Celtic have been drawn away from home again in the Scottish Cup, this time we’ve a trip to Rankers’ conquerors Dundee United .

The ties have to be played on the weekend of 10/11th March.

No doubt the Celtic game will be televised, as it’s easily the tie of the round.

There are other ties, but who cares about them?

BTW it was two former Bluenoses that made the draw….couldn’t gone better for them! (Campbell Ogilvie and Billy Davies)

A super Sammy strike and a penalty from captain Scott Brown were enough to take holder Celtic into the quarter finals of the Scottish Cup in Inverness today.

Lenny chose to shuffle the pack a bit with Kelvin Wilson partnering Thomas Rogne in the middle of defence, moving Charlie Mulgrew to left back and Adam Matthews returning at right back at the expense of Cha.

Also missing from the starting line up was Anthony Stokes, who dropped to the bench, Lenny favouring Sammy up front with Gary Hooper.

And that change in selection worked for the manager. With the game in a stalemate around the half hour mark, Georgios Samaras latched on to a Ross Tokely mistake to fire an unstoppable swerving shot from 16 yards to put the Bhoys 1-0 up.

The goal was no more than Celtic deserved having dominated most of the possession up to that point and seemed to settle the Hoops, although ICT very rarely threatened.

Although Celtic didn’t add to there lead until the second half, the Bhoys were never in danger.

And the game was put beyond doubt when man of the match Gary Hooper robbed ICT’s Procter on the touchline only to be scythed down by the defender for a stonewall penalty.

Up stepped Scott Brown to score his third goal in as many matches and and take the Celts safely into the next round.

As the game petered out, Sammy Hoops both missed chance3 to make the score a bit more convincing. Still, a victory over Terry Butcher and his men is always nice and made even sweeter with the way the game went.

Well done Celtic and well deserved!

At yesterday’s press conference Neil Lennon did what he does best…..tell the truth!

On the back of The Sun running a story about his assistant, and former team mate, Alan Thompson frequenting the same pub in Glasgow as the Dark Side’s Allan McGregor, Lenny let rip.

Having been a victim of sectarian abuse, in fact he still is, Neil let the media know that  THEY are as much to blame for stoking the fires of the religious bigotry as anyone.

On the one hand they tell us that this is wrong and that’s wrong, then they print a non-story to try and antagonise both sets of fans. Talk about hypocrites!

They then tried to get the Celtic manager to tow the party line and join the ‘poor Rangers’ campaign. The ‘Scottish football needs a strong Rangers’ bandwagon, you know the one I mean, the one that’s angling to let the Govan Mob off with breaking the law and evading taxes.

Well, they needn’t have bothered, because Lenny, as always, told it how he sees it.

Asked if he feels sorry for the mess the noisy neighbours in, Neil replied “No”. He then went on to tell a few home truths, and in doing so gave the media all the ammunition they need to write more sensational headlines.

What these people tend to forget is THEY need the manager of Celtic to do press conferences, THEY need Celtic more than Celtic need them, especially with the advent of current social media platforms.

And if they keep pissing off the sources of their work, then eventually they suffer the same fate as a certain team from Glasgow’s South side…….

Couldn’t come soon enough!

Chief Executive Peter Lawwell says he expects Celtio to come out of a transfer window stronger than when we go in.

This January you could argue that we’ve achieved just that.

The acquisition of defenders Fojut and Lustig, midfielder Ibrahim and striker Brozek gives Lenny a better choice of player for the run in, one that sees the Bhoys fighting on three fronts.

Overall we now seem to have enough cover in defence , similarly the midfield looks strong enough and the striking department has been bolstered with the addition of Polish international Pawel Brozek.

So, why did we make a last minute bid to bring Republic of Ireland’s Leon Best on loan from Newcastle?

God knows!

I tend to agree with our colleagues over at Celtic Quick News in the assertion that Leon would have been Simply NOT The Best for Celtic.

Lucky escape there me thinks….

Today Celtic completed the loan signing of Polish striker Pawel Brozek after the player passed his medical at Lennoxtown. Brozek will play for the Hoops until the end of the season, and if all goes well he’ll join the club on a permanent basis.

The player is Lenny’s fourth signing of this transfer window.

Pawel’s countryman Jaroslaw Fojut has signed a pre-contract agreement and will join in the summer if not sooner, Nigerian Rabiu Ibrahim arrived in Paradise last week and put pen to paper on a three and a half year deal, while Swedish international Mikel Lustig joined the Celts at the start of the month.

Contrast that to the goings on over at Poundland.

Players are being fed a lie just to have their photographs taken at Glasgow Airport with the supposed ‘opportunity’ of winning a contract with the Govan mob. One nobody after another.

They come to town, some play a bounce game, some don’t bother, then they leave. None of them have been offered terms. And that’s not all. In one case the Sneaky One didn’t bother turning up to meet a so called ‘target’. (Although Sky fed us the line that the club weren’t pursuing the matter any further)

The whole thing is a shambles and an embarrassment to Scottish Football. Yet the media seem to think it’s ALL Craig Whyte’s fault.

It wasn’t the ex-tycoons fault that his manager inherited a league winning team only to take them OUT of TWO European competitions inside the first couple of months of the season.

It not his fault that his manager is going round agreeing deals with signing targets before getting the say so from the owner.

And it’s not his fault that the manager with a seven year apprenticeship behind him, has lost a 15 point advantage in the league, been dumped out the League Cup and has now seen his first signing return to Spain!

