Sandman’s Definitive Ratings – Celtic v The Aurora Borealis

THE FRIENDLY GHOST – 7/10 – Potentially tricky away tie with the ghost of his Hampden howler louring, what would our experienced Legoland viking make of it all? The answer is professional excellence. Unfazed, producing
a stunner of a flying save in the first-half, for me topped by his instinctive left-peg stop in the second to deny them a way back in when applying some pressure. No worries over his longevity as a natural keeper – Kaser’s doing just fine.

WAYNE GRETZKY – 6.5/10 – Much more the AJ of last campaign. Drinking from the backline well of aggression, his was the example of setting wrongs right – The Sheep weren’t getting away with one like in May and The Moose trampled all over their insolent ambitions with stoical defending and strong support for Jamesy down the right.

OF JUSTICE – 6.5/10 – Liam continues to defy the uncultured with basic quality – again, a strong start picking off Dons’ forays much in the same manner as last week; our strongest, most switched-on defender from the whistle. Lapses perk up his detractors, and he’s prone to casual moments that trigger unwarranted abuse. But there’s more positive than negative about his game at this juncture. A welcome bonus is a more combative streak that cost him a yellow, but it’ll enhance his presence overall.

GET CARTER – 7/10 – Casual, you say, when mentioning the Ginger Baresi? Well the big fella goes one further by tackling Sheep while smoking a cigar lying on the deck. Getting back to peak performance levels in time for the
CL crunch with polished outings like this.

KATIE – 7/10 – What a man. Phished after being on the lash Saturday night, he manages a rampant first half through the hangover, setting up the opener with an epic burst of wing play. Then pukes up the remnants of the Buckie at half-time before going on to ping lovely thirty-yarders to Daizen for another quarter hour before being hooked to sleep it off. Cheers.

CALMAC – 7.5/10 MOTM – Somewhere around the 15-minute mark Calmac stepped up a level, took control of the middle and staged the performance that tamed the Dons’ zest and wrangled three points. A quiet but forceful orchestration of events by the skipper who pulled all the right strings and called all the right shots. A power play of quite some beauty for connoisseurs of the dictatorial arts. Like, eh, Stalin, or Kim Jong-un…

NYLON – 7/10 – Wondered about his impactfulness last week; got a fine answer to those musings with his mercurial afternoon in the Sheep Pen. A contrast to Reo but similar in desire to exploit spaces; it remains to be seen if they are a fit on the pitch together, which better opponents will test. Yet he added to our midfield threat and proved a useful new component they could not contain. Fine goal, good feet and coverage of the park.

HAKUNA HATATE – 7/10 – Jings, whit a walloper, as they say up them parts. After a game of frustration and near-things, Reo lit up the North better than the Aurora Borealis (which are just big floodlights with coloured filters anyway according to Dave from The Flat Earth Society). The touch, poise and strike produced a trajectory NASA computers tracked as alien intelligence and gilded the day with breath-taking perfection.

LORD KATSUMOTO – 5.5/10 – Daizen, whit? Whit ye daein? I know exacting revenge on the Wooly-Bullies for May was writ large but the sheer audacity to be clean through on their keeper and then attempt a school playground humiliation special when you get on your knees and crawl-header the ball over the line is next-level gallusness. Sadly, it failed, like everything else he tried. Not his day, basically.

DUNCAN IDAHO – 5/10 – Well, God loves a trier, but God must be hollering at the screen as big Adam tries everyone’s patience. We’re looking for swashbuckling presence, disruption, movement, chaos – all the things a spearhead striker brings to the table. There’s not enough here yet to fill a sandwich box.

JAMESY – 6.5/10 – The Hustler bustled about that wing, flashes of invention (and other things…) here and there to keep the home side’s left flank in a state of agitation. This was a splendid Jamesy contribution, just lacking a goal and final ball.

SUBS –

FEIN – N/A – Well, his brief competitive intro did give us on thing we’d lacked all game – a striker thinking forward,
bursting towards space, eager to interact.

THE TERMINATOR – N/A – The surprising outcast. Has the boss lost faith? Will young Arnie take the huff? Clock is ticking…

CRUSTY THE CLOWN – N/A – Able and willing; a useful lefty to slot in. First choice? CL will be a tell.

HIGHLAND TOFFEE – N/A – Matchwinner Luke not getting much of a Luke-in this week.

TONY THE TIGER – N/A – Not a kick, or even bite.

THE NOTAPRODDYGAL – 7/10 – Well, that was easy. No test for his strength of conviction as the Hoops put down the Sheep with relative ease. The team did the biz and the tactics provided a robust framework for a valuable away win. So, not many questions asked of a manager who’s asking questions of everyone else. Genuinely
unhappy at some who ‘don’t like’ him, or working his ticket for another midnight flit? Well, if he’s referring to fans, maybe I’m one. There’s a difference between dislike and suspicion. Egotistical narcissistic megalomaniacs want 100% adoration and fawning devotees. Not a lot or room for pragmatic critique there.

Remember, Brodge, you floated back in on a raft of humble entreaties and earnest promises of dedication and glory. In the fans’ eyes YOU were the man who walked out, and cost a downtrodden generation of Celtic supporters who’d lived the hellish 90s, the TEN.

The fact you’re even back in the chair would choke the ghosts of many. I’d sit quiet about the opinions of people who live and breath the huge club you’ve been privileged to lead more than once and paid handsomely for doing so. After all, you didn’t seem too bothered about our take when you left for Leicester in the middle of the night, did ye?

MIBBERY – 5/10 – Johnny and Damien, what a combo. Must have been expecting Sean and his flock to cause us more problems than they did. Not to diminish Johnny B’s attempt to qualify for the Womens National Basketball Association umpiring college with a blind (literally) bit of indifference to a slam-dunk which almost led to an Aberdeen goal. And even though we had cards for The Reds ignored and yellows for the Bhoys flashed around like it was a game of snap for cash, their disruption of the Green Machine amounted to the same as it has for the past few seasons.

OVERALL – 7/10 – A pleasing, comfortable Sunday in the hostile North. Despite their frothing delirium over the cup win, the Sheepites were more subdued than vociferous; by mid second-half even the sweetie papers had stopped rustling and the home atmosphere was mainly the accumulated cludding of wellie boots exiting The Pen. This mellow haze had been brought about by a technically astute, if not spectacular, executuion of duties by The Hoops. We methodically dismantled their resistance and punished them with bright flashes of footballing guile either half.

This was how to go about sterilising an open wound which had lasted a frustrating summer of remorse since that damaging cup final. So now we find ourselves joint top of the pile, with room to focus on the CL, and plenty of Keystone-Cops-Meet-The-Office shenanigans out of Govan to keep us smiling as the boardroom battle of the budget rages on. Plus sa change? (That’s French for ‘flaming buy some foreign players, will yeez?’).

Go Away Now

Sandman