The Scottish PL discussion thread

odonnell

smackbunnybaby wrote:

the fact ferguson couldnt in my opinion make any impact south of the border says it all for.

to mirror eirebears comments... he had a LARGE impact south of the border mate, he won man of the match awards regularly, he was key in Sounness' team hence being CAPTAIN, and retained under Hughes. He had his knee shattered and managed to recover to a point where he DIDNT require 4 pieces of steel to remain in said knee, went straight back out and turned it on again!

Sorry mate - he had anything BUT no impact in the EPL. Just because your opinion of him isnt great doesnt mean the statistics and the MOTM performances never happened.

Lets face it - how much of an impact can any player really expect playing for wigan, fulham, charlton, west ham, blackburn, aston villa, ETC! I dont hear anyone singing the praises of celtics old golden boy Petrov these days - what...is he no good all of a sudden? No, its because hes not winning medals, but im willing to believe hes still as good as ever.

Fergie turned it on big style at Blackburn and lots of people took notice of that. The only people who seem to have turned the channel at that point was Celtic fans, who like to BELIEVE (most of them having never watched a Blackburn game in their lives) that he didnt do a thing, just because he came 'home'.

Eirebear

odonnell wrote:

to mirror eirebears comments... he had a LARGE impact south of the border mate, he won man of the match awards regularly, he was key in Sounness' team hence being CAPTAIN, and retained under Hughes. He had his knee shattered and managed to recover to a point where he DIDNT require 4 pieces of steel to remain in said knee, went straight back out and turned it on again!

Sorry mate - he had anything BUT no impact in the EPL. Just because your opinion of him isnt great doesnt mean the statistics and the MOTM performances never happened.

Lets face it - how much of an impact can any player really expect playing for wigan, fulham, charlton, west ham, blackburn, aston villa, ETC! I dont hear anyone singing the praises of celtics old golden boy Petrov these days - what...is he no good all of a sudden? No, its because hes not winning medals, but im willing to believe hes still as good as ever.

Fergie turned it on big style at Blackburn and lots of people took notice of that. The only people who seem to have turned the channel at that point was Celtic fans, who like to BELIEVE (most of them having never watched a Blackburn game in their lives) that he didnt do a thing, just because he came 'home'.

Aye but hes nae nakamura mate.....

ziggy

This post has been deleted.

odonnell

he loves naka so he does best midfielder ever to play in the SPL .....

Eirebear

ziggy67 wrote:

Whats with the Nakamura obsession Eirebear? Are you Eirebhoy in disguise?

The first mention was because of the freekicks...the second time i actually meant to say brown...freudian slip? god i hope not

Eirebear

Is the celtic game on anywhere on wednesday? I know were on BBC on tuesday....

Badabing

Setanta sports 2 4.30 ko 5.00

Eirebear

Ach i think that may be too early for me, cheers.

ziggy

This post has been deleted.

odonnell

why you headin back? where you from?

ziggy

This post has been deleted.

Nalced_irl

ziggy67 wrote:

Henrik Larsson is playing for Helsingborgs against Drogheda on Thursday, any of you lads going along to see him?

Would have loved to see the great man playing one last time but i'm heading back to Scotland on Wednesday

Very much thinking about it. Would be great to see him play again. €20 a ticket. Do you know if they would be available on the night outside?

PauloMN

Ok lads, time to put your necks on the line... can we have some predictions for the CL ties tonight and tomorrow?

Here's mine:

Rangers v Crvena Zvezda: 2 -1

Spartak Moscow v Celtic: 2-1

I'm a little more confident than last week but still think we'll find the away leg a tough affair. A score draw would be a great result and would set us up nicely for the 2nd leg, but I think a narrow defeat is more probable. I think an away goal is crucial though.

I expect to see Miller start with JVoH. As much as I've been giving out about his lack of scoring (did I hear right he only netted 4 league goals last season??? :eek: ), I think he might be just what we need to keep Spartak's defenders "occupied" throughout the game.

Back 4 - Wilson, Naylor, McManus and who knows... personally I would like to see O'Dea in there as I thought he gave a great account of himself v Milan.

