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AH GO ON, GO ON, GO ON,
GO ON
January 4th 2009 I said yesterday morning that Celtic would have to improve on their Ibrox performance if they were to beat in-form Dundee United and although their performance was much improved it was still not good enough to win the match. The Celts could and should have had the game wrapped up at half-time because although they went in one goal up, Samaras, Brown and Robson all missed clear cut chances to score. Celtic played some great football in that first-half but it was peppered with mistakes as the ball was given away on countless occasions with slack passes from just about every single player, it was the same as it had been at Ibrox in that respect. Scott Brown was immense in the first-half but still managed to give the ball away on at least three occasions. I said at half-time that we would pay the penalty for those missed chances and unfortunately that was the case in the end. United came out at the start of the second-half and immediately looked like they meant business, their only real goal attempt before the break had produced a superb save from Boruc which the referee saw as a goal-kick anyway. Every time the visitors came forward they looked like they would score and when Samaras scored his and Celtic's second goal it was against the run of play. The Bhoys were all over the place at the back and continued to hand the ball to their opponents, even Boruc threw it out directly to a United player. The visitors pulled a goal back from a well taken free-kick which had been awarded after a lunge by Stephen McManus on Gomis but yet again it had been a slack pass by a Celtic player which had forced McManus to make the challenge. The Tangerines levelled the scores with about twelve minutes to go and although both sides had several chances including efforts cleared off the line a draw was a fair result. Although it was two points dropped by the Champions it was one of the more entertaining games of the season so far and credit is due to Craig Levein's men for their part in it. Listening to the radio when travelling home last night I thought the BBC seemed to be making a big deal about Gordon Strachan walking away from an interview with reporter Kenny McIntyre. The reporter had asked Strachan if Aiden McGeady had a future at the club and the Celtic boss told him that everyone at the club had a future there. McIntyre ignored that answer and continued to ask questions about McGeady (almost in the style of Father Ted character Mrs Doyle asking if you'd like a cup of tea) claiming that the Celtic fans wanted to know - have you become the spokesman for the Celtic fans Kenny? The Bhoys' gaffer answered one more question on McGeady then said he was here to talk about today's game not a particular player but yet again the reporter came back with another one about the Celtic winger before Strachan simply walked off. On last night's phone-in Chic Young was trying to defend McIntyre for asking the question and even claimed he would have asked Strachan the same question himself but Chic, there is a difference between asking the question once (and being given a perfectly reasonable answer) and being asked it three times particularly when the interview is supposed to be about the ninety minutes ahead. Some callers to the programme described Strachan as out of order, rude and ignorant but he was stoutly defended by others. McIntyre will know of course that he has been used by his superiors to try to get a reaction from Strachan that will create either a story or a topic for their phone-in programme and failure to bow to his superiors would lead him back to reading the sports headlines or reading out the emails and texts, they even got him to ask Georgios Samaras after the game if he thought Celtic missed Aiden in the team! (Sammy declined to give his opinion). Most people will remember when novice BBC reporter John Barnes had agreed prior to an interview with Dundee United's Jim McLean not to ask a particular question but when the cameras were rolling he asked the question (again probably due to pressure from his superiors) and wee Jim landed a blow on Barnes and eventually ended up resigning. There are some people who regard BBC reporters as being of a higher standard than your gutter press reporter.
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