SUBS –
Daizen Maeda looks on from the dug out during the Scottish Premiership match between Celtic and St. Johnstone at Celtic Park on December 29, 2024. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
Daizen Maeda scores the fourth goal during the Scottish Premiership match between Celtic and St. Johnstone at Celtic Park on December 29, 2024. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
LORD KATSUMOTO – 6.5/10 – Can you hear the screaming? Hush, Tav. It’ll be all over soon enough. A mercurial Maeda emerges from a period of stunted displays to a cameo today, and drops right into classic Daizeminem mode. Roasting defenders, fizzing crosses, netting with finesse; looking rested and rampant. Take a valium, Tavpen, and pray to your dark gods.
Let’s go to the next game!💪🔥 https://t.co/9xUtFjB6Dy
— 前田 大然 Daizen Maeda (@M_daizen_1020) December 29, 2024
James Tavernier of theRangers (Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
Callum McGregor applauds the fans at the end of the Scottish Premiership match between Celtic and St. Johnstone at Celtic Park on December 29, 2024. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
CALMAC – 6/10 – On he came, took the armband and took control. Played some lovely exhibition stuff and close
to assisting.
DUNCAN IDAHO – 6/10 – A useful 20 minutes for the big lhad to get an edge for Thursday’s inevitable involvement. Rustled well, showed some decent ability, foiled for a tap-in only by a great defensive clearance.
TONY THE TIGER – 6/10 – Robust best describes Tony in the December cold. Deputied well for AJ through the month, capped it off today with solid input. Good focus on not firing his crosses onto London Road.
HIGHLAND TOFFEE – 6/10 – A surprising absentee but no worries about his commitment – could have scored twice in his allotted time; denied by a good save.
THE NOTAPRODDYGAL – 7.5/10 – Riddle me this – what causes more festive headaches than a Green fairy (Absinthe), Creme De Menthe and Buckie Xmas cocktail? Answer – two four-zip wins and a defence and midfield bursting with in-form eager personnel, all vying for a bite at the trembling throats of the Zombies. A fine job of shuffling and re-shuffling got him over the Xmas hump with 7 points and no goals conceded, whilst extending
our lead to a title-winning 14 points. Now for the tricky bit. And I don’t mean his attempts to ‘turn’ the angry lesbian he was in opposition with on the sidelines today. No, I mean the difficult job of facing the Scottish press hacks on Thursday evening, and trying not to laugh…
“Not bad for a team that doesn’t play attacking football” 😉
Celtic have been near flawless in 2024 😤#BBCFootball pic.twitter.com/lYBQXQFtND
— BBC Sport Scotland (@BBCSportScot) December 29, 2024
MIBBERY – 3/10 – Eh, one minute then four minutes added time? Despite the demonstrative show of the watch on multiple occasions as St.Johnstone players exhibited the urgency of billionaire investors to pump ‘mullyins’ into the Govan money pit. Meanwhile, over in time-forgotten Lanarkshire their brethren are letting the Zombies play on until the second coming of Henrik. No worries, however – only irritation at pointless VAR checks for non-existent goal ‘offsides’. An emergency cabal summit will be required to get themselves out of this nightmare come the New Year. We’ll see what they come up with on Thursday; their last chance saloon.
🍀 Celtic extended their lead at the top of the table to 14 points with a 4-0 win over St Johnstone and round off 2024 having lost just two games within the calendar year ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/a5YhIcaUMc
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) December 29, 2024
OVERALL – 7.5/10 – A game of Celtic team bingo was in order today. AJ to return from the grizzly maze? Greggs
burnt the rolls? Would Calmac really not be let out the twins nursery, up to his stinky elbows in nappies? So it was with the derby obviously in mind, the Celtic Symphony set about composing a Xmas overture without the conductor on the park. And it was a stormer. Swept them away with surging powerful bass moments, uplifting strings had bums off seats, and Kyogo pinged the triangle twice just for yuks. But you can’t have an end of year party without a bit of a laugh, so felicitations to the Zombies for piping in the schadenfreude hilarity and keeping folk warm with calculations as to when this title’s mathematically ours. Valentine’s Day, probably…
Brendan Rodgers at the end of the Scottish Premiership match between Celtic and St. Johnstone at Celtic Park on December 29, 2024. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
And that’s an end to THE most successful Celtic year in a CENTURY.
Of our LIVES.
Well, not Alex Rae’s – but that’ll be calculated when his biopic ‘Nosferatu’ hits cinemas next week. As for us, you might think it can only be downhill from here. Not so. Feels like a beginning – not an end – of a levelling-up of Celtic toward a status we’ve coveted for decades; a team that can stick its face into the meat-grinder of the Champions League and come out mostly unscathed; a few scrapes and a rash but ready and willing to go again and succeed.
So raise a glass to the Bhoys – and to yourselves for ploughing through this definitive phish week after week and three times on a good one. Will see you the other side of midnight. Drifting on a raft made of the abandoned funny bones of those who live to hate, floating on the tethered gaseous black souls of warped bigots in slaver-empire-blue, adrift on a river of smoothest Guinness, punted along aimlessly by my cloaked AI zombie replicant of big Belgian Waffler Phil while it hums, ‘Son of a Preacher Man.’
Slainte, have a good one.
Go Away Now
Sandman
Celtic in the Thirties by Celtic Historian Matt Corr is published in two volumes by Celtic Star Books. ORDER NOW WHILE STOCKS LAST!
Have a good one yirsell, Sandman. Loving your work.