Thank God Naka is back, and going on the weekend's performance, he's not in the slightest bit rusty. Suppose he's been playing all summer, hasn't had a chance to get rusty!

Boruc - don't think he'll be fit in time TBH, and even if he was, I'm not sure we should risk it. I'd be happy enough to go with Brown under the circumstances and keep Boruc for the 2nd leg.

So, come on... predictions please!

Eirebear

Rangers 3 Red star 1

Spartak 4 Celtic 2

Tjis is based on knowing practically nothing about either of the teams that we play this week..... :cool:

odonnell

Rangers 2 - Red Star 0

Spartak 2 - Celtic 1

Badabing

Rangers 2 Red Star 1

Celtic 1 Moscow 1, although a 2-1 defeat wouldn't be the end of the world.

odonnell

ziggy67 wrote:

Going over for a wedding and a wee break.

I'm from Cumbernauld.

aah nice one.

Im from Hamilton and was over for a break there with the missus. Cant say I was sorry to be coming back to Dublin though bud.

Dempsey

odonnell wrote:

to mirror eirebears comments... he had a LARGE impact south of the border mate, he won man of the match awards regularly, he was key in Sounness' team hence being CAPTAIN, and retained under Hughes. He had his knee shattered and managed to recover to a point where he DIDNT require 4 pieces of steel to remain in said knee, went straight back out and turned it on again!

Sorry mate - he had anything BUT no impact in the EPL. Just because your opinion of him isnt great doesnt mean the statistics and the MOTM performances never happened.

Souness made him captain, didnt see that one coming!

He played 36 games at Blackburn, how many MOTM's did he receive for EPL games? I want to hear these statistics of his triumphs in the EPL.

To clarify, John Kennedy shattered his kneecap, 3 years injured, Barry Ferguson broke his kneecap, not shattered, 6 months injured.

tetsujin1979

Dempsey wrote:

To clarify, John Kennedy shattered his kneecap, 3 years injured, Barry Ferguson broke his kneecap, not shattered, 6 months injured.

I remember reading somewhere that when Kennedy went to get his knee scanned, it just looked like mush. It was so messed up that they thought the machine hadn't been set correctly.

odonnell

Dempsey wrote:

Souness made him captain, didnt see that one coming!

He played 36 games at Blackburn, how many MOTM's did he receive for EPL games? I want to hear these statistics of his triumphs in the EPL.

To clarify, John Kennedy shattered his kneecap, 3 years injured, Barry Ferguson broke his kneecap, not shattered, 6 months injured.

Sorry, to play with 4 pieces of wire in your knee seems pretty severe to me and given Barry was told he had a 50/50 chance of ever playing again - id say that was severe enough to mention.

Souness made Barry captain, Hughes told Barry he was going to construct his team around him (if you dont believe it, write to Barry tell him hes a liar, then write to Hughes asking why he didnt disagree with that when the book was sent to him for proofing). Souness came in for him when he was at Newcastle again but by that point Barry was trying for a move back HOME.

Just because Trevor Brooking didnt like Ferguson, doesnt mean hes a sh*te player mate... go and look up his stats for yourself. 22 games first season, 1 goal, various MOTM's. 15 games second season after injury, 1 goal, MoTM's again... move back home because of homesickness and from being less than enamoured with the glorious EPL.

Crap player he is not...

As for your wee triumphs comment - triumphs eh? What triumphs would you have me spout off exactly? Id say he impressed more than he didnt in his time at Blackburn and it was openly said at the time that those less in the know [about the guy himself] would translate his moving home as a failure to shine.

edit - ill drop this in just incase i get accused - 11 motm awards mate, not counting fa cup etc..i think thats EPL performances alone.

Nalced_irl

Im gonna predict with my heart instead of my head:

Ran 2 Crv 0 <-Thats with the head
Cel 1 Spa 1 <-Heart all the way. Head says 2-0 Spartak

eirebhoy

Rangers 0-0 Red Star
Moscow 2-1 Celtic

odonnell

eirebhoy wrote:

Rangers 0-0 Red Star
Moscow 2-1 Celtic

you in a bad mood today or somethin eb? jaysus....show a bit of hope will yae?

eirebhoy

I'd take that Celtic scoreline now tbh.

