SANDMAN’S DEFINITIVE RATINGS: CELTIC v PAISLEY-TALIBAN
Nine. Nine is critical – the number is pivotal in the history of Scottish football – it will soon belong, again, to Glasgow Celtic, record-holders of the NINE.
Nine is prophetic in that it is also the number of goals Bayer Leverkusen will score over their two-leg Eurpoa League tie vs The Rangers International.
Ironically, NINE is also the product of the number 3 squared. Three being the TREBLE of trophies Glasgow Celtic will add to their already TREBLE TREBLE of trophies, making a QUADROFELIAN TREBLE of trophies, again ironic in that ever since The Rangers International achieved Premier league status the Glasgow Celtic have won EVERY TROPHY AVAILABLE. Just saying.
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THE WALL – 7/10
Sweet, a day off after the Livi trauma. Any irrational concerns about handling were nullified early and continued to be cosseted within the bounds of contrarian madness as he comfortably dealt with every rare
challenge.
AJER – 7/10
Yup, marvellous application and attention to duties as our youthful Norse warrior prepped for the merciless viking invasion of Mordor – none shall live, yet none shall be molested, due to profound ugliness – by sharpening his steel against the edgy agitators of Old Magic-Mushie Central.
JULLIEN CLARY – 7/10
Now here’s a better-placed central defensive dominator than Wednesday’s flaffing effette panic-merchant. Confident and deliberate in his execution of pass and tackle. The past is the past. The future is the next game at Ibrox. Skelp them again, grande homme.
BITTON – 7/10
He’s mad, he’s bad, he’s Mossad… Composure and steel is what we get with this long streak of class, a sublime passer of the ball, and an unflappable character with exquisite timing. Before you girn about his
place in the Mordor team, remember his role in September 2019’s humiliation of the party planners – immaculate defensive show before he fell to long-term injury.
GREGGS THE BAKER – 7/10
Kept his place by the skin of his soup and pie specials. Not in the mood to prolong the 4 for 3 sausage roll offers, we took solace in his embodiment of the left-wing-back role. He wants it, he seems to have it, still progressing in the position, seeming to have the craft and energy to carry it. A massive recovery yesterday, given his Livingston torment.
BROON – 7.5/10
Somebody stop me! Nobody’s stopping the Mask. Not even next season’s Winker To Watch With A Whistle as he threw Broony a card for… Well, feck-all…Nobody’s stopping the Broon. He’ll be unable to sleep all week as the Death Star looms on the horizon. Yesterday afternoon he was consummate Broon – the Broon you will miss when he’s done without even knowing why.
Why? Because he’s Broon – he’s the algorithm in the Celtic code, maintaining the function of the machine, driving the processes towards ultimate realisation of potential: Champions of all their domain. Skynet doesn’t have a hope.
CALMAC – 7.5/10
What a lovely day! Not only does he get to play football without being booted up and down the park, Calmac gets to poke in another from the spot. Easy afternoon, prompting the play like a theatre producer, and
probably the perfect warm-up for our metro-gnome before the Sunday lunchtime picnic across the city next week.
ROGIC – 6.5/10
Worthy inclusion after his Wednesday intervention to stop any point-chucking addicts resurfacing. Still not quite on point – more fluffed lines than beautifully delivered asides as he, almost, conducted a rousing
symphony but fell at the final touch, flick, or switch off his baton. Next week, the big fella with those exquisite surfboard feet right in among the mid-March madness? Tantalising.
FORREST – 7.5/10
Jamesy is a big bhoy. I know some Prestwick ladies who will back me up. So no ill-measured criticism from the hallowed slopes will prevent me elucidating about his realised potential – it’s not my concern if
you cannot see the extra relentlessness that maturity has brought to his game.
Five years ago you could have called a Jamesy duffer at 60 minutes and never seen him again. These days, we have a resurgent, positive and deadly Jamesy, who’ll float around until he finds the killing ground and exploit said space.
If you hadn’t realised it amidst your cat-calling of him, HE was the Bhoy who popped-up to kill-off the vile challenge last March, with that late winner. Such composure; From a supposedly spent force. He’ll do it again. And again, until you realise what we have.
