McGinn moves from punter to player

Niall McGinn is hoping to make the transition from punter to player when Celtic face Rangers at Ibrox tomorrow.

Last December McGinn travelled with his agent on a supporters bus from Coatbridge to watch Scott McDonald score a spectacular winner to put Gordon Strachan's side seven points clear.

Little did the Celtic support know that it would be almost the last highlight of the season as the bid to win four-in-a-row fell apart at the seems.

Celtic travel to Ibrox tomorrow with the chance to go seven points clear again with McGinn hoping to get a place on the bench for the lunchtime showdown.

He said: "It will be unbelievable to be involved. I'm really looking forward to the match and it'll be an absolute bonus if I can make the bench.

"The U21 rule works against me so I don't know what's likely to happen. We'll find out the team and substitutes on Sunday and I'd love to be involved.

SUPPORTERS

"Last season I travelled to Ibrox with my agent on a supporters bus, it was good to see the other side of it, to get a feeling for the supporters and see what an Old Firm game really means to the Celtic fans.

"It was great to be in there among them and I was jumping about and cheering with everyone else when Scott McDonald scored the goal."

Despite signing in January McGinn never made any appearances for Gordon Strachan and looked to be an outsider in the early days of Tony Mowbray's reign.

That all changed in Mowbray's eighth game of the season when he was given a surprise start against Dundee United and took the chance with both hands picking up the man-of-the-match award in a text vote from supporters.

McGinn's pace gives Mowbray an extra option from the bench with the 22-year-old looking to convince his gaffer that he is ready to become a first-team starter.

OPPORTUNITIES

"Everything has gone well for me recently," McGinn added. "The manager has given me a few opportunities, he's brought me on several times as a substitute.

"I've got to keep doing what I'm doing and hopefully more opportunities will come my way till I get to the stage where I'm playing week in week out.

"Any chance that I get I have to take, I have to impress the manager every minute that I'm on the pitch and make the most of every chance.

"There's a good camaraderie among the players and we're looking forward to the game with Rangers.

"The team is gelling together under the new manager and getting used to his style of play, by the time that we get to Ibrox we will be more than ready."

Niall McGinn in the Evening Herald

Aiden McGeady in the Evening Herald

Youth's held by St Mirren, Ujpest-Ferencvaros latest

Stevie Frail's u-19 side drew for the fourth game running with a 1-1 draw at St Mirren earlier today.

Details are sketchy on the match with the St Mirren website reporting a first minute goal for the home side with Celtic equalising just before half-time.

Hopefully I'll soon have more details on the match and will put them up later in the day.

The point keeps Celtic in third place with Motherwell winning 3-0 away to Hibs on Friday.

Meanwhile over in Budapest with half an hour gone in the Ujpest-Ferencvaros derby it's still goal-less with Mark Millar in the Ujpest midfield.

Click here for the updates from the Ujpest website.

Davie Provan knows the score, Wallace Disney

Opinions are like bottoms, everyone has one and the advance of the internet allows a lot more bottoms to have their say.

I did think quite a bit over whether this issue was worthy of comment, or wasting my time, but since it's from a 'quality' newspaper which likes to look down at 'tacky tabs' it is worth commenting on.

Thankfully the match with Rapid Vienna is over with and there's some action, or inaction, to comment on rather than half-baked half-truths from 25 years ago.

In media terms the Celtic-Rapid match was a godsend allowing all sorts of nonsense and theories to surface, the fact that some allegedly quality newspapers, or to be much more accurate websites, decided to slag off the re-reporting of 25 years earlier makes them fair game.

READABLE

The Guardian is generally a very readable website for the football fan, some original news and comments from journalists who can think outside the box and generally have a depth and knowledge about what they are writing about.

Rather than rehash press conference quotes or attempt to find controversy where it doesn't exist the Guardian can usually be relied on to provide some comment and content worth thinking over. Usually that is.

There are always exceptions however and one blog piece caught my attention, initially for the number of factual errors through it, interestingly the original article has since been corrected, probably prompted by the readers comments.

Despite commenting that This article has been amended since its initial publication some key errors remained including incredibly missing Rudi Wienhofer as the victim of the bottle throwing, or unidentified flying object as Uefa finally described it.

Within the not so thinly disguised criticism of all things Celtic the author gets carried away into a spot of character assassination on Davie Provan.

That will be the successful former Celtic player, whose career was ended by illness and who then reinvented himself into one of the most in-demand pundits and commentators thanks to his hard-hitting honest assessments rather than churning out predictable party lines.

IMPRESSIVE

Standing up for himself Provan is highly rated and valued by Sky Sports, News International and Radio Clyde which is a pretty impressive cv by any standards.

