Boro announce Southgate’s successor days after everyone already knew about it! Expect post match interviews at the Riverside to be far more fun from now on.
The Wembley Cup came to an end yesterday and Tony Mowbray’s Celtic side won the tournament after a fairly straightforward victory over Spurs. Two noteworthy asides. Great goal by Georgios Samaras and the repeated booing of Alan Hutton for being a former Rangers man.
It took a while but the vacancy has now been filled!
Celtic have confirmed Tony Mowbray as their new manager after a deal was concluded with West Brom. Mowbray arrives from the club relegated from the Premier League in England along with assistant Mark Venus and first-team coach Peter Grant. Present Celtic coach Neil Lennon will remain as part of the Scottish Premier League club’s management team. Mowbray, who becomes the 16th manager of Celtic, will speak at a media conference at 1000 BST on Wednesday. The Glasgow club at the weekend agreed to pay the £2m in compensation demanded by West Brom, with a Celtic source insisting that it would not reduce money available for new players.(BBC Sport)
Right man for the job? Or simply number seven on the club’s wishlist? Tony Mowbray did well to get his West Bromwich Albion side promoted to the Premier League and at least it can be said that his sides do play good football, but would he have been considered as ‘good enough’ for the post if he didn’t have links to the club from his playing career at Parkhead? I am not so sure! For freshness and on current managerial form Roberto Martinez would have been a better bet but at least Tony Adams was not considered! Have Messrs Reid, Lawell and Desmond opted for familiarity over invention?
Despite complaining for most of his loan spell, Celtic have clinched the signing of Manchester City’s out-of-favour Greek striker. [Read the rest of this entry »]
It looks like one of Mark Hughes’ first acts as Man City manager will be to rubber stamp the exit of this truly rancid striker. [Read the rest of this entry »]
After making it publicly known that he does not want to return to Eastlands, Manchester City’s on-loan striker is more than likely to stay at Celtic, but not if Lazio have anything to do with it.
After a successful loan spell at Celtic Park, Gordon Strachan was very keen to make Georgios Samaras’ deal permanent, as the Bhoys look to keep the title out of the reach of Old Firm rivals Rangers. However, news has come from Italy that Lazio are interested in the 23-year-old.
The Biancocelesti are looking to seal their second Manchester City striker, after they took Rolando Bianchi from Eastlands in January. Lazio president Claudio Lotito spoke to the Daily Record:
Samaras is a player we’re considering and we’ll see what happens. I can confirm we’re actively trying to sign a striker and hope to secure a deal for one any day soon.
Samaras, who netted 5 goals in his spell in the SPL, has stressed that he wants to be a first-choice striker wherever he plays, with the Greek finding himself on the bench a few times at Celtic. Perhaps he would rather take his chances at the Olympic Stadium in Rome?
It’s only that his name is Gordon Strachan that we might still believe that he is serious. Otherwise, if it had been any other person, who would have said that Celtic would have overturned their 3-2 deficit against FC Barcelona at Camp Nou on Tuesday evening, you could have been pardoned to be placed in a lunatic asylum.
Barca won the second leg 1-0 to catwalk through to the last 8 of the UEFA Champions League, although the 3rd minute goal by Xavi Hernandez effectively killed off the tie. Now Celtic manager Gordon Strachan says that the Scots might well have had a chance of an unlikely upset should they have not conceded so early.
For them to score the first goal without us really touching the ball was a body blow and we had to get over that.
We had players who played well tonight. I thought back four were excellent. Sno came on and did well, Samaras and Nakamura.
We had a lot of good performances tonight. In the second half we created chances, but couldn’t pull it off.
We feel that we could have scored goals, but the first half and goal was a body blow.
I thought the back four was excellent. It was just a pity we let that goal in right away which killed the tie.
Sorry to hurt any Celtic fan but even if Barca hadn’t scored that early in the match at Camp Nou, they would have still won the tie. It’s as simple as that!
To anyone with sense, Scottish giants Celtic are dead in the water as far as this season’s UEFA Champions League is concerned. The Old Firm side were defeated 3-2 by mighty FC Barcelona in the first leg of their last 16 tie at Parkhead a fortnight ago, and play the Catalans at the Camp Nou on Tuesday night.
However, Celtic manager Gordon Strachan is not ready to lose hope although he does hint that winning at the Camp Nou would be tough to say the least. He says:
You always want to win every game for your pride, it’s a big thing in football. We are angry that we lost the first leg although we understand that we played against a great side. We want to leave Barcelona players and fans with a good impression of us, that’s what we are going to try and do.Hopefully the Nou Camp does inspire the players. There is nothing wrong with a bit of fear sometimes – it can push you on to greater things. I hope that we have a fear to get the ball back when they have it and stop them playing and then when we get the ball back have no fear whatsoever, to hold on to the ball more and be braver when we have possession.Hopefully that might do us.
But somehow you cannot even imagine Celtic winning at the Camp Nou. Honestly, Barca are just too, too strong for them.
anonymous802761 wrote on Ryan Giggs Signs New Man United Contract (1):Dont want to say it but I think he should of retired at the nd of this season,hes been poor for the last couple of seasons by his standard. Until Giggs Scholes (again) retire we...
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