SANDMAN’S DEFINITIVE RATINGS: CELTIC @ GOMORRAH

“I wanna, I wanna, I wanna be Edouard
I wanna, I wanna, I wanna be Edouard…”

Alfredo Morelos

THE WALL – 7/10

Boom! Ahead of The Cat? The mhan who saved us from a savaging last December? Inceredibly, the comparison ended at the teamsheet – they barely tested our ‘new’ keeper, barely let his return to the Hate Factory go unremarked on in his ‘boring goalie days oot’ memoirs.

Stayed solid, blocked when required, dealt with danger admirably. Did nothing
to justify his inclusion ahead of The Cat. Didn’t need to – yes, they ARE that Colin Nish.

HAT ATTACK – 7/10

Welcome to the Bigotdome. Big fella looked fazed… Phfffffft…. Aye, as fazed as a fox in a chicken coop full of junkie chickens who knows the farmer’s up the farm house getting his Nat King. Took to his task superbly, won the vital challenges, held the line, remained cool as his Mossad cyber-agent twin at centre-back and looks a steal at the price we paid.

JULLIEN CLARY – 8.5/10 MOTM

Was he the real deal at 7 million worth of French gigantor? Was he maybe the irritating, effette camp act who can’t step up to VVD levels of competitive action? Even faced with these pretendy zombies?

Well, bang, fecking bang, bang, bang – as he won every aerial ball hoisted in, was tuned in magnificently to slick passing on the deck. Numerous interceptions and interventions that could have turned the match. Exactly the game we hoped we’d get for the fee.

It was a Virgil Van Dijk quality display amid a makeshift back four that HAD to rely on at least one majestic performance. The big guy delivered at the most crucial time. Magic.

BITTON – 7.5/10

What can you say about the Mossad assassin, played out of position, asked to do the job of players formerly adept at snuffing them, even sending them into orbit. Big Nir proved, once again, just how priceless his presence this season will be – I keep re-iterating – as he snuffed out incredibly dangerous moves with sheer awareness and nous.

Damn shame to see him falter to a pulled hammy chasing a nothing ball. What a passer of the football we have there. Lenny, utilise him well.

BOLIWOOD – 8/10

Ha-ha-ha, brilliant. Detractors on their knees as I write, like repentant Ones, or you SHOULD be – this kid faced up to the verminous racist hordes baying for his blood, and played his best game in the Hoops to date under the worst type of pressure.

Always available, always backtracking – boundless energy kept our left flank alive and stifled their best options wide. Great game from a player so – FAR too – many don’t understand or are willing to. Yet there you have a fella mired in the Pit of Purgatory, wandering about like he didn’t give a feck for their hysterical frothing venom and playing like a boss. Well done, son.
I’d say keep the heid, but it belongs to Sincy.

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BROON – 8/10

Yes. On it like yer Beetle bonnet from the start, ladies… Broony redefines thuggery into an art form the despicables cannot fathom. Yes, he’ll kick yer heids off an hustle yer effette ingenues with his particular form of gentlemanly raffishness, but ultimately its all conducted with a level and quality of finesse you zombie vermin reprobates can never comprehend. Because you sanction the use of Alan McGregor in nets; And that’s your sophistication level. LMFAO.

CALMAC – 6.5/10

Subdued and off the pace – lucky not to pick up a card (or two). Calmac failed
to show his class and tantalisie the Hun midfield as he has done in the past –
a tactical decision not entirely his fault.
Instead we had him scrapping beside Broon, a role he’s not designed for, yet
one he admirably stuck to task.

CORPUS CHRISTIE – 7/10

Roving, boundless energy, just failing to find the space and time to make a major difference. Watched over by his Dad as he stormed the gates of Hades, young Corpus was always a hair’s breadth away from linking up to devastating effect.

Cannot criticise him as his energy and commitment were tremendous, yet his own final ball (and delivery from set-pieces) let us down when it required just a killer pass.

