Sandman’s Definitive Ratings – Celtic v The Weans of Middle-Earth

SANDMAN’S DEFINITIVE RATINGS: CELTIC v THE WEANS OF MIDDLE-EARTH…

“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.”

– Zig Ziglar

THE FRIENDLY GHOST – 7.5/10 – ‘Snap!’ goes Lego Thanos’ glove and the title challengers’ fantasies of a Falkirk plunder are dust, with more terrific goalkeeping when the End Game is in sight (see what I did there fans of the rare GOOD Marvel movies?). After much hubub about his tub, the Fat Controller is well in command of his rails. May he have the engine to rumble around the Celtic goalmouth until the title trundles home… (Also, see what I did there, fans of Thomas-The-Time-Engine?).

KATIE – 8/10 MOTM – Phenomenal KT-ing for consecutive games, facing another stern test against a side who like to move the ball quickly and inject some pace down the flanks and channels. After his Thursday input and the lack of cover for proper rest and recovery, I was anxious. But KT turned the tables and became the aggressor they needed to worry about. Whipped in a fine ball for the vital opening goal and remained consistently rugged and stoic to see us through. But we do need some cover for him. And we’ve got a day to heed that…

AZTECO – 7.5/10 – His critics were the same who deride any new signing who’s not a proven superstar; y’know the kind – all mouth and fleckwitterty. This Tex-Mex (Well, California, to be exact but some artistic licence, right?) hadn’t played all season, we were grimly informed by the Karens among us. Aye, and that was a bad thing? Eh, naw – it meant we had a fit and hungry top pro incoming with a bit to prove. Not only to us, but to the Cartel who own him…And he’s certainly doing that in his performances to date. Today, more fleet feet and dynamic attacking contributions, deserving of a goal, coupled with dogged defensive tracking. This pinata ain’t no donkey – he’s a thoroughbred who’ll get better as we get deep into the heat of the finish.

OF JUSTICE – 7/10 – Liam is my shepherd, said the congregation this afternoon, voicing the part of young Murray as the team was announced and priests everywhere prayed for divine intervention. And by dint of minor miracles, Liam was able to introduce the bhoy to the concept of efficient, sensible defending, pinpoint positioning and timeous intervention. A minder’s job well enough done.

GREAT – 6.5/10 – Whew. Somewhere around the third Guinness on Saturday night I’d forgotten the Austin red and accompanying ban. Then, squinting at the line-up today the hangover thudded in like a dawn raid for a pirate firestick. Not that I’ve got one, for clarification, officer…So, knowing Falkirk’s adept way of springing lightning breaks on us as they did when roasting us 0-1 at their 3/4 finished stickle-brick midden, the thought of the raw lump of wood facing up to that and surviving was sinus-throbbing. But he did – with the Gaelic lilt of The Ginger Baresi in his lugs – maintain a dither-free 90 minutes, aside from one habitual blip that had me flailing out my seat in a flurry of unintelligible expletives like someone stuck a firework up the jacksie of a cat with Tourettes. But, admirably the bhoy overcame my hungover dread and remained solid to notch a creditable clean sheet.

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CALMAC – 7/10 – Much more in the groove. Yet – as will be mentioned later – it’s evident he required the correct personnel around him; young Arne the water-carrier for our most dominant spell, which saw Calmac dictate like an Uber-führer and double our lead thanks to a spellbinding bit of interplay with the mercurial Swede. Soon as his henchman was hooked, he faded, they gained. Needs addressed and set in stone – protect the skipper, win the games. Win the title.

THE TERMINATOR – 6.5/10 – As per the Captain’s rating, Arne put in the shift nobody likes and under-appreciates; splendid spadework to stifle their intent and provide us with the platform to pin them in. Once he departed they took a grip. Martin? Sean? Fozzy? Strachs Junior? The sentient Laptap? Somebody take note.