Comically the author of the piece decides to dredge up an incident between Provan and Willie Johnston of Hearts from 1983 when the former Rangers winger collected one of the many red cards that littered his career.

According to the author Wallace Mercer, was prompted into threatening comments regarding lawyers and court cases by the incident.

Wow. Shockerooni. Whoopidododo.

The great Waldo in self publicity shocker! If trophies were created for self promotion they might have needed a trophy room during Mercer's reign at Hearts.

ALBERT KIDD

Mercer had the league trophy as good as won before the club travelled to Dundee on the final day of the 1985/86 season.

Mercer announced to the world the merger of Hearts and Hibs in 1990 to become a real force in football.

Mercer managed Hearts to zero trophies whilst Hibs, St Mirren and Motherwell celebrated silverware as Mercer filled pages with hot air from Tynecastle.

No harm to Mercer, who died from cancer in 2006, but he'd probably now be embarrassed by the attempt to blacken Provan's name and reputation by attempting to give credibility to an incident from 26 years ago that wasn't captured by television cameras.

Coin throwing and worse was a regular and regrettable feature of football in the early and mid-eighties with Edinburgh fans amongst the worst offenders.

Off the top of my head, without the benefit of extensive research I can remember John Brown of Dundee and Paul McStay being struck by coins at Aberdeen and Gordon Strachan being hit by a coin at Easter Road. Every club had their coin throwers.

MISSILES

Provan, Frank McGarvey and McStay were regularly assaulted with coins and other missiles at Tynecastle from the junction of where the Wheatfield and School End stands are now situated. It happened.

The internet happily allows all shades of opinion to be aired, otherwise this piece would still be bouncing around in my head.

Blogs provide a fantastic opportunity for almost anyone to promote their thoughts and views, doing so with accuracy and responsibility is desirable.

In times gone by it was almost impossible to get an opinion into the mainstream with the publishing and broadcasting giants enjoying their monopoly status.

Those days are gone and even 'viewers in Scotland' can now enjoy the writing and podcasts of the Guardian giving a breadth and depth of coverage previously out of reach.

It won't bother Davie Provan in the slightest the sad ramblings of an online 'expert' as he enjoys the rewards from his successful career and the memories of a great playing career spent alongside great Celtic team-mates like Tommy Burns, McStay, Murdo MacLeod, Charlie Nicholas and McGarvey.

He'll probably smile that someone has decided to revisit the Johnston incident.

Good Guardian

Dodgy Guardian

Thanks for bearing with me through this mini rant, feel free to add your comments below.

Darren's delight as Reading win at Preston

by Joe McHugh Darren O'Dea picked up his first win bonus as a Reading player last night when Brendan Rodgers side won 2-1 at Preston.

Simon Church and Jimmy Kebe scored in the first half to put the visitors in front, Preston pulled a goal back with an 85th minute penalty from Jon Parkin but were unable to equalise with former Celt Ross Wallace hitting the post.

It was a welcome three points for Rodgers after Reading had dropped into fourth bottom place without a home win in five games.

Most importantly it was the fifth game in seventeen days that O'Dea has had, exactly the sort of experience and game time that he requires to improve his game and catapult him back into the reckoning at Celtic.

With Stephen McManus back in the Celtic squad it's unlikely that O'Dea would have made the bench in the SPL as Tony Mowbray attempts to find his best central defensive partnership between McManus, Gary Caldwell and Glenn Loovens competing for places.

On Saturday Reading are at home to Middlesboro before O'Dea reports for international duty.

Speaking after his side's win at in-form Preston Reading boss Rodgers was quick to praise his side's determination to hang onto their first half lead after shipping in three second half goals to lose at Peterboro in their previous away match.

The Reading boss said: "I'm really pleased. I thought we were outstanding tonight, especially in the first half, like we have been in a lot of games.

"We were very good with the ball and went 2-0 up and I thought we were exceptional in the first half with or without the ball.

"Tactically we were strong and going into second half we knew Alan (Irvine) is an outstanding coach, so we knew his team would come out and give it a go.

"We had a chance to kill the game and then from that moment the game turned a bit but that's the nature of it

"They are the home team and they have to come out and we played a bit more on the counter-attack.

"But we had to defend and defend well. It was a great mark of our team to come to a place like this and beat a very good team who will be up there. I was really proud of the players tonight."

Verdict from Reading Post

Elsewhere it was a quiet night for the loan Celts. Cillian Sheridan was left on the bench as Plymouth won 2-1 at Peterboro, at Swindon Simon Ferry was missing from their 1-1 draw at Exeter where Ben Hutchison appeared as a first half substitute for Danny Wilson's side.

