SANDMAN’S DEFINITIVE RATINGS: HONEYBALL v CELTIC
“Every calamity is to be overcome by endurance.” – Virgil (Not Van Dyk…)
THE FRIENDLY GHOST – 6/10 – What a save! Not good enough for some, though, as he scrambled round from his net entanglement to see the big daft kid smash it back past him. Totally raging at his withering defence for the unstoppable second, made a good effort at saving Shankland’s penalty. No fault to lay at Kasper’s door.
MELLOW YELLOW – 4.5/10 – Raw, but at least enthusiastic and committed; plucked like a chicken at their second, but recovered and persisted in attempting to salvage something.
KATIE – 5/10 – Looked like powerhouse KT had returned with a terrific overlap and alert cutback for our equaliser. But faded poorly after the break with the collective when he should have been an assertive on-field leader, demanding standards were raised.
OF JUSTICE – 4.5/10 – Ach, Liam, hero of the Euro, gormless of Gorgie. Highlight of his game, calling the MIB a ‘Shank’ on camera. The same noun could have been used as an adjective to describe his performance after that; spooked by his defensive partner and indecisive when we required a boss on the backline.
GREAT – 1/10 – Not so great at all. And not easy to be the blunderkid of the season’s biggest domestic game to date. But it all went wrong from the first whistle. “Have it!” he yelled as he leathered in the opener like a bedlamite
with rickets. ‘Don’t have it at all…’ he mused, refusing to stick a leg out and block the second. ‘Truck it,’ he thought, blundering in to gift the penalty. All over the place mentally and physically, and far too much time on the ball for the good of the team as his process of thought and action isn’t up to pace. It’s nearly Halloween, kid, go watch, ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ – it’s your highlights package.
Always great insight and writing. The John Kenny description deserves an extra mention!
Have to say I agree with, pretty much, all of that.
But I’ll go further. As I’ve said many times, I don’t care for Rodgers, didn’t like him the first time, still don’t now, but I am close to accusing him of deliberate sabotage, on Sunday. Bearing in mind the venue, Ralston and Trusty HAD to play, yesterday and Rodgers should have known that, maybe he did? His substitutions are dubious, at the best of times, but bringing on Balikwisha was, for me, the final act of treachery.
He has an assortment of wingers who play on their ‘weak’ side, so never get ‘to the line’, he obviously can’t get the best from Engels and Nygren, he NEVER drops his favourites and I wonder, looking at some of his signings, if he could ever recognise a good player.
Time for a change, starting with an uninspiring manager.
Agree with all that, but for me the bottle crashed around 35 minute mark. By this point we had fought hard and having got the equaliser , took control. Then inexplicably we totally bottled it, not from Hearts pressure or Rogers changes to personal or tactics, just got a nose bleed after fighting our way to the top, and went to pieces. Powder puff team though, and too many passengers, not to mention self sabotage from Murray.