NEGAN – 7/10 – “Whit? Where?”…’There!’…”Flaming hell, again! Another one!”…’Aye, right out the fog of war – ping, ping, ping, bam!’…There’s yer dinner, Middle-Earthers!”… “Unreal. That’s some knack. He’ll be buz… Hang on, where’s he gone?”… ‘Eh, nae idea. Was somewhere in… Nope. Vanished.’… “Ach, well. Will probably pop-up Wednesday again.”…’Aye…’

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LORD KATSUMOTO – 5.5/10 – An improvement on Thursday but that wouldn’t be hard. Daizen’s finest value was useful today as he tirelessly harried and hustled defensively, doing his utmost to put them out of their stride. Still blunt in an attacking sense, but I suspect that’s a just a rub-of-the-green thing many forwards go through; it’ll turn in his favour soon enough and he’ll be a force in the run-in.

CARAVAN – 7.5/10 – Yes, the big ghuy! Sutty, eat yer heart out. Almost a classic throwback to MON’s celebrated first spell in charge – the big striker getting on the end of a well-flighted early ball into the box. All that was missing today was a dreadlocked Ghod following in his trail, celebratory arms outspread…Ah, memories… But what a timely throwback. And hopefully no fluke; he looked as able and interested as last week, adding a similar burst of pace in the second half which had him in surging away, only for a scuffed shot to spoil the glory. Hope springs.

YING – 4/10 – Harried and shuttled but didn’t look sharp or involved as usual. A bit of a non-event all-round and was hooked very early, suggesting injury or illness.

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SUBS –

JAMESY – 6/10 – Spring’s a-coming, but Jamesy’s not waiting – getting limber for mating-season early this year with a lively introduction. And further teased with a fine half of sprightly innovation that was unlucky not to climax with more penetration. But that’ll come. Ladies…

HAKUNA HATATE – N/A – At least Reo looked sharp if not totally interested for his cameo; not exactly the right man for the circumstances, though.

TUTANKHAMUN – 6/10 –  Pretty decent impact, a disallowed goal and a couple of scorching cutbacks deserving of more.

ITCHYCOO PARK – N/A – Keleche getting warmed-up for a striking partnership?

RAQUEL – N/A – Dazzled the away support with the glamour of her late stint.

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FATHER MARTIN AND SAMWISE GANGEE – 6.5/10 – Straight to the point – I think they missed a trick and botched a substitution by hooking Engels and throwing in a confused Reo. We had imposed ourselves really well with Arne and Calmac taking control of the middle, letting the spectral Negan haunt the spaces between their lines. Suddenly, with 20 left on the clock, Arne was gone, Reo was in and Calmac was outnumbered. Fortunately, no damage was done but Falkirk got a grip once more and we had to survive a few hairy moments instead of vice-versa and putting the game put to bed.

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Martin O'Neill
Shaun Maloney 🎵🍀 pic.twitter.com/Ih6iVUSXWR

— Fitzy (@Fitzy__07) February 1, 2026

That aside, the MON mantra perpetuates and the players keep believing they’ve got it in them to manifest the boss’s expectations. Big week ahead, keep on, keepin’ on.

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🗣️ “Fingers crossed” 🤞

Martin O’Neill is hopeful over new Celtic signings.#BBCFootball pic.twitter.com/J1bZdCaC1D

— BBC Sport Scotland (@BBCSportScot) February 1, 2026

MIBBERY – 5/10 – Bargain Stunt on the whistle and Damien Thorn on VAR, what could possibly go wrong… For Falkirk. And we survived plenty of pernickerty non-free-kicks in dangerous areas with non-corners for backup.

Nice contrivance of logic to cancel our third for Daizen being pushed into an offside position. Completely exposed their bias as they metamorphosed a penalty into a penalty against the penalised, a sentenced that makes as much sense as their scurrilous assessment.