Rangers will be typical Rangers in Europe under Wattie.

odonnell

eirebhoy wrote:

I'd take that Celtic scoreline now tbh.

Rangers will be typical Rangers in Europe under Wattie.

holy moly mate, theres just no hope is there!!?? hehe

I reckon we are in for a decent run in europe again this year. As long as the team keeps their heads up at home, we should be ok.

eirebhoy

I wasn't far off with the Rangers prediction but it went exactly how I expected. Wattie is very conservative in Europe.

PauloMN

eirebhoy wrote:

I wasn't far off with the Rangers prediction but it went exactly how I expected. Wattie is very conservative in Europe.

They were awful. I know it's unfair to judge the new signings on one game, but I don't know what Darchville brings to Rangers other than a bit of brute force. He can hold the ball well but his crosses and finishing were dreadful.

Cousin I think will be their biggest threat in the SPL. I thought he was good.

Eirebear

I dont think we were awful...as eirebhoy said, it was a typical walter smith performance in europe.
We set out to do a job and done it very well in terms of not losing an away goal, especially against one of the most cynical teams i have seen us play against in a long time.
Anytime anyone created a bit of space they were hacked down...and the referee certainly bottled it at half time.

As for JCD...im not keen either, i think cousins could be just the answer to that though!

odonnell

my thoughts on it are thus:

im giving up Rangers... theyre bad for my blood pressure.

PauloMN

Eirebear wrote:

I dont think we were awful...as eirebhoy said, it was a typical walter smith performance in europe.
We set out to do a job and done it very well in terms of not losing an away goal, especially against one of the most cynical teams i have seen us play against in a long time.
Anytime anyone created a bit of space they were hacked down...and the referee certainly bottled it at half time.

As for JCD...im not keen either, i think cousins could be just the answer to that though!

What I probably should have said was it was an awful game. Yes, they did foul quite a bit - how many yellows did they get in the end?

I would have thought Smith would have stuck Novo/Cousin on from the start to close the game off early on with a couple of goals and kept Darchville as a sub, but I suppose that's the benefit of hindsight. Going over there and trying to qualify with a 0-0 would have been a tall order, and it very nearly happened.

Ferguson looks better than he has in years I reckon, much as it pains me to say it. Looking forward to him and Brown battling it out in midfield.

eirebhoy

What's with the lack of pubs with Setanta? Forcing me to watch the match in my house.

PauloMN

Sh*tin' bricks here now... Hate the pre-CL knockout game feeling.

Hope this plastic pitch issue doesn't add to an already difficult game. There's been so many mixed reports about it.

G'wan the bhoys!

PauloMN

eirebhoy wrote:

What's with the lack of pubs with Setanta? Forcing me to watch the match in my house.

2nd leg is on BBC Scotland, confirmed yesterday:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/r/rangers/6946624.stm

So as long as your local pub has Sky and knows how to add regional channels to their "Other Channels" menu, you'll be able to enjoy a pint and the match together!

eirebhoy

Tonights team:

---

Brown

---

Wilson---Kennedy---McManus---Naylor

---

Hartley----Donati----Brown

---

---

Nakamura

---

---

Vennegoor---McDonald

---

McGeady and Miller won't play because:

“It is a sticky surface, it’s not a dribbler’s surface,” he said. “Trying to dribble on it is a problem. Sometimes you can’t get the ball from under your feet, and it wouldn’t have suited me as a player, because I liked to move the ball and have a go at people. So that is a problem we have to face.

“There is no doubt that I will have to pick the best players to suit the surface. But we’ve had a full practice match on it, because we wanted to test longer passes, so hopefully the players will have realised what you can and cannot do.”

odonnell

eirebhoy wrote:

Tonights team:

---

Brown

---

Wilson---Kennedy---McManus---Naylor

---

Hartley----Donati----Brown

---

---

Nakamura

---

---

Vennegoor---McDonald

---

McGeady and Miller won't play because:

“It is a sticky surface, it’s not a dribbler’s surface,” he said. “Trying to dribble on it is a problem. Sometimes you can’t get the ball from under your feet, and it wouldn’t have suited me as a player, because I liked to move the ball and have a go at people. So that is a problem we have to face.

