December Update
Fixtures
Celtic 3-0 Aberdeen (McGeady, Verratti, Brown)
Celtic 2-0 Sevilla (Fortuné, Maloney)
Motherwell 4-3 Celtic (Samaras, Samaras, Fortuné)
Hearts 0-2 Celtic (Caldwell (pen), Samaras)
Celtic 3-0 Hamilton (Samaras, Maloney, Femenia)
Celtic 3-0 Kilmarnock (Kadlec, Verratti, Verratti)
Did well in every single game; only conceded against Motherwell... When it rains, it pours. Solid defending has been the hallmark of December; terrific goalkeeping and Caldwell and Otamendi, my defenders of choice, work well together. Verratti and Samaras have been on fire, though had Maloney played all the games it might've been even better. The idiot got sent off again against St. Mirren in November and got a two match ban.
Competitions
Second place isn't too bad, but Motherwell's too close and Rangers too far ahead. First game in January is against Rangers at Park Head. Hopefully we'll be able to close in on them.
Players
Player of the Month - Samaras. He's scored plenty after Lukaku got injured.
Young Player of the Month - Verratti. McGeady picked up a knock earlier, though only out for 6 days, thus allowing Verratti into the first team.
Injuries
Daniel Aquino's out for up to a week, whilst McGeady may miss the game against Rangers.
Miscellaneous & News
Charles Webb is thought to be bringing in a big name, as he was quoted, when drunk, that he'd spent 10 million pounds on someone. This is in addition to several other players coming in. Several people are wondering where the money's coming from. When asked Charles Webb said it was from the Adelard Cunin Foundation, an Irish-American business group (Check wikipedia for Adelard Cunin!).
St. Mirren are currently being taken over by a consortium of businessmen. Will the club be given enough money to bring in some needed players?
Charles Webb won the Manager of the Month award, Richard Towell came third in Young Player of the Month in the Scottish Second Division, Samaras was voted Second Best Player of the Month and Misun third best Young Player of the Month.
Zacharie Boucher was allowed a leave to go back to France. When asked to comment Mr. Webb replied "apparently Tennents wasn't good enough for the boy, so he was allowed to go on an extended leave to Bordeaux."
Charles Webb was asked whether Scottish football was on the rise, as Scotland now has as many teams in the Champions League as England. To this he replied that "it's always a bonus for the [Scottish] sport as a whole that we've got two teams through. Rangers have got a tough game ahead; inter should knock them out, whereas we actually can win against Porto to take us through to the next round."
League Table and Champions League Draw
January Update
Transfers
In
Adem Ljajic £4M (Partizan)
Ki Sung-Yong £1.7M (Seoul)
Simone Dell'Agnello £1.8M (Inter)
Colin Porteous £250K (Airdrie United)
Gareth Bale £10M (Tottenham Hotspur)
In (July)
Mikel San Jose Free (Liverpool)
Gaël Kakuta Free (Chelsea)
Ignacio Camacho Free (Atletico Madrid)
Pietro Iemmello Free (Fiorentina)
Dodô £1.1M (Corinthians)
Out
Ben Hutchinson £450K (Blackpool)
Danny Fox £2M (Blackburn)
Zheng Zhi £1.5M (Standard)
Out (July)
Mark Brown Free (Swansea)
Cillian Sheridan Free(Nottingham Forest)
Charlie Grant Free (Morton)
Paul McGowan Free (Morton)
A few youngsters went out on loan, and Darren O'Dea returned from Reading. Very happy with my free transfers, didn't have much money left but got lots of good youngsters on my shortlists, so got updates the second they had 6 months left!
Fixtures (League Cup in green, Scottish
Cup in cyan)
Celtic 1-0 Rangers (Kadlec)
Wick Academy 0-5 Celtic (Kadlec, Kadlec, Kadlec, Ljajic, Dell'Agnello)
Celtic 4-1 Falkirk (Brown, Brown, Fortuné, Fortuné)
St. Johnstone 0-2 Celtic (Fortuné,
Irvine OG)
Aberdeen 4-1 Celtic (Samaras) (e) - WTF. This was a bug; game ended 3-2 to Aberdeen after extra time and Crosas and Caldwell got red carded.
Hamilton 1-3 Celtic (Maloney, McGeady, Fortuné)
Competitions
Closed the gap between us and Rangers to three points, which is doable. Losing out to Aberdeen in the semis in the League Cup was bad, only consolation is that Rangers lost 1-2 at
Ibrox to Hearts.
Players
Shaun Maloney gets my Player of the Month award. He's been good alround, assists and goals.
Kadlec has finally started finding the net; winning goal against Rangers and hat-trick against Wick Academy!
Miscellaneous
Kuijanis Vallers was the second best Young Player of the Month in the Scottish Second Divison, whereas the top three for Player of the Month in the SPL went to Fortuné, McGeady and Maloney, respectively. Paul Caddis was the third best Young Player of the Month in the SPL, and yours truly got the Manager of the Month award.
Boucher has returned from France much less homesick and ready to have another go at adapting to the Scottish life style of tattie scones, black pudding, beans, toast, square sausages, bacon, rolls, eggs and tea for breakfast!
Charles Webb unveiled his newest players at a press conference in January. Seated next to him was Colin Porteus, Ki Sung-Yong, Adem Ljajic, Simone Dell'Agnello and, of course, Gareth Bale. When asked how he'd convinced the young Welshman to come to Celtic the answer was clear; "We told him Scotland has finer sheep than London, though we didn't tell him the Aberdonians invented the trick of wearing wellies while going about your business so you can put the sheep's hind legs in them, preventing it from running away.
It was tricky convincing him to come here as Cardiff and Aberdeen were after him aswell."