Slim

I hope McInnes is going to spend time watching how other teams beat Rangers this season by putting them on the back foot and keeping them under pressure. If we give them time and space to play football, they’re well capable of giving us a doing. Again. Home match, 3 points are required, there’s no excuses for letting them play their game and hoping to get some scraps on the counter attack.

Only caught the last 20 minutes, but in that time we squandered far too many set pieces, fannying about instead of getting the ball into the box seems a common theme.

Mike Newell was dreadful. Pasquinelli, Zdrillic, Fallon, Blaha and that French guy with the pony tail we had on loan contributed more than he did and they were mince too. Are we including Ireland as a foreign country?

What was it? 1 goal in 17 for Hearts? This seems like the Goodwillie signing all over again, and another complete waste of a shirt. Not sure where McInnes seems to have earned this reputation for turning around players who have gone off the rails a bit. It seems like McInnes has tried to bring in a Rooney replacement on the cheap several times now and has continually failed because despite what Rooney lacks, you can't just pick up someone who's capable of consistently scoring 20+ goals a season from the scrap heap.

Ah that’s shit news

Also this:

From what I’ve seen of Stewart, I think he’d be far more useful through the middle in Christie’s position than he is out wide where he lacks enough pace to be effective in our system and his one trick of cutting inside onto his left foot is incredibly predictable for any above-average opposition left back. Wouldn’t pay any money for him though. No idea if those Balkan lads that guy’s suggesting are actually any good or if it’s just someone trawling the Football Manager database but it would be good if we used some of that imagination when looking for signing targets. The “used to be good in Scotland but failed down south” market is a bit thin. Wouldn’t be surprised to see us go for Lewis Macleod at Brentford, probably on loan. The boy Walker that Wigan signed from Hearts can’t get a game in League 1. Another option for a loan now that they’ve been promoted. Stevie Mallan from Barnsley too maybe.

Why are people reading/giving attention to Celtic fan conspiracy blogs?

Hearts are signing 35-year old Steven MacLean from St Johnstone. Strange one that.

Beat the English at basketball too, winning our group in the process with a 100% record.

Juvenile cunts probably put ketchup on their steaks too.

Chalmers is up for sale as well. Used to live next door to the baker on Chapel Street, that was pretty good. Something something Ross I think it was called.

I see Aitkens are closing down and selling off their shops. Probably in protest at all these Dairylea Deviants.

I currently pay £110/year for Red TV International (£8.99/month - can’t remember if they still charge during pre-season). If they want me to pay £300/year, they’ll have to do better than a free shirt and one free ticket.

I hope there’s some kind of register for folk who put Dairylea on a rowie.

Hanley’s out injured so McKenna should get another start unless he gets dropped to make way for Hendry.

Hanley is playing regularly for Norwich these days so I guess his inclusion is fair enough.

Our Plan B seems to be lump the ball forward to the target man. Now, we don't actually have a target man so we use Rooney in that role but that's not important. If hitting the target man is our Plan B, do we actually practice this scenario in training? I saw Rooney win maybe half a dozen headers, not a single one of them resulted in an Aberdeen player touching the ball next. Now, I've never managed or coached a football team, but surely it's a case of instructing Rooney to flick the ball either forward, behind, left or right and nominate someone to stand off him ready to intercept before Woodman/McKenna/O'Connor thumps the ball forward? If there's no clear and concise plan to retain the ball after Rooney heads it, then what's the point? We're just cheaply giving away possession.

My son wasn't born in Scotland, and has never set foot in Scotland, my wife's not Scottish. I consider him to be Scottish.

I thought at the time we signed May that it was a huge risk when we probably would have been able to get him on loan for the season. If we had got him on loan, you’d think there would be no chance we’d burn half a million quid on him based on his performances so far. What stood out most for me (only saw 2nd half) was that Killie were always trying to pass the ball on the ground, always looking to make space to receive a pass. We were always looking to punt it, doesn’t matter where, just in a general forward direction. That and the fact that every single person on this planet, including the blind and people who have never actually seen a football, know that the Killie no.11 Jonesis going to cut inside onto his right foot. Everyone except our defenders that is. Considering he already scored against us this season doing precisely that, we still allowed him to do it again and again. Also disappointing to see none of our players get annoyed enough at Boyd goading our supporters to make sure he got booted up in the air next time he touched the ball.

Should have just kept Stockley. At least he would have broken that mutant cunt’s leg.

Huns borrowing money from someone called Benedict O’Mahoney

We have had new home and away kits every season for at least the last 10 years.

May not be the case any more, they were recently bought over by the same consortium that owns Nice, headed by a Chinese billionaire and Billy Beane (Brad Pitt played him in Moneyball). http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/42426661

Not writing it off, but willing to sacrifice it if we can get a manager with a long-term plan to build a team around a core group of players who will be the spine of the team for the next 8 years. We can't go from qualifying campaign to qualifying campaign picking 30-something Championship players and whoever is warming Celtic's bench. For example, look at our defence. We can build a squad around Kieran Tierney, Andrew Roberston, Scott McKenna, John Souttar, Liam Lindsay and Callum Paterson. Use the next campaign whether it be Nation's League or Euro 2020 qualifying to get them to gel together, and we should see the benefits later. Replicate in all the other positions. As long as we continue to pick players in their late 20's with single digit caps, we'll never progress. We haven't had a manager with a long-term plan in my living memory. As long as the next campaign is always the priority, we'll always be stuck with the safe option, filling our squads with dross like Russell Martin, Chris Martin, Gordon Greer, etc.