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Sandman’s Definitive Ratings – Celtic v The Great Pretenders

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SANDMAN’S DEFINITIVE RATINGS: CELTIC v BAPHOMETS’ BAR STEWARDS…

ROXIE – 7.5/10 – Big Joe! You know – the tasteless flavour of the month(s) with his vocal detractors. And up he comes with the class when you need it most – brilliant low stop to his right to deny them at a crucial point; and a doorstop boot to keep them out soon after. No chance with the Tavpen zipper; probably delighted to even get a paw on it, seeing as he’s ‘past it’ Once again in his Celtic time, big game, big mhan behind the wire holds the barricades…

GREGGS THE BAKER – 7.5/10 – Inverse brah! Inverse Greggsy provides a scintillating performance to terrify the Zombies into Angeball PTSD with his internal rampaging (sit doon, Jamesy…). Terrific all-energy, uber-committed shift, also finding his feet and touch in perfect harmony.

WAYNE GRETZKY – 3/10 – FFS, AJ, the heck?… Trapped in a recurring nightmare where he is hauled back from the brink of a cliff just before he tumbles. About gifted them every chance they got, nearly a penalty for some netball offence – saved by an offside – and forever out of sorts. Had ‘one of those games’ that we were fortunate didn’t spread contagion throughout the team.

OF JUSTICE – 7/10 – Comfortable, assured, smiling – bookended his Lazarus Celtic revival from Mordor to Paradise with another suave and accomplished defensive display. From the moment he thundered into a challenge Jungle-side, he looked more tuned in than Keith Richards playing Sympathy For The Devil in the middle
of a marajuana plantation. A Gaelic Ginger Genie.

RAQUEL – 6/10 – Goddamn, we should have known – too pretty for this fixture; wounded shoulder as galloping Zombie tried to rip her bra off after AJ sold the jerseys.To that point, had synched-up splendidly with Liam. Let’s hope the injury jinx gets laid to rest.

SAINT BERNARDO – 7.5/10 – Ah, yep, that Bhoy I reckoned had more, starts to deliver in spades. Step forward another Portuguese ‘Skelper. Foot like a traction engine. Slashed that one like Jason Voorhees in a teenage summer camp, cut through the Zombies as if it were a SAM missile with their name on it (‘Death from Below,’). Glorious. So glorious, in fact he got booked for it. What. An. Surprise…Any doubts this swarthy Portuguese youngster had the mettle for a Glasgow Derby were obliterated as he rampaged around cracking zombie skulls and ankles. Bhoy looks like he’s got quality and competitiveness in equal balance; intriguing prospect.

CALMAC – 8.5/10 MOTM – The Boss. The flaming Boss. The Fairy Princess, The Grunter and whatever the hell that scampering thing was hanging on their right-mid that had escaped Jim Henson’s workshop; Calmac taught them all a lesson in class and game-management. Sublime movement around the midfield vortex, picking passes, picking them off, setting the pace. Only faded in latter stages and that was due to injuries around him and questionable sub performances that left him under pressure. All-in, magnificent.

THE BUILDER – 7/10 – Jesus wept – it’s no coincidence they went after our handsomest players. Now Matty will spend the winter break avoiding Michael Jackson’s plastic surgeon. The Mean Girls decided to rough up our pretty ones in the hope they’d lose confidence; but the Hoops are beautiful inside and out and The Builder stepped right into the fray despite the rearrangement of his noble features to do what he does best – build.

Provided the skilful foil to his Portuguese twin’s spadework, causing palpitations around their box, backing up his skipper, keeping his lively feet a step ahead. But for them throwing on a grizzled fatboy to give him another smack on the beak he’d have put us comprehensively in charge.

BRIAN DE – 5.5/10 – Not what we thought – expected a lot more of the classy director but despite some enlivening opening scenes this afternoon’s drama turned into a stop-start series of promising story threads that came to nothing. The real spectacle we provided by others…

KILLER MUSHROOM – 8/10 – Oooft. A ‘Skelper  you are, Shimin San. Take, turn, jink, swish! – whipping across Buttman’s smelly fingers into the rigging. I said his Larsson-almost-esque miss at Dundee was a thing of near-beauty that wouldn’t incur negative inhibitions, and lo and behold if it wasn’t a catalyst for him to emulate Lubo. The movement and the edge; a level above the class of defender they can rustle up from the fields of the damned. And just for historical sentiment that goal deserved to be a match-winner.

LORD KATSUMOTO – 6/10 – Doh! It’s Daizen. Drawing a red, making us see red with classic Daizen deliveries.In fairness today, the malfunctioning, misfiring AJ behind him must have had Daizen bewildered; he was frowning about like that bit in the movie where you don’t know if Godzilla’s the goodie or the baddie, what with the guy in the moose suit at right-back playing exactly like that – a moose.

SUBS –

OH BHOY – N/A – Thrown in just as we decided to stop servicing the front Bhoys. Then took an extra couple of dunks in the face as the Zombies practiced for their next go at Matty.