Obviously distracted by events at Easter Road piping in through their earpieces, our discipline at the back and the flamboyant attacking flourishes simply made it too much of a leap of logic for them to fashion any drama that would aid their ailing favourites in the capital. They’ll dine in Hell tonight…

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OVERALL – 7.5/10 – The troublesome Bairns of Middle-Earth were one of the last sides we’d want to face after a Euro Thursday. Pretty confident they could do us damage after a fruitless rinsing last month, they stuck to that expansive, dangerous countering game of theirs.

Much to our beleaguered players’ credit they found the energy, wits and tempo to blunt that threat for the most part and endorsed their resurgent intensity with two splendid strikes, one a goal of the season contender. A fine way to welcome in February, if not still another month of discontent ahead…

Note to Green Brigade: If you’re going to request, or insist… On the reinstatement of season tickets and stadium access, maybe hire a PR consultant to aid with the wording of statements that require a modicum of tact. In summary, “Let us back in – YA BAMS” won’t really cut it with a board who prioritise petulance over progress.

If you cannot format an apology/stance you can all agree on, then lawyer-up with a brief who’ll speak in a lingo the suits understand, and press a case of mishandled terms and conditions (or something/anything, ffs) over your season ticket suspensions that the flaming intransigent executive will HAVE to listen to. Threaten them in THEIR language, not yours.

Note To Board: The disconnect with your customer base is becoming more apparent and, optics-wise, looking more like unprofessional contempt rather than assiduous management of a trading PLC. So, can your flaming petted-lips and understand that the benefit of Celtic as a sporting franchise is intrinsically
linked to the atmosphere generated within the confines of the home stadium by your prime clientele, which leads to success on-field, ergo an enhancement in your revenue too.

It is NOT a sustainable model if you’re ignoring that in favour of simple merchandising and player-trading. It is the CORE of your business, so flaming well address it as such and knock the residue of your sullen, amateurish handling of the ultras problem out of your indignant heids. Find a compromise – by all means lay down new terms which the dafties must abide by – but get us MOVING FORWARD.

*Sigh.

Too many self-absorbed individuals involved in that squabble.

Anyway… This was great result, hopefully firing us through a half-dozen victories against the lesser sides before we deal with the upstart challengers once more. Nice to see the big cousins have begun to crack, and with a Celtic title machine gearing-up for the big race, I reckon their coked-up wee cousins will soon hit their own comedown.

So let’s get to a bit of midweek sheep-shearing and see what transpires.

Go Away Now

Sandman

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Martin O’Neill spoke to the media at Celtic Park after Celtic’s 2-0 over Falkirk that saw the Champions move from third to second in the Scottish Premiership as theRangers dropped two points at Easter Road…

Q: How was that Martin?

Martin O’Neill: “I was really concerned about the game beforehand, big exertions on Thursday evening, just wondering about the energy levels as much as anything else, and I think obviously Falkirk, really good side, really good team, believe it or not I think the manager has been fantastic. He’s assembled a side who can play and obviously I don’t think after Thursday you would have wanted to play at Hearts or (the)Rangers but outside that Falkirk was not the team on Sunday I would have been wanting to play even at home.

“But we conjured up a win, we got the two goals and there were periods of the game where we did really well and there were periods where we didn’t have the ball but it was great to win and I think it was an important win obviously because we have to hang in there.”

Q: That’s an important goal for Tomas Cvancara too Martin, to be able to come in and settle in?

Martin O’Neill:  “Absolutely, it was great, and it was the breakthrough as well, which was needed. That’s nice for him and it will give him a really big boost of confidence. There are parts of his game I think that obviously need tidying up, which I think he can do. He hasn’t played much football in recent times, so that’s two games for us.

“He makes the goal for us at Hearts, and I think at that stage he might have been the only player in our field who could have made that run at the time, and he’s come in and he’s got the goal. So he wants to prove himself, and I think there’s a player there.”

Q: It would appear you’re very close to landing two players in Joel Mvuka and Junior Adamu?

Martin O’Neill:  “I think they’ve either done their medicals or are about to do them so that helps us a little bit as much as anything else. You never know, there might be something else before Monday evening. Is it 11 o’clock? Monday evening, and then he won’t be able to ask me on Tuesday which will be the biggest relief of all time. But it’s always been the same so it’s not a problem.”

