish bacon, shredded their pigs down the right like a master butcher at a billionaire’s banquet, and then served up a final ball like a blind waiter with the DT’s.

MAN OF – 7/10

Booked by everyone’s favourite baldy  supremacist ref for daring to bump a Bear. Didn’t faze him as he laid strong foundations for our first-half domination. But he never got to build as much as a flaming shed on them as the universe threw a quake at us soon after half-time.

CALMAC – 7.5/10

Dictated from the first whistle. Absolutely untouchable as he patrolled the middle and prompted everyone around him with focussed surgical football. Then as legs got far too laggy far too early and his grip slipped. But before he could re-assert dominance, before the concept of ‘second-wind’ was on anyone’s mind, the storm had arrived and the damage was done.

CORPUS CHRISTIE – 5.5/10

Would he, wouldn’t he? Ach, sake, Corpus. There’s a pattern developing of encouraging involvement until the gloves come off and he shirks the challenge. Another lively first-half and another anonymous second. If he’s still here February I’ll be bewildered. And his Dad will be peeved.

EDDIE TURNBULL – 6/10

Terrorised their backline with movement while we lorded the first 45. But right after the whistle for the second period he was lax. Multiple gifitng of possession, mind and eye off it. Let himself get out of the zone and let the Zombies off the hook. Regrettable.

GRIFF – 7/10

One shagger denied by another; the story of Griff’s afternoon as the rapper-cum-goalkeeper blocked his glory moments. Yet it looked only a matter of time before Griff would be doing the shafting, until devilry and idiocy curtailed his big day.

FRENCHY EDDY – 6.5/10

One touch away from destruction. Every damn time. From his electrifying early assault saved by The Gimp it was always a breathless second each time Eddy got on the ball because each time he was a tip of the ball from getting free or getting off a strike.

Frustratingly, it never came for him. But I don’t buy into the tired rhetoric of him being disinterested – the blue-nosed commentators I had to suffer were terrified of him and he was putting himself about everywhere. The reason you didn’t see him shine like a black diamond in the Mordor muck was due to the exceptionally poor final balls we, as a collective, provided today. I counted six at least where he’d peeled-off/made a dart for the kill. His movement was spot-on.

SUBS:

ALAN LADD – DEAR GOD…/10 – Late addition, cemented the Kamp Kapo and then cemented his own case for staying on the flaming bench until his loan spell is over.

ELSHAGYONLASSIE – 6/10 – Drifted on with faint hope, screamed a dipper narrowly over, floated looking dangerous but was hindered by the towel that had been thrown in before him.

BROON – N/A – Skipper ragin’ he couldn’t turn up and showboat.

HAT ATTACK – N/A – Thought he went home? Bet he wishes he did.

ROGIC – N/A – Assumed Lennony was on Antipodean time given the stage of his introduction.

LENNONY – 8/10 first half : 3/10 Second Half

Well, he went with the dynamic side we wanted, adding in a footballer to replace big JC; nobody complained. Particularly when we saw the Alan Ladd cameo late on. No, he went with the team we hoped he would and it was beautiful. And at half-time, what was the team-talk? Repetition. And what did he get?

Another fail.

And it seemed to get to him in a negative way. A game he needed to win. As Nir looked askance at Madden’s red card, wondering how he’d managed to cover up the white circle with the black swastika on it, and the gurning Orcs couldn’t believe the luck their goat sacrifices had brought, Lennony was already getting busy…

…Busy dismantling Celtic’s entire attacking threat in some kind of damage-limitation reshuffle from the Corporal Jones playbook. He panicked like.. Well, like hell.

That Zombie side wasn’t going to go at us. They were more likely to barricade themselves in lest they suffer the indignation and humiliation of a defeat to ten men. They’d already soiled the bed at half time when they took off a roofer and packed the midfield with Georgi Hagi’s shamed bar steward.

They were right there for the taking and we were right there needing a result. Even with ten men. The Snake threw on a striker in the same scenario and we gave them torment enough to break their will for any title challenge.

I expected Lennony to roll the dice and take the chance. Perplexingly, it’s lost to history; he bottled it.

OVERALL – 8.5/10 1st Half : 4/10 2nd Half

Everything was looking good. Better than good – we schooled them first-half. As ever, their only salvation was the priapic jizz-fountain between the sticks. From the start Celtic had the air of another Mhen v boys savaging about them. They were printing medals for any Zombie who got a touch or a sight of our penalty area.

The Champions had turned up in big style to smack down the over-indulged pretenders. And we should have known that meant impending flaming calamity….Score the goals to take the MIBs out of the game too, has been the mantra of the NINE. We hadn’t, and that curse struck.

But there were other questions raised and answered that have been the season’s downfall – like, what exactly is the physical condition of the squad? We seem to function like footballing gods for given periods of time, then lose momentum and zest at alarming rates. There’a volatility to our fitness levels but one thing’s becoming clear – we can’t sustain the peak burn long enough to get the requisite terminal advantage.

Also, as shouted about back up there – anybody bothered about defensive set-ups? Nah, didn’t think so. Finally – if you wondered if they were Craigy Whyte, you might be right. At full-tilt they couldn’t live with us, and we could have been showboating all second half on the way to a record victory.

But we weren’t. Not down to this being a 90s-esque dominant defeat – this ‘Rangers’ (sic) team’s nowhere near the quality of their 90s EBT selects. No, this was more down to a vibrant Celtic taking the breath away with a scintillating performance that somehow collapsed into the confusion of mind-numbing defeat.

That’s the algorithm we have to solve, and quick. I don’t think the TEN’s gone. You might, most probably do. But I’m flaming crazy anyway, right?

That Rangers (sic) side can’t maintain their luck or momentum. Their psyche will be their downfall, if it comes about – they know what’s waiting across the city; they’ll fear failure more now, conversely.

We can reproduce that initial wave of terror every week, IF we’re brave enough to take strength from today and not be crushed in spirit. First 45 – that’s the best we’ve played this season.

We can win every single game. We have to, or it’ll be ‘mon the Covid asap, for an abandonment. 2021, Year Of The Fraud Squad? Change the future, Celtic.

Go Away New Year.

Sandman