MIKEY J – 6.5/10

And so he faced the trilogy of tragedy. Not this game, this time, for Mikey the Modern New Romantic; no innocuous anonimity as they bludgeoned him with impunity. He wasn’t letting this one go. And depsite his quick feet and tricky-dicky shenanigans being clamped-down upon at every touch, he still managed a magic Mikey moment to release Eddy for the first.

Much of his remit was un-natural – toil over talent, but he slogged it out. Today, Mikey got his act together – as the cool people say – and made sure he was no longer a passenger on the flight through Their airspace. Now the collective monkeys are off his back, in future we’re looking for him to be Kamikaze #1.

FORREST – 6/10

Ah, Jamesy – the only happy people in Prestwick were the glass collectors around me as you got subbed in ignomy. BUT… he worked his roving butt off, constantly presenting as a right-back support and hustling them out of decent possession.

In an attacking sense he flared on few occasions yet I’d lay his lack of positive involvement at the manager’s door – it was always going to be a hard shift for our forward creatives when Lennony surrendered the midfield.

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FRENCH EDDY – 8/10

Quicksilver. Marvellous role ‘Up Front Alone’, channelling wee Kevin to combat the Their devious molestation; He set numerous movie traps – butt-handling agony as Eddy made sure the gropers lost their fingers on his flaming shorts, as exemplified when Harvey Arsefeel’s (see what I
did there, pervert movie producer watchers?) digits melted into Eddy’s kecks when he tried to ride him late on. Then the classic ‘slip and slide’ trick when the Zombies were askew as he sprung their line to score.

Like I said after IKEA – he’s grown into a role that he’s not even made for; soon as we get this human stick of TNT paired-up with a partner who can take the workload and let him roam free, sooner we destroy, destroy, destroy, DESTROY!

SUBS:

BAUER – 6/10

Well, despite offering the finest close-shave known outside the traditional straight razor, this purveyor of electronic grooming realised with his first tackle that these hairy bams were either too much fashion-victim or too much neanderthal. Credibly, our Austrian (that’s NOT kangaroo-land, slow of uptakes, that’s Hitler-land, for historical notables…) alice-banded, not-quite-sure-yet replacement did ingratiate himself to the 800 hardy souls by smashing into a few pests in blue and battling for the cause the last quarter-hour. Not shy to kick Them = good start.

SAM M*******N JACKSON – 7/ M*******’10

Well… M********n’ m******** ME, m********s! Damn game in the lap of the LAWD, an’ the boss say, “M********a, you got to git on it and m*********n’ see out this m********a with ALLLLL the m******in’ ability you can muster, M********a…”

So this M*******a showed up some specialisin’ m********in’ specialities and took those Zombie m********s to a m********in’ dance-off they ain’t was never m*********in’ jive-talkin their way out of, m****-f****s!

Glorious footwork aplenty to tease the m********in’ m******* out of those m********in M********as – Made them look like M********as in front of their own bitter m********in M********as as this here M********a beguiled the m********in bejeesus out of those bewildered m********as with sublimity of foot only reserved for the righteous M********as among us M********as.

And aforementioned M********a is THE M*******a. RE-TAIN the services of this M********a at all costs, Celtic, for he is a righteous ***skelpin’ M*******a supreme, baby. With mayo…

HAYES – 7/10

Did you see? Did YOU see! – Jonny’s bare torso as he got ready to com on – a huge CLOCK in the centre of his chest – his Ironman-esque time-travelling device!

The Sandman was correct all along – we have our quantum-leaping replacement geared-up for the NINE, and the TEN – which Jonny already knows we win – he’s fundamentally got to fulfil his role in history by being in the correct place at the correct time. And didn’t today go to pre-written history!

Marvellous contribution to finish a wonderful move alongside descendants of warrior slaves he freed in the 16th century French colonial wars, Johnny hooking up with Sam and Eddy to wipe the sins of the past – ergo, the fecking **** – and deliver us into Paradise.