Just like he did Wednesday and today – tuned-in to harass them for the duration, shooting, cutting, dribbling, passing – he’s a nightmare for opposition defences. And he’s at a stage in his career when he can pick up the baton at any given moment as energies are replenished and have at them again, because he BELIEVES in himself more now.
And maybe WE should believe in him; I should – so wipe away the Black Xmas 2 zero-sum performance nightmare, Jamesy; shut up clowns like me and go blitz them at the Achtung-Donner-Und-Blitzen-Reichstad
Arena next week.
GRIFF – 8/10 MOTM
Three. Griff reads the notes. Griff knows the mystical prophecies around the sacred number… No he doesn’t. He just bangs them in. That first – a beautiful embodiment of strike partnerships; Perfect movement to beat the trap, latching onto a perfect pass to open the space. Third, a crisp, calculated strike that zinged in and had us all nodding in admiration; in-between the nerve-settler that all but confirmed we were onto 16-point glory.
Hat-tricks are never easy – unless it’s misses your talking about, in which case go to Ibrox and ask for advice from wee fat-erse called Alfie. And that also goes for ‘Missus’; in such case, the one he’s not riding…
But Griff could not have prepped better for next Sunday, nor shown Lennony why he MUST start in tandem. How exciting is that? Answer: very. Do you Want To Know More?
FRENCH EDDY – 7.5/10
He’s still the pearl in the oyster. Flatley prostrated himself at Eddy’s feet after seeing the turn and clip to score. Such awareness and dancing toes. His pass to cue Griff for the opener? Wild, imaginitive magic you only get on a consistent basis from unicorns.
These subtleties of quality are the differences which have delivered us the NINE, or so damn close to doing so. They will be most appreciated in a compilation of orgasmic conjuration that will be augmented come
the game next Sunday; I must say, all followers of the beautiful game are anticipating this one with trembling delight. The ‘Gers, on the other hand are ‘just shitting themselves…’ © James Tavernier.
SUBS:
HAT ATTACK – 6.5/10
Won a penalty, smashed a chance into the side-net; big Mossad 2 enjoyed his cameo, and me too. Let’s hope he’s in the squad for the Blunder Dome and we get to see him smash some upstarts into the side-net; Arsefield will do…
ELSHAGYONLASSIE – N/A
Did he get a touch? Saw nothing in his 15 minutes, not a jot to dissuade me that he’s a case of thanks-see-ya come June.
CORPUS CHRISTIE – N/A
No qualms about corpus getitng in and getitng some gamE-time back in the groove ahead of the Hades trip. Will he start? Do you want him to? Impotent at Livi, omnipotent at the Plague Pit? Dilemmas, dilemmas…
LENNONY – 8/10
He keeps on doing it. Keeps on carving out his own sensational Celtic record as the pseudo-sophisticat -cockblocked Brendanistas scramble for futile arguments against the mhans right to claim the devastating form chart as his own.
Another routine league game in 2020, another potential trap seen and approached as a routine field-exercise by the Green-Hooped Brigade. Not even Bitcoin can usurp Lennony’s performance over the past year since coming in to save the season. He’s Celtic gold, and we’re going to the moon!
OVERALL – 8/10
Class dismissed! Bears… dismissed. Citizens of Celtland, we teeter on the edge of a glorious abyss, into which we may fall and never again sense the taint of failure as these Bhoys rail in the face of statistical impossibility and see the season out invincible.
A mere ten weeks from vomitous calamity on our own sacred grove by the hand of chuckleheaded ragamuffins , we are bathed in a warm light of joy, the green radiance of astonishing sporting achievement.
They have almost done it – taken care of domestic challenges that sought to derial the dream. Yesterday the bhoys simply swept aside the Heroin Heroes Of Thunderdome in their deep pink manga costumes. It wasn’t even a case of, can you? More a certain nod to job done, no fuss move on.
Economical, clinical, ecumenical…
8 from the 9.
We are about to conquer.
We are about to make our dreams reality.
Do you realise what the Bhoys are achieving?
Do you know they are afraid? The Bugs, they are afraid!
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Sandman. Starship Troopering.
The Maestro, Paul McStay | The Celtic Star https://t.co/xPrzeobCvO
— The Celtic Star Editor (@CelticStarMag) March 8, 2020
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