“There is no doubt that I will have to pick the best players to suit the surface. But we’ve had a full practice match on it, because we wanted to test longer passes, so hopefully the players will have realised what you can and cannot do.”

Am i the only one here who doesnt buy into that at ALL?

Ive played on all surfaces and im sorry - if im good enough to be a professional and get paid £15k a week - ill play on quicksand if you like.

McGeady isnt playing because he contributes hee-haw and Chesney knows it. Miller....well.... maybe Chesney wants goals tonight.

eirebhoy

odonnell wrote:

Am i the only one here who doesnt buy into that at ALL?

Ive played on all surfaces and im sorry - if im good enough to be a professional and get paid £15k a week - ill play on quicksand if you like.

Not at all. Strachan isn't lying to us. There's a lot of rubber in this surface and it causes the ball to drag. It's not suited to McGeady. McGeady's miles better than any wide players at Rangers. On form he contributes plenty.

Anyway, psychology is playing the biggest part in this match so far. We looked really confident after scoring and Spartak didn't know what to do. As soon as they score I feared we'd concede about 10 more before half time.

eirebhoy

That'll do. Pity Brown didn't score that late chance after an excellent through ball from McGeady.

Badabing

Good result, why oh why do we play so deep all the time away from home in europe tho! We should go through now.

eirebhoy

The reason we sit deep away from home is because Strachan is a tactical coach rather than a big motivator. You can tell a team not to sit back but you'd probably need a Martin O'Neill speech and Alex Ferguson's hair dryer to get your point across. You can be sure if Chelsea were to play in Milan, Barcelona, Madrid, etc. they'd be sitting back for most of the game. That's a valid comparison as Spartak are about our level.

Anyway, if they keep getting the results I'll be happy for them to put in performances like that away from home.

Badabing

eirebhoy wrote:

The reason we sit deep away from home is because Strachan is a tactical coach rather than a big motivator. You can tell a team not to sit back but you'd probably need a Martin O'Neill speech and Alex Ferguson's hair dryer to get your point across.

Anyway, if they keep getting the results I'll be happy for them to put in performances like that away from home.

Yeah absolutley! I think we have the energy and drive in midfield this season to win a champions league away match this year, hit teams on the counter like a benfica or a porto did to us.

PauloMN

odonnell wrote:

Am i the only one here who doesnt buy into that at ALL?

Ive played on all surfaces and im sorry - if im good enough to be a professional and get paid £15k a week - ill play on quicksand if you like.

McGeady isnt playing because he contributes hee-haw and Chesney knows it. Miller....well.... maybe Chesney wants goals tonight.

Have to disagree entirely with both points. That surface looked very awkward to play on, the bounce of the ball was different to grass and the roll of the ball was different. It was even obvious from the telly, it must have been tough for Celtic to get used to.

Not that it'll be an issue for the final of course, they'll have the grass out by then.

As for McGeady - even the few minutes he was on tonight he turned the game. To say he offers hee-haw is crazy. He offers pace, he draws players onto himself, he gets free kicks, he can run around defenders and put in some cracking passes/crosses. He put an absolute peach into Brown which should have been converted.

Great result overall, well happy with a draw, and importantly, an away goal. I'm very confident we'll get through the tie now once we're at home and on a decent pitch.

I was delighted with McDonald, absolutely delighted with him. Always said he was a superb buy, and to be thrown into a European game as his competitive debut and play like that says a lot about the guy. Superb stuff, will score a lot in the SPL I think.

Fair play to Hartley, much as I give out about him, he had a great game. Hopefully it's the confidence booster he needs.

Erin Go Brath

Good result! We now have to be strong favourites to make it through.

I only saw the first half unfortunately, damn work :mad:

What I did see I was impressed. McDonald was class, and Brown, our world class midfielder of course, plus McManus who is up there with the Jamie Carraghers of the world imo.

I think it shows the team is evolving, that we are able to hold our own away in Europe, in what was a tricky tie. The encouraging thing was although Spartak had most of the possesion, we looked solid, apart from the slack defending which lead to their goal. I look forward to the return leg, and hope we give it a right go to seal our place in the group stage.

eirebhoy

PauloMN wrote:

I was delighted with McDonald, absolutely delighted with him. Always said he was a superb buy, and to be thrown into a European game as his competitive debut and play like that says a lot about the guy. Superb stuff, will score a lot in the SPL I think.