When will we see him again? As soon as Skynet is defeated and he travels back from vanquishing oranje-eyed terminator cyborgs in post-apocalypse Govan 2067.

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LENNONY – 7.5/10

Well, what a set-up. Basically surrendering any notion of midfield dominance and challenging them to go toe-to-toe with us. Not my idea of a party in Govania. But… Well, he triumphed. The Bhoys ultimately showed their class and probably their belief in the manager, which is a Very. Good. Thing.

He rolled the dice (again) and won.

We existed on a knife-edge for the vast percentage of the game, but you have to give credit to the faith in the system and abilities on the park. I’m delighted he got the performance and result after May’s debacle, but after seeing them up close and their limited offensive (yes, I know they are) options, might Lennony feel he gave them TOO much respect? With a stronger midfield – Sam J on from the start – we might have snuffed them out early and had a right party.

However, the Ginger General’s taken enough flak already this season from the non-believers, so let’s laud the conquering Caesar deservedly for his rout of the unholy sons of Satan’s whores.

OVERALL – 8/10

And so with his heid shaved like Ripley in Alien 3, Captain Broon led his merry band of spaced-out marines into the decrepit colonial outpost to face the seething frenzy of mesomorphic, zenophobic, xenomorphic nightmares loyal to their reptilian Queen.

We wondered if the script would change in this 3rd installment of the horror series, a third visit within a year to LV-16-90, if this time we really would take off and nuke th insipid joint from orbit.

And so, with tickets only available to those of Cuckoo’s Nest optimism, our fearless Bhoys were enclosed by four facades of fury – swathes of gruesome genetic aberrations, a spangle-brained gimpfest from Jim Henson’s worst acid-induced nightmares….

A feckwit funfair. A bigot boogie bash… You get the awful picture…

So we were posed with questions: – exactly where do the punters go when the Star Wars Bar empties? Easily answered, and others – would our team fold under the raucous promptings of the Onion Bawbag Ultra-Benders who’d taken over the Holy Broomloan end and were still awaiting exorcism?

Well, despite the enchanting folk ballads and lullabies from an age of enlightemnent our players were not beguiled by the ugliest scenes in world football and produced a challenging counter-performance to the two abysmal efforts of recent times.

In fact, you could argue this was a perfect foil to the expected assault, choosing not to impose ourselves too much upon a game played at frenetic pace, but to stand off and when required trade punches with a drunken foe, buoyed beyond his capabilities by too much of the electric soup.

I prefer to take the ball off them and have them chase it like tweakers after a smack hit, but… Horses for courses, and our scant midfield were always going to be looking to steal and counter their weighty five. We did it really well, we took their breath and hopes away sweetly and drained their self-confidence.

It was, and is, a beautiful thing of special moments – Like Broony in a blonde wig, channelling Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, Maradonna-ing his way through the slavering just as she, surrounded, took on a dozen assassins with her samurai blade; like Sam J and Eddy combining outside their box, footwork baffling the shared scouser brain-cell, almost scoring a peach; like big forgotten Nir stepping-in to absolutely snatch the breath from them at the point of Defud scoring and casually block it out for a corner.

All those moments WON’T be lost in time, because we will remember them and praise our Bhoys for them – for the day we rattled the monkeys’ cage in their own human zoo and took a massive step towards the NINE.

Sandman Out. To Sober Up.

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Also on The Celtic Star…

‘Bossed It,’ Odsonne, the Rangers TV Commentary and Lenny exorcised the ghost of Cluj,’ Niall J…see HERE.

David Potter on Celtic’s Beautiful Sunday…see HERE.

‘There’s the house toilet wrecked’ Captain Bluebeard, ‘I’m raging Rangers (sic)’…see HERE.

Ibrox Emptied! – Gerrard’s False Dawn and Rangers Fans’ Tears…see HERE.