Sutton Impact: Look out League Two

Chris Sutton and management, what a combination.

Not many manager's would turn down a team of Sutton's, if Martin O'Neill had had his way he'd have had a Sutton at centre half, centre midfield and also centre forward.

It's hard to make predictions on Sutton's management potential because he was generally so damn good at concealing his feelings, with a few notable exceptions.

Sutton expects the best and has no time for slackers or anyone not prepared to give it 100%. Anyone taking liberties with him has an enemy for life.

Lincoln City certainly isn't amongst the most desirable of clubs but Sutton seems happy to get hands on in the management game at the club that sent Graham Taylor all the way to the top in management.

SOME CLASSIC SUTTON CELTIC ACTION

The new Lincoln boss said: "I'm really pleased to get the opportunity to come here and manage and I want to take the club forward as quickly as I can.

INFRASTRUCTURE
"The setup here is fantastic. There is a good infrastructure, it just needs the team to start winning games on the pitch.

"Over the last couple of years I've thought about going into management and got organised. I'm ready and prepared.

"Now we want to get the team organised, get the confidence up and start winning football matches.

"We need to pick up a couple of results, and if we do that we'll get some momentum and over the course of the next few months I'm convinced we'll improve."

Tonight against Notts County Sutton and assistant Iain Pearce will take a back seat before getting hands on with the team.

The former Celt's matter of fact approach is impressive, he's not one for dramatics or attention, getting the job done and getting results is all that matters. Some Lincoln players will probably be terrified of his reputation, others will thrive with him in charge, in any battle or scrap he's the type that you'd want on your side.

DETERMINATION
There are some similarities in character between Sutton and Roy Keane, both have great self belief and determination, neither suffers fools, but as Keane is learning at Ipswich Town management demands much more than that.

Moving down the ladder and working with lesser players isn't easy for someone who spent more than a decade at the very top of the game but coming through the ranks at Norwich City will stand Sutton in good stead for the job involved at Lincoln.

Strangely during his Celtic career he never received the outpouring of support that Henrik Larsson or John Hartson enjoyed however no one could be in any doubt about Sutton's desire to succeed and the key role he played in the success of Martin O'Neill.

ADVOCAAT
As soon as he arrived at Celtic he made an impact, after scoring the winner on his debut at Dundee United he casually told television viewers that he wasn't up here to finish second best to Rangers. Very undiplomatic to the mighty Advocaat bandwagon.

In his first game against Rangers he scored the first and last goals in a 6-2 win that changed the landscape of the domestic game, arguably Celtic are still feeling the benefits of that result and the successes of that season.

Most famously Sutton will be remembered for his comments as Celtic lost the title in 2002/03 when a 4-0 win at Kilmarnock wasn't enough for the Uefa Cup finalists to retain the title due to Rangers 6-1 win over Dunfermline.

In the heat of the moment, the pain of defeat, and hinting at what many suspected Sutton spilled the beans saying: "We all suspected they might lie down and it looks like that is exactly what's happened."

What a stooshy that kicked up.

It ran for weeks on ends with all sorts of action suggested of Sutton who got his retraction sent out, served his ban then came back to help Celtic to the following season's title thanks to a run of 25 wins out of the first 26 games with the championship clinched at Rugby Park.

WHITEWASH
Along the way was a memorable whitewash of Rangers with five wins in a season over the Ibrox side culminating in a last minute winner from Sutton at Celtic Park to create the picture shown above.

Sutton's single-mindedness suggests that he'll succeed in management, away from football he's happier playing cricket or dealing with a farmyard full of animals that joining the celebrity circuit.

Watching his impact at Lincoln should be fascinating, any signs of success and he'll quickly be on the radar of bigger clubs and without doubt join the growing list of potential Celtic managers of the future.

Former Celts in management. Tony Mowbray, Mark McGhee, John Hughes, Davie Moyes, Mick McCarthy, Malky Mackay, Roy Keane, Paul Lambert, Chris Sutton, Willie McStay.

Paddy preparing for the ultimate highlight

Paddy McCourt is desperate to prove that he can be a big game Celt.

Two wonder goals in four days has transformed the image of the former Derry City star from enigma to contender.

No one has ever been in any doubt about the 25-year-old's ability, a scan through YouTube quickly uncovers a catalogue of wonderful solo efforts that has left defenders chasing shadows and scratching their heads.

Until Wednesday at Falkirk the venues had all been LOI grounds with McCourt playing for Derry City or Shamrock Rovers or from last season's Celtic reserve side.