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Q: How do you see those players, how would you review these players?

Martin O’Neill:  “The first thing, we have Kelechi Iheanacho, who’s a very fine player and can hold the ball up I think. He’s played very, very little, but I think he can make an impact, he might not last the games and things like this. So we definitely needed someone strong in there, I think Adamu can do that. I think there’s a little bit of pace with the young lad from Lorient, Mvuka. I think that it’ll give us a couple of options as much as anything else.

“The players, I think they deserve it. I think their efforts have been really, really big and I think you saw today for the number of games there’s just no respite for us and as a consequence players wouldn’t naturally feel tired. So this will help supplement the squad as I said, and there might be, hopefully, there’s a possibility of other things happening between now and tomorrow at 11 o’clock.”

Q: There have been reports of interest in Arne Engels from your former club Nottingham Forest, is he certainly a player you want to keep here?

Martin O’Neill:  “Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I didn’t hear that but I would, yeah, no question about it. There are one or two of the lads here who have not played much football and I can understand frustrations of that there.

“I know that and if we can get some people in, I don’t mind some players maybe going on loan or something I guess, who haven’t played and desperately want to play and it’s alright having a cause here like anything else. If you’re not playing there’s a natural frustration for it so we’ll see what develops, but obviously I’m not talking about Arne, I’m just talking in general but if nothing does develop over the next 24 hours then I really would rather keep the players because we will need them. They might not see that at this minute, but if we stay in competitions, if we do, and that’s a big if, then we will need them.”

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Q: Talking about those two players you say have had or are having medicals, how crucial do you think it is that you try and do an extra bit of business on top of that?

Martin O’Neill:  “It would be nice, it would really, really be nice, yeah, absolutely, just to give us a few more options in other parts of the field.”

Q: Any specific parts of the field that you can tell us what you would be looking at?

Martin O’Neill:  “Well if they’re kind of up front, there are only two others, so you can make your mind up.”

Q: 50-50 which one would it be?

Martin O’Neill:  “Oh well, go, you have a guess, because I’m guessing, you know.

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Q: Does the lad from Lorient suggest that the two players we mentioned on Thursday, are those two still alive or have those been left aside now?

Martin O’Neill:  Who?

Q: Ghedjemes and Redzic, are they still alive or are they now moving on?

Martin O’Neill:  “I’m dying to see you on Tuesday. I am really, honestly. I didn’t think that that, my comments, oh sorry, I didn’t honestly, I wouldn’t have said it, I promise you, it was meant light-heartedly. So no, we think that we’re still fighting for something else.”

Q: In terms of central defence, is that a possibility or is it going to be Stephen Welsh?

Martin O’Neill:  “That’s a really good point because Welsh has done very, very well at Motherwell and in an ideal world, he would probably want to go back. Again, I don’t really want to stop him when he’s on a really good run there at this minute. So that might depend on us getting someone else in as cover.

“We have the three centre-backs at this minute, and he wants to play, obviously he’d like to play at Celtic. If I can’t guarantee that for him, then he wants to play at Motherwell, where he’s done exceptionally well. But if we don’t get anybody else in, then that’s the case of wanting to keep him here and then just battling for a place.”

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Q: Have you had any kind of assurance, Martin, from the board that, bordering anything stupid, that they’re going to rebuff any bid that would come in for someone?

Martin O’Neill:  “Right, okay. Well, we haven’t had a bid. Who are you thinking about in particular?”

Q: There was a claim that they have actually put a bid in for Arne Engels?

Martin O’Neill:  “Honestly, I’m telling you, I didn’t know a thing about it. If they’d done it, then they must have done it during the game. No, no, no, seriously. No, seriously, because I didn’t know a thing about it. And I’d want it rebuffed, unless it was £100 million. And then I think the board would step in then.”

Watch Martin’s post-match media conference below…

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