kennie makevin

"European football's something Ange can't explain...."

Imagine the media shit storm if Robbie Neilson (or indeed any other manager in Scotland other than Van Bronkhorst)had said the same thing substituting 'Celtic away' for 'Hearts away'. Through intense pressure from papers and broadcasters Neilson would have been hauled before the SFA for bringing the game into disrepute. However, the establishment club and their rude, classless and , in Europe, utterly inept manager, are free to spread their bile, poison and paranoia throughout Scottish football and Scottish society unfettered.

Well, he's far and away the best manager in Scotland so he more than deserves the spotlight.

Holy Cow !! I think I've been trolled by a 'HughKeevinsalike'. More fool me but it just seemed so believable, so logical . And of course it's not as if Hugh Keevins has any kind of track record of telling lies about the Old Firm. A thousand aplogies. Oh well, European humiliation again for Celtic next season then. Could have been so different. Neil at Lennoxtown in the week of Bayern coming to Celtic Park, cracking open a case of Magners and belting out a verse or two of 'The Merry Ploughboy' while organising the bus and how to park it. Never mind, we can but dream.

Big Ange to do what Big Ange does best....dishing out meaningless scuddings to teams with a fraction of the resources at his disposal. He Never Stops.

You'll need a new manager for that. And it may well be happening. According to Hugh Keevins, "talks between Neil Lennon and the Celtic board are 'at an advanced stage' for the ex-Parkhead favourite to return in a 'European Consultancy' role, which will in effect have Lennon taking charge of the team in European competition freeing up Postegoclu to focus 'laser like' on securing a domestic double treble."

My head's in a spin trying to keep up with the 'Celtic family's' take on Mr Lennon. Use to be that the mildest bit of criticism of Neil would lead you to be accused of being a hysterical anti-Catholic bigot who had such a problem with Irish people that you'd throw your daughter down the stairs (providing you didn't live in a bungalow) if she brought home someone called Seamus. Now if you try and send a little compliment or two Mr Lennon's way you're a 'moonhowler'. Come on bhoys , a wee bit of consistency please.

Why would I try to troll the terminally humourless that constitutes your average Old Firm supporter ? I'm merely pointing out the blindingly obvious about the Celtic manager and, in a spirit of genuine concern, putting forward one, albeit radical, solution. If you lack the decency to accept my offer of help with the respect in which it was offered to you then I can but apologise. However, if you think Postegoclu can lead Celtic anywhere other then down the plughole of European irrelevancy then, parhaps, you should take a step back and learn a bit about football !!

The conundrum that confronts the Celtic board going forward is that they now have two managers. There's Ange Postegoclu - Big Ange, Inventor of 'Ange Ball', slayer of 'the 10', serial trophy winner, undisputed master of Scottish football - and then there's Ange Postegoclu - inflexible rabbit caught in the European headlights, unable or unwilling to change tactics against continental opposition, serial loser in Europe, the undisputed donkey of European football. So which one do they stick with. ? It's a toughy alright. There is, as someone pointed out, a treble to be won, a feat that would reverberate around the football world and which Ange Postegoclu, with his trusty Angeball will surely deliver. However that means the doppleganger of disaster called Ange Postegoclu would also stick around to lead the 'bhoys' ever further into the European wilderness. Maybe the answer is to retain Angeball for domestic duties, but replace Ange Postegoclu for European competition with a personality more suited, more seasoned, more successful , in the specific demands of the European stage. Step forward Celtic's new 'European Nights' manager - Mr Neil Lennon !!!

Of course it was. You've a manager who seems incapable, over the course of two seasons, of adapting his team to European football. We all had a jolly good giggle at Van Bronkhorst but his European record while manager of Rangers is better than Postegoclu at Celtic.

Oh come on now, you really think you should be getting rid of big Ange. ?? After all he did in stopping 'the 2".

That was only when the cup winners had also won the league so went into the Champions Cup. As was the case in 1971 when Celtic won the double and Rangers as beaten cup finalists went in the CWC, which they won.

Admirable sentiments ! Keep up the good work.

I support or want to support a decent, healthy, competitive Scottish football set-up but due to the existence of two vile institutions who have peddled religious division and secterian tribalism as a business model for a century that doesn't seem possible. And it's not a grudge against Glasgow Celtic and Glasgow Rangers. It's just that they are two football clubs who thrive on a fanbase of bigots. I happen to find that repulsive. Sorry if that bores you. But I certainly won't take orders from a Celtic or Rangers fan. Give me some credit. !!

And neither being the country they play in. !

Oh, that's alright then. !

I wouldn't say he was that wonderful. Gordon always too eager to scramble on the 'Celtic/Rangers reaching the group stages of the CL is great for Scottish football' bandwagon of utter shite for my liking.

Celtic will win this game with pointless ease, emphasis on will.

..........and don't like the look of each other

Good man. It should be incumbent on all managers of the non-sectarian clubs to highlight the financial disparity whenever they play the Old Firm, regardless of the result. We know that Sportsound, Clyde, the papers are only interested in financial fairplay when the bigots get horsed in Europe and won't mention it in a domestic contex. But it needs bringing up constantly in order to correctly deligitimise any so called Celtic or Rangers 'acheivement'. On this topic the rest of us should 'never stop !!'

You're 'memes' , if that's what they're called, need to be less opaque for simpletons like myself . Not just me but our good friend Lionsof67 thought you were dissing Mr Lennon with the use of the eyebrow raising Gif (parhaps that's what they're called). Anyway there is plenty I might take issue with regarding Neil Lennon but not his record as a Celtic manager in Europe. He certainly didn't display the naivety of the current incumbent who through either stubbornness or stupidity seems to think that what works so effortlessly for Celtic in Scotland will do the same for them in Europe despite an ever increasing body of evidence to the contrary .

To suggest that in the season that a Celtic manager gets them into the knock out stages of the Champions League he cannot (for that season alone - not in perpetuity) be classed as a Champions League level manager is the kind of nonsense that a rabid anti-Celtic zealot like myself might come up with. That such a devout keeper of the scrolls of Celtic faith as Jinky 67 is the one to espouse such defamation stuns me, shocks me, leaves me questioning the very foundations of all I hold true. Jinky is a heretic (with the emphasis on 'tic'). Roll Over Brother Walfrid and Tell Willie Maley The News. !!!

Regardless of how they turned out when time and the changing power structure of European football caught up with them, in the seasons that Strachan & Lennon got Celtic out of the CL group stages they merited being classed a Champions League level manager. How they turned out is not the point here. Celtic, for example were a Champions League level side in those years, they clearly are not now.

At the time when he took Celtic out of the group stages, of course he was. For whatever season that was. The boy done good , as they say on the streets of Linlithgow.

So you'd have to say if you're being generous that Gordon Strachan and Neil Lennon fulfilled that criteria and, if only for a short period, were of Champions League standard. Parhaps there is an argument for Martin but not sure of any other Celtic manager in the CL era.