Now before I get mistaken as being some kind of Craig Whyte sympathiser I must stress if I had the misfortune of shaking his hand I’d count my fingers! No sympathiser I’m not, but media darling McCoist has got to take some of the blame. But he doesn’t. He hides behind the ‘no money’ line.

When St Johnstone can offer better terms to their striker Sandaza than Rankers can, then it tells its own story.

Oh for the days of Celtic spending a fiver…..

When Celtic take to the field tomorrow at Hampden Park to play Falkirk in the semi-final of the Communities (League) Cup it’s inevitable that comparisons will be made to the last time the Bhoys met a first division side at the national stadium.

On that occasion Celtic met Ross County in the Scottish Cup semis and the lower division side won 2-0, in one of the most embarrassing defeats the Hoops have ever suffered.

Admittedly Lenny was only weeks into the managers job, in fact he was only caretaker at the time. Many thought that reverse would ultimately cost Neil the chance of managing the club on a full time basis, but that wasn’t to be the case.

I doubt if anyone could have foreseen the change in Celtic since that day and one things for sure the fact that we’ve an opportunity to ‘right a wrong’ should be enough to see the Bhoys progress to the final.

Falkirk are doing well in the first division and have had a couple of decent results in the cup knocking the Govan Mob and the Arabs out along the way.

But tomorrow they’ll come up against a Celtic side that are going from strength to strength. Big players are coming back into contention and there’s a belief about the team that this WILL, not could, be our year.

Neil knows what it takes to bounce back after adversity, and a wee reminder of his first outing at Hampden as gaffer will be enough to see the Bhoys march into the cup final.

Much has been said over Celtic’s transfer policy, usually negative I might add.

The idea of having player after player come through the doors at Lennoxtown for a trial doesn’t always go down too well with the Faithful, myself included. It was almost as if there were more trials in the Campsies than at the High Court!

We would all much rather see the club pick an established player pay the money, throw him into the team and he becomes and instant success.

But in reality, it doesn’t work that way.

The old adage that you have to ‘kiss a lot of frogs’ could well be used when it comes to the number of ‘potential’ signings that make their way to Glasgow to earn a contract with Celtic.

The ‘frogs’ will come and go but every so often a ‘prince’ will emerge and the Bhoys will take him on to the next level.

By all accounts it looks like Celtic’s new number 40,  Nigerian Rabiu Ibrahim will be that player. The 20 year-old has done what many before him have failed to do, earn a three and a half year deal with the Hoops.

Hopefully he’ll repay the faith manager Neil Lennon has in him and become a star at the club.

Welcome to Paradise young man!

Wee sleekit bun beasty,
soon tae hae five stars removed from thy breesty,

ye took yer chance and skipped yer taxes,
noo the HMRC huv yer baws in vices!

Yer gaffer’s skint, the larders bare,
there’s hee-haw in the bank anymare.

There’s nae point greetin or asking fur help,
as the Tims will surely issue a skelp.

The big rid wa’s ootside yer grund,
will soon get selt tae feed the fund.

Soon hunners o’buns will hae nae team,
and the whole of Glesca will soon be green.

So when ye eat yer haggis the nicht.
just spare a thot fur the blues so shite!

And raise yer gless please everyone…
fur the one and ONLY Tommy Burns!

I don’t know a lot about golf, never have never will, but I do know who Sam Torrance is, and I do know he was supposed to be a very good golfer.

So when he ‘appeared’ or ‘guested’ to be more accurate, on Keys and Gray on Talksport at lunchtime I listened in but not intently.

That was until one of the presenters Smug (Andy Gray) asked Sam who his football team was. The way he asked Torrance it was as if he already ‘knew’ what the answer would be.

Unfortunately for the dumb Gray his researcher didn’t do their homework, and when Sam emphatically replied CELTIC you could almost hear the shcck inn bluenose Gray’s voice when he blurted out “What?”

It was absolutely classic.

A typical thick H*n made look stupid, which is a dawdle for poor Andy.

Although the rest of the ‘interview’ was filled with good banter you could tell the former Sky presenter (before his sexist remarks) was taken aback. Even his sidekick Dick Keys couldn’t help him out.

And just like you could tell Sam was a Celtic man, articulate, a gent and a great sport,  you could also tell that Andy Gray is NONE of the above!

As we all know the turnaround in Celtic’s fortunes from mid October has been remarkable. And I defy ANYONE to tell me that they knew we could go on such a fantastic run.

Most will point to Lenny’s  half-time talk at Kilmarnock as the turning point and there’s no doubt it was a pivotal moment in proceedings but for me the fact that we’ve now got a goalkeeper we can trust has made all the difference.

Saturday’s display was just another example of how valuable a good goalkeeper can be. There will be games where we are under the cosh and need a bit of good fortune, but good fortune lasts only so long.

Fraser Forster is now a real presence between the sticks for Celtic. And with a more settled central partnership of Charlie Mulgrew and Thomas Rogne in front of him the big man looks as comfortable as ever in a Celtic jersey.

Having a good number 1 is paramount, hopefully Neil can get something sorted to keep Fraser at Celtic Park. And let’s not forget he’s only 23, so he WILL get better.

P.S. Was Lenny’s substitutions ‘tactical genius’ of a piece of luck? We all know if FS had made the same changes he’d be hailed as the former!