Mark McGhee was living with Strachan for a while this summer. He said Strachan has been raving about McDonald.

A Dub in Glasgo

Excellent result, looking forward to the return leg. What a miss from brown!

http://img125.imageshack.us/img125/940/571256biglandscapetf6to9.jpg

eirebhoy

http://i13.tinypic.com/4lnworo.gif

Dempsey

odonnell wrote:

Sorry, to play with 4 pieces of wire in your knee seems pretty severe to me and given Barry was told he had a 50/50 chance of ever playing again - id say that was severe enough to mention.

Plenty players in the past and present have had that surgery done, its not a big deal these days.

Souness made Barry captain, Hughes told Barry he was going to construct his team around him (if you dont believe it, write to Barry tell him hes a liar, then write to Hughes asking why he didnt disagree with that when the book was sent to him for proofing). Souness came in for him when he was at Newcastle again but by that point Barry was trying for a move back HOME.

Yea, good man, i'll definitely be writing to him!:rolleyes: Maybe because Blackburn had awful players then and he was one of the decent ones left, plus the fee spent on the player mean that selling him at a cut price whilst recovering from injury was very bad for business

Just because Trevor Brooking didnt like Ferguson, doesnt mean hes a sh*te player mate... go and look up his stats for yourself. 22 games first season, 1 goal, various MOTM's. 15 games second season after injury, 1 goal, MoTM's again... move back home because of homesickness and from being less than enamoured with the glorious EPL.

I couldn't give a flying F what Brooking thinks and according to the bbc and footballdatabase.com, he made 15 in his first season and 22 in the 2nd when he was fit again before running back to Glasgow. Is your memory blurred?

Crap player he is not...

Where in my post did I call him a crap player? I said dont rate this "impact " you describe for Blackburn in the EPL. Souness is the same lad that bought Jean-Alain Boumsong for a outrageous fee that was later investigated by the FA. Ever hear of favouitism?

As for your wee triumphs comment - triumphs eh? What triumphs would you have me spout off exactly? Id say he impressed more than he didnt in his time at Blackburn and it was openly said at the time that those less in the know [about the guy himself] would translate his moving home as a failure to shine.

He only moved from Glasgow to Lancashire and he got homesickness? You call it homesickness, i'll call it failure to handle the demands of a better league. Two half season's at best, and you think he made it in the EPL, pffft. Blackburn were always struggling then too.

edit - ill drop this in just incase i get accused - 11 motm awards mate, not counting fa cup etc..i think thats EPL performances alone.

Show me your source on that one because your statistics have been arseways so far.

odonnell

[EDIT]: i did answer you in full mate, but upon re-reading your post, its obvious youre no more than a celtic-fan out to berate a very good player, and for no good reason other than to have a snide dig. You make very immature points, if you could call them that, and sorry to say, to question a mans reasons for moving home is a very ignorant thing to do when it involved his family not settling in England. That proves to me you know nothing about this guy therefore you cant be worth continuing this discussion with.

Ill gladly pick it up with anyone else here if they fancy.... eirebear where are you

~~~~~~~~~

Good result for the hoops last night eh? i didnae see the match but id assume spartak were a handful? How many bookings did they get last night out of interest - our hatchett team got 7, and now theyve got Alan Hutton crying about it to the papers. Disgusting way to play football though, playing for the foul and the dive...

MON THE SPARTAK!! heh

Celtic67

Hi Guys,
I'm over to the Hearts game on Saturday week. I normally do the Bairds/Gallowgate thing before and after the match when travelling with the lads, however, I am bringing the woman with me this time round. Do you have suggestions where to go for a few pints and a bit of craic in the City after the game on Saturday night? Any decent Irish bars with music (I am staying in Jury's on Jamaica Street).

Cheers

odonnell

Failte on St Vincent street mate.

Its never too rowdy in there and Eirebear and myself used to drink in there as the accepted bears so you should have no bother.

eirebhoy

Yep, Eirebear says he used to work in Failte. I was there once and it's decent.