MIKEY J – 4/10 – Jesus H, Mikey – not once but twice almost shot us in the baws as he failed to comprehend the idea of chasing the flaming blue meanie that’s just run past you into a dangerous position. Terrifying and disturbing lapses on an occasion like this.

ABADASS – N/A – Sure I saw him run across the park at some point. Bueller? Bueller?!…

EDDIE TURNBULL – 5.5/10 – Oh, man, let’s slow the game down, eh? No, no – just when you wanted to pin them in the old Bhoy comes on; classic Buck switch to go conservative when savaging was called for. Even then, Eddie gets two good openings and messes them up.

APOLLO CREED – 7/10 – Not played since September? Here – check this out; it’s the frenzy of a win or bust against the Zombies; in you go, no pressure…So you see what you’ve got when fate demands such. And what we saw was quality – he kept them subdued, whether by last-ditch intervention or crawling like Spiderman on the side of the Empire State. Some of his precise passing was a buzz to see zip out of the back, and some of his crucially timed interceptions were adrenalin-pumping glee. Only once was he culpable – conceding the free kick they scored from (I think) – and even then it was a calculated stop on Jakey Dossers as the break of the ball took him into the box. Gentlemen, and ladies – we have a Hoops-worthy centre-back. Another one, Brendan. You hear?

THE SHNAKE – 7.5/10 – Must win. Did win. September revisited. Set up the team predictably enough but got more out of the first hour than any match since CL home games. But… Conservatism against ten men with 20-odd minutes to go could have cost us dear. That’s his prerogative – protect the result. But this is Celtic PretendyRangers; data and stats don’t often count for much when there’s blood and thunder and desperation. His subs were too many at once, instead of filtering in at 5 minute intervals and demanding we pinned them in. They were willing victims; it’s in their mindset to capitulate at Paradise and we could (and should) have eviscerated them. But all said, that was the result we craved most, needed most, and he delivered.

MIBBERY – 5.5/10 – Weeeeelllll…. Didn’t check but some of the faithful Hoops in the disabled section were the only ones in Green and white Little Nick didn’t book. Wasn’t he a busy little helper today? Offside, Zombie interlopers – it was OFF-SIIIIIDE. Nobody will be more annoyed than Gollum and Nick – they WANTED to give that pen, but those damn VAR lines…Instead, Nick will still lift a glass replica of the Hiram Abiff Golden Goat Dildo at the end-of-year coven for adhering to the age-old tradition of booking a Celtic scorer against his heroes..

OVERALL – 8/10 – Here they come, kids – right on time to fester the festive season, bloated on debt, floating on lies and malfeasance rule-flaunting, establishment-manipulating, neopagan, cannibalistic phish-gargling heathens… It’s the ZOMBIES. And Gozer’s new incarnation, Meester Phillipe De Phew is pure ragin’ – right into the Zombie sprit of things. Big-slab-of-mortuary-meat bulging-eyed fumin’ about penalties because ‘offside’ doesn’t translate into Phlegm, or whatever dialect he summons demons in.

So their day had come, the day we were getting done and the buoyant mood of the cheeky monkeys had the deludamol doses tripping their expectancy into gleeful hilarity at the coming win…. And then it all turned out for them as funny as a stabbed clown.

THAT is the kind of pursuit Celtic are fending off; Junked-up jakey villains after the prize by any means necessary, willing to backstab for a pittance, desperate to feed their addiction for the shiny-shiny. And today our Bhoys managed in large part to replicate some ‘skelpings of recent times; certainly enough to exorcise the slaver empire blue shirts back into damnation and deliver Paradise from evil. A win was all we really wanted and it looked like something spectacular was brewing when the wee mhan incited 50,000 wife-beatings at least with that sensational second.

Alas, we failed to rip out their exposed throats and win the title there and then (mentally, certainly) but secured three vital points and – hopefully – instilled a bit of belief back in the squad. Given some of the anguishing reversals we’ve experienced at this time of year, today was a ‘Skelping Saturday to remember, with a deliriously beautiful goal to cap the tumultuous Celtic year off. Pints of Creme De Menthe all round tomorrow night; have a good one!

Go Away Now

Sandman

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About Author

The Celtic Star founder and editor David Faulds has edited numerous Celtic books over the past decade or so including several from Lisbon Lions, Willie Wallace, Tommy Gemmell and Jim Craig. Earliest Celtic memories include a win over East Fife at Celtic Park and the 4-1 League Cup loss to Partick Thistle as a 6 year old. Best game? Easy 4-2, 1979 when Ten Men Won the League. Email editor@thecelticstar.co.uk

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4 Comments

  3. Rabbie Burns on

    Tbh how bad Maeda is and the awful runs he makes causes AJ tae look worse the noo. Havin nothin tae aim at goin forward is definitely not helpin the bhoy. Maeda was less than a 6/10 .. he is just a terrible player who should be nowehere near our first team. Not sure though why BR didn’t at least tell the two wide men tae switch sides tae see if that helped as both were poor

  4. SteveNaive on

    ‘Overall’…
    Top notch wordsmithery.

    Should have omitted the female violence reference.

    Clement Fraud… you can use that.

    All the best for ‘24