Celtic Answers the Call and Kljestan ups his price

By: Matt | January 25th, 2009

After a disappointing loss the week before against Aberdeen, Celtic got back to winning ways and extended their lead to four points over Rangers, after Aberdeen continued their assault on the teams of Glasgow by drawing Rangers Saturday. A Scott McDonald double and a goal from captain Stephen McManus was enough for Celtic to claim victory over Hibs 3-1. McDonald got the scoring started just three minutes into the match off of a Shunsuke Nakamura corner. Six minutes later Stephen McManus was able to put home a goal after another Naka corner. As a typical Celtic-Hibs, defensive optional party, Hibs got into the goal scoring party just seven minutes later when Rob Jones when he got his head on Gordon Strachan’s favorite former water boy, Derek Riordan. Both sides continued to play some attacking and attractive football, but could not find the net for some time. Aiden McGeady seemed to have earned himself a penalty in the second half when he was clipped in the box, but the referee seemed to ignore this clear penalty chance. Scott McDonald was able to ease Celtic supporters tensions in the 76th minute when he coolly placed Scott Brown’s low cross into the back of the net. Skippy’s two goals surely can be attributed to the return of Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink. Skippy and Big Jan seemed to revive that magic that they had working last year, working off of each other well. Overall, it was a good win and it is was nice to keep more than a game’s worth of cushion between themselves and Rangers in the standings.

In the world of transfer comings and goings, an interesting rumor has popped out of the land of barcodes, apparently Newcastle are lining up a 4 million quid bid for centerback….Stephen McManus?! Err…apparently Newcastle really is out of ideas. There is buzz that Joe Kinnear has been asking about Mick’s skill level (who’s he been asking that makes him still interested?) and will be trying to make the deal at the beginning of the week. There is even chat about Newcastle throwing in another player to lessen the price. That player might be a left back….sweet fucking Jesus, I’ve heard enough. GET IT DONE, STRACHAN! The other player in question is 22 year old Spaniard Jose Enrique. Where do I sign?

In other transfer news, if Celtic were interested in Chivas USA and United States midfielder Sacha Kljestan, his agent would like them to be aware that his asking price has just went up. Kljestan not only netted his first senior team goal for the US National Team against Sweden last night, he added two others just for kicks. I can just picture MLS commissioner Don Garber after the final whistle last night calling Peter Lawwell and saying “You thought a million for Shalrie Joseph was pricey, you ain’t seen nothing yet!” Apparently, Celtic offered a three million US inflated dollar bid to MLS and Chivas as Kljestan returned back for the Sweden match (for those who are unaware, MLS technically owns all the players in the league and they “work” with teams when it comes to transfers of players to other leagues. I think it has something to do with the US Constitution. America, FUCK YEAH!). If the Garbes and the MLS ask for a higher price, I fully expect Lawwell and company to laugh in their face, send them videos of Aiden McGeady, and be on their way.

TAL