The Threepeat Champions 2008/09 Thread - C'Mon the Hoops

[Catfish]

Maloney up for the challenges ahead
http://celticfc.net/news/stories/news_220808160749.aspx

His passion and experience will be big.

[frasermc]

Derek Riordan has been banned from every nightclub in Edinburgh for 2yrs.

now he really will be desperate to get a move out of Scotland...

[Borussia]

I'm so sorry to see what happened to one of Scotland's biggest talents! :( He'd better have stayed at Easter Road.

[frasermc]

He'd better have stayed at Easter Road.

i'm not sure that would have made much of a difference to his private life. although i agree that he would still have being playing first team football and may have even moved south which is probably his only hope of salvaging what was, in the beginning, a very promising career.

[YankHibee]

What were the circumstances of the ban?

[frasermc]

What were the circumstances of the ban?

he verbally abused staff at Berlin in May. under Edinburgh's 'Unight Scheme' he was banned from all Edinburgh nightclubs for a year.

he then tried to get into Espionage about a month later and the ban has now been extended to two years.

[YankHibee]

I heard about the Unight stuff--thats better than what often happened when I was working the clubs!

[celtic76]

He's a pathetic waste of talent and I don't have the slighest bit of sympanthy for him. The sooner he is out the door the better.

[YankHibee]

There have been rumors in some of the less reputable publications that he's headed back to Hibs, but I still hope they are false.

[The Tartan Hoop]

Well the News is belting out another beauty,

The king of kings swedish club has admitted that they would be willing to sell players, even Larsson to raise money after their league bid failed.

There has been options, yet again bloody Aston Villa are mentioned there (is anyone else getting pissed at them constantly being linked to us via MoN? i mean i loved the guy but i hate Aston Villa as a whole being liked with everything Celtic.)

anyways, could there be the chance that the Magnificent Seven would return?

[el_urchinio]

Man U, Villareal, and Aalborg. All in all, not the worst group imaginable. Man U may bet he defending champs, but realistically, every team in that first pot would've been a world class one. Aalborg and Villareal are about as easy as could've realistically been hoped for. Sure, everyone wanted the Cypriots and the Belarussians in their group, but I fancy that a trip do Denmark as opposed to Belarustan will mean more supporters.

[Borussia]

All in all, not the worst group imaginable.

Well, I agree. ;) Villareal surely is a good team (we know them from former times:-), but I think it could have come worse.

Important is that we didn't get drawn into the Juve group. :-)

[frasermc]

yep. a group that we have a reasonable chance of progressing from. strange how we are having a run of facing the defending CL champions.

none of the three will look forward to coming to Celtic Park. yet once again we have to hope that we can take something away from home in the CL. rumours persist that we will be a 4-5-1 team away from home with Aiden and Shaun out wide and Naka playing in a more forward central midfield role with two holding midfielders behind.

[Dills]

Celtic beat Man U 2-1 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philly in a friendly back in 2004, a game that i was at ...

i hope i can replace "Lincoln Financial Field" with "Old Trafford" (because we'll win at home, right?), "friendly" with "CL clash", and "2004" with "2008". ;)

[alexp92]

think celtic will be capable of getting through. really group h is the only one that looks like a real group of death to me.

[camerondocherty]

Celtic beat Man U 2-1 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philly in a friendly back in 2004, a game that i was at ...

i hope i can replace "Lincoln Financial Field" with "Old Trafford" (because we'll win at home, right?), "friendly" with "CL clash", and "2004" with "2008". ;)

i was at that game as well

[frasermc]

Naka has stated that he may seek a move back to Japan in January for both family reasons and for the sake of his international career. the long trips back and forth for qualifiers must be taking their toll.

18mths ago i'd have been worried at the thought of losing Naka and even now i'd still be sorry to see him leave but i feel with Aiden, Shaun, Samaras, Crosas and hopefully Mizuno, we'll have plenty of options and players that can pick a pass and show some creativity.

i still hope he stays but if he leaves in the winter transfer window then i'll wish him all the best.

[camerondocherty]

if he has to go i hope he at least sees out this season for the CL.

[angryhugo]

Losing Naka would be quite bad, but not nearly as devastating as it would have been like 2 years ago. It seemed the entire offense went through him, but now the attack is multi-faced. With the addition of Robson, we now have a quality man that can take dead balls. He's not quite Naka's level, but who is? Robson also adds a lot of pace and energy to the side, something Naka can't quite do (between age and injury, Naka seems pretty slow now). Might as well throw Koki in at some point and see what he can do, too.

[AKITOD]

you guys won't quite understand how good naka is until he's gone. I've seen celtic games with and without him its like another dimension he adds to their offensive game.

Also, Koki Mizuno is thinking about leaving cause celtic fail to understand just how bloody good he is. He is brilliant and is being wasted at celtic. Ofcourse at the moment its cause of injury but he better get game time or celtic will be wasting such a good player and preventing him from improving. If he doesn't get game time by the January window I'd support him leaving celtic cause he deserves better. Or at least going on loan to a different club in holland or japan or somewhere cause he on paper deserves a place in the first Celtic side cause he's better than a lot of people give credit.