Almost as effortlessly as he slips past defenders McCourt has transformed his party pieces into the Celtic first team to leave Tony Mowbray with some major decisions to make over the next couple of games.

A fit again Aiden McGeady will stroll into the Celtic side without question. Filling the other places will be more of a dilemma with McCourt and McGinn competing with Shaun Maloney for a place giving the manager the option to play Maloney as a striker.

CENTRE STAGE

This week's matches against Rapid Vienna and Rangers will go a long way towards shaping Celtic's season with McCourt hoping to swap last season's cameo roles for centre stage.

He said: “I hope that there's more to come for me. I don't want to come in, score two goals in two games then not be seen again for six weeks.

“Without a doubt, it would be the ultimate highlight for me to play against Rangers. At the moment it's only one game at a time, my progress has been good over the last few weeks and hopefully I can kick on again.

“I watched all of the Celtic-Rangers games last season as a supporter. It was good to go and watch them but it would be nothing like pulling a shirt on and playing in one and hopefully getting the right result.

AMAZING

“Scoring my first goal at Falkirk was a dream come true. I sat up that night remembering as a young boy how I'd dream of doing that for Celtic. For it to happen was amazing.

“I hope to be playing every week but at the minute the manager has told me that there are wee things that I need to improve on.

“There's a big European game on Thursday, hopefully I can do well in that match then I can look at the game against Rangers.

“It's the managers decision, if he thinks that I'm ready to start at Ibrox then so be it. If he doesn't then I'll respect his decision, we all trust in him and hopefully he'll make the right decision.”

The frenzy of the Rapid rematch and a game against Rangers aren't for the faint hearted.

FORMULATE

Thoughts about the team to face Rangers on Sunday won't begin to formulate for the Celtic boss until his players clock in for training on Friday morning.

The emergence of McCourt and McGinn as first team contenders is a welcome boost for the squad, especially with Marc-Antoine Fortune ruled out with injury.

If the 'Derry Diego', as I was texted on Saturday afternoon, adds to his goal tally over the next two games then some exciting chapters in the Paddy McCourt story are about to begin.

Evening Herald article

Spywatch: Form guide to Rapid Vienna

Rapid Vienna came from behind last night to beat SC Magna 3-1 ahead of Thursday's Europa League clash with Celtic.

Despite the win and their impressive European form Rapid are sitting in fourth place in the Austrian League, the league that made Filip Sebo a goal machine.

Rapid have a poor record away from home this season having won just once in four league matches with two draws and a defeat.

Their only away win was last Wednesday against KSV Superfund where Andreas Dober scored the only goal of the game.

PERFORMANCES

Looking at their form this season it does seem that they keep their best performances for European matches although even that has been far from spectacular.

There's no getting away from a 3-0 win over Bundesliga leaders SV Hamburg but their previous results weren't out of the ordinary.

To reach the Europa League Rapid put out Aston Villa on away goals, we all know Martin O'Neill's attitude to the Uefa Cup/Europa League and it's fair to say that Villa have quickly got over the ko from Rapid and are safely into their favoured position lurking around seventh place in the Premiership.

Rapid had to get through three qualifying rounds to reach the Europa League which says a lot about their recent European pedigree.

In the second qualifying round they saw off the Albania side Kllaznia with an 8-0 aggregate before toiling through against APOP/ Kinyras Peyias of Cyprus on a 4-3 aggregate to face Villa in the play off.

FORTRESS

Rapid don't have much of a recent pedigree but the old fortress Celtic Park is in need of some restoration with just one win from our last six home European ties.

Barcelona, Aalborg, Manchester United, Moscow Dynamo and Arsenal have all avoided defeat at Celtic Park in the last two years with only Vilareal, who had already qualified for the Champions League losing.

Tony Mowbray gave an honest yet brutal assessment of yesterday's win at St Mirren which will be well received by supporters but probably not as welcome in the dressing room.

Everything that the Celtic manager said publicly will have been told directly to the players but in any walk of life it's not pleasing to hear public criticism from the gaffer.

Working with the same group of players Mowbray has to raise their performance levels to get victories over Rapid and Rangers to send the club into the international break on a high.

CHALLENGING

Both games will be tough and challenging but most of the players currently at Celtic have came through tougher challenges successfully in the recent past.

Two victories, even if they are in a similar style to the St Mirren match will be warmly welcomed by the support.

The feel-good factor expected after Gordon Strachan's departure hasn't yet happened even though the supporters now have a manager that they can relate to and respect.

Mowbray has to be all things to all men but a couple of victories over the next week will grant him some breathing time as he attempts to put his mark on the team after admitting after the Hapoel defeat that 'We are a million miles from where I want this club to be'.