Why didn’t Strachan let Riordan score on the pitch?

By: Matt | October 24th, 2008

Because he already scored with his daughter. *rimshot* Gordon Strachan’s favorite whipping boy, Derek Riordan, makes his triumphant return to Celtic Park in a Hibernian uniform Saturday. I think it is safe to say that Deek might be motivated for this match. For those not familar with Riordan-gate(this whole saga spawned some new words including “Riordaned”, or to be left out of the starting XI for reasons besides your play), it all started when Celtic bought the young forward Derek Riordan from Hibs. Riordan was one of the most promising prospects in Scottish football and it seemed Celtic really had one for the future. As one of the Celtic fans in Chicago two summers ago, I can attest to Riordan’s skill, seen in this video. But then something happened. Some rumored it to be Riordan having relations with Gordon Strachan’s daughter. Some said it was Riordan being lazy in training and becoming too much of a night owl. Whatever it was Derek Riordan could not find the playing field with a map.

On more than one occasion, Riordan expressed his frustration with the situation and asked publicly to be sold or played rather than rot on the bench in Riordan hell. Usually these appeals were met with vague statements by Gordon Strachan along the lines of “Derek is a part of the plan in Celtic,” yet it was never specified what type of plan. The plan to drive a young man insane? The plan to clean out the porto-pottys on the Lennoxtown training ground?

Riordan made another plea this past summer and it seemed a few Championship sides were interested, but these sides said that Celtic’s demands for Riordan were too high and it seemed that Riordan was damned to another season of reserve team hell. Yet, towards the end of the summer, Riordan was sold to Hibernian, which was his old club. Apparently Celtic sold him for less than what the Championship clubs interested in his services in seemingly one last GIRUY to Deek.

So the story is set for a young man to come and strike down the club that smited him. He will face a Celtic squad that is reeling from a poor showing in the Champions League, though the shite linesman of that game admitted that Berbatov’s goals were offside, and facing injuries that plagued them that game, as Georgios Samaras, Marc Crosas, Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, and Chris Killen will miss the game again due to injury. Hibs is a talented young club with lots of scoring threats and have taken 7 out of 12 points on the road this year. All of these factors equal a dangerous combination for Celtic this weekend.

One saving factor for Celtic might be the fact that with Hibs, it is often defense optional. While Celtic’s depth at a European Level might not be great, it does contain depth that is functional at the SPL level. Expect another tight affair, but Celtic’s depth proves too much for Hibs and I see a 3-2 victory to Celtic.