Another good display in Paisley yesterday. Peter Lawwell deserves respect, not abuse. New parking rules at the stadium.

[Joe O'Rourke]

Great result and all round display yesterday lunchtime against the Paisley Globetrotters, that’s what we are getting every game now, an opposition team full of giants, the ball was in the air yesterday so much, that we should have had an air traffic controller in charge, not a football referee, although that description of the match official is stretching it a bit, ably abetted by serial cheat Steven McLean on VAR. there were three decent shouts for a penalty yesterday, two were looked at by McLean, the first one for about ten seconds, which looked like a stonewaller, the second for a bit longer, and the third didn’t merit a look, all three were denied, so much for Willie Collum sorting out match officials, nothing has changed so far. It will be interesting who get’s the gig next weekend in the Glasgow Derby, do they want the Deid Club to go five points behind after four games?

I thought the midfield three did very well yesterday, Callum and Reo were outstanding, and I thought Paulo Bernardo did very well in his first start of the season, three victories, nine goals scored, and none conceded, doesn’t get much better than that, it will of course be better after next Sunday’s game. It a bit strange to not have Matt O’Riley in the team, Matt has been a brilliant player for Celtic these last 30 months, and all the Celtic Support wish him well in the English Premier League, although not joining one of the recognised top teams, he’s joining a Brighton team that play his style of football, and if he continues his Celtic form down south, I’m pretty sure he will move again to one of the top teams in Europe.

I was reasonably sure Matt would leave in this window, and certainly if a team met our valuation of him, and he was happy to go. I think this was sown last season when Matt signed an extension to his contract, Celtic then held all the aces, and with our financial stability, we didn’t need to sell, but if he would have been going into his final year, he would have had all the aces, so fair play to Big Matt, although only with us a relatively short time, he will always been welcomed back to Celtic Park, I’m sure it won’t be too long, probably at one of our upcoming Champions League matches at Celtic Park, so hopefully we get a good draw on Thursday teatime, and we see Big Matt back at the home of the Champions, so he can receive the grateful thanks of our massive support.

I said last week that Celtic Chairman Peter Lawwell had absolutely nothing to do with transfers at Celtic, that is handled by CEO Michael Nicholson, and CFO Chris McKay, and overseen by our major shareholder Dermot Desmond. So why do some of our supporters continue to give him abuse? Peter Lawwell is probably the most successful CEO in European Football, even the great Barcelona team never won five trebles, or did they win 15 out of 20 League Titles. When Peter Lawwell joined Celtic we were about £20 million in debt, and had lost almost £40 million on player trading, since then we have made a profit of around £230 million from player trading, and have in excess of £100 million in the bank. I don’t want to go on too much, but I bet the Sevconians would love someone as successful as Peter Lawwell, but alas for them, Peter Lawwell is Celtic to his core, and deserves respect from our support, not abuse.

Another sinister situation in Paisley yesterday, after coming out of the stadium I noticed a lot of cars with parking tickets on them, the cars were parked on street where they normally do at the stadium. There has never been a problem with parking there in previous seasons, so why yesterday, did the Paisley Council decide to give their parking attendant’s double time to ticket cars because it was Celtic supporter’s cars? I know for a fact, that St Mirren played Hibs, and their two European ties, there were no parking restrictions in place, so why yesterday? Normally anything new being implemented would be shared through Celtic’s SLO John Paul Taylor, I got an email with information regarding yesterday’s match, there was no mention of different parking restrictions, I tried to contact JP this morning, but haven’t managed to get hold of him as yet.
Glasgow’s still Green & White.