Disappointing in Edinburgh, but still on target. Crowd Control needs sorted.

[Joe O'Rourke]

Saturday at Easter Road was disappointing, we seemed to suffer a bit from a lack of energy, which I suppose was the downside of a great performance on Wednesday night against Atletico Madrid, I also doesn’t help when the opposition don’t want to play to win, but just to make sure they don’t lose. That means that our players are doing all the work, while Hib’s sit in with two banks of four entwined into a flat back eight at times. Reo Hatate is also a big loss from our midfield, but we need to be able to deal with him being out, and I’m sure with more games Paulo Bernardo will be able to fill that void. It was also a loss when Ali Johnston went off, again Big Tony hasn’t played much recently, and hopefully AJ will be back on Wednesday night against St Mirren.

If we get the three points versus St Mirren on Wednesday night, we will be at least five points clear after the first quarter of the season, I suppose that’s a decent position to be in after eleven games, although it should really be maximum points. We must also consider the fixtures for the first quarter, which you could argue wasn’t kind to Celtic. We have played away to Ibrox, Aberdeen, Motherwell, Livingston, and both Edinburgh Clubs, so obviously we play all of them at home in the second quarter. Looking further ahead, I believe we will strengthen the playing squad in the January transfer window, and with a healthy bank account, we can invest in quality, if we can manage to identify and convince quality players to come to Glasgow, then we should be much stronger going into the New Year.

The festive fixtures have thrown us another away game on Boxing Day, that will be seven years in a row we’ve been sent away from home on the first game after Christmas, that’s hard to understand, I’ve been told by Neil Doncaster that everything reverses itself, so if we play Sevco at New Year this season, we will play them away next season, so why doesn’t the Boxing Day fixtures do the same? I certainly don’t think anyone within authority in Scottish Football is playing fair with Celtic. Saturday at Easter Road showed another example of that with the match referee Alan Muir, this guy is known to the Celtic Support as the main culprit in doing Celtic out of a treble with the worst denial of a penalty in history. The man is a “Blatant Cheat” and he’s not alone !!!!

Away from the football side in Edinburgh, once again the Celtic Support were treated like second hand citizen’s and criminals before the game at Easter Road, unless the Police and Stewards start to get their house in order in terms of “Crowd Control” a Celtic Supporter is going to be seriously injured, of even worse. We have continued to complain about the way those in control handle the big crowds that Celtic bring to every away match, but they continue to make the same mistakes, and one of the major mistakes is the use of mounted police, there is hardly room for humans without adding horses. I have already spoken to Michael Nicholson and hope to meet with him in the next day or so. We also need an explanation from Police Scotland, and from Hibernian FC. There have been many occasions in recent years regarding managing supporters entering a stadium, the only place that seems to get it right, is Aberdeen, no horses, no massive police presence, just a well thought out and executed crowd control policy, more clubs should follow their lead.

Glasgow’s still Green & White.