Thursday night sunk to a new low for the Celtic Football Club. O/k I am sure we have had worse results at home and probably worse performances but I can never remember any one player wearing a Celtic shirt singled out so much for misplaced abuse. Not alone did Sammy receive the abuse non stop from a minority of the 52,000 fans attending but also during and after the match on most Celtic internet forums. His treatment was absolutely appalling and certainly doesn't help to convey the message that we are the best supporters in the world or Europe. Thursday's night fiasco certainly wasn't down to Sammy. We can blame whoever we like but it is totally out of order to blame the big Greek on Thursday night. All through the match the ball was played from the back four position high up to Sammy, there was no one in front of him, so he did all that he could be expected to do, i.e. he flicked the ball on. No one moved to anticipate his flick on, the crowd blamed Sammy, what else could he do, ignore the ball. Surely either the players who kicked the ball high up to him or the player (Stokes) who never came inside looking for the ball are more to blame than Sammy. Now if anyone can explain to me that groaning, booing and shouting abuse at any Celtic player can help Celtic to win a particular game, or for that matter encourage prospective new players to come to Celtic. Would it be a terrible thing if some of current better players like Kayal and Ki realizing how fickle the Celtic support can be decided they wanted out now. Its easy and some people may think its smart to ridicule individual players and some of your fellow posters may think you are a great poster but it doesn't help. None of us would like if friends or relations of our own were treated as imbeciles. Support Celtic and all of Celtic, not the player or two that you currently like.
Problem is, these players take home a healthy wage and Samaras' lack on consitancy frustrates the Celtic support who, in my opinion, have every right to vent this frustration on a player percieved to be lazy and not performing to his best... especially as they pay their "entry fee" and the player gets paid a good few grand (no matter what)! Also, these players are neither friends or relations ... that's why they get treated differently
He's a forward playing for Celtic in one of the easiest leagues to score goals in Europe. BBJ once said that any striker worth their salt should score at least 20 goals per season playing for either Celtic or Rangers. Last season Sammy scored three goals. Let me repeat that just in case the enormity of the situation didn't quite sink in the first time. He scored THREE goals. This is a bloke who is probably earning more per week than a lot of fans earn in a year. Certainly he earns more in a month than the average fan earns yearly. Don't think for a moment that the irritation and anger shown towards Sammy during the match and consequently on here and many other places is due to a single game. It is a collection of games in which he has failed consistently to shows any consistency! It is a number of games in which he has promised so much and yet failed to deliver on nearly every occasion. No one denies that on his day he is a good player. But how often do these days come along? Very rarely if truth be told. As for putting potential signings from coming here I think when we sign a 22 year old earning 1k per week and offer him 10 any thoughts of Samaras being booed will soon be extinguished.
I should also add that we've had far worse nights in Europe. The name Neuchatel Xamax still sends a shiver up my spine. An interesting side note regarding this: Lennon, in a recent interview, mentioned that we tried to sign Feindouno last summer but we couldn't afford his wages. The team we drew with the other night clearly can. Shows exactly where the Old Firm currently stand when it comes to spending power in European football.
Scores tomorrow and he becomes a hero again , that is the way football works , Celtic in my mind were without their 4 best players on Thursday , of course the team wasn't going function the normal way
Stereo, not trying to pick an argument, but can you explain to me how booing Samaras, groaning every time the ball came near him helped Celtic to win on Thursday night. People doing that claim to be Celtic supporters. Surely they were helping Sion. I am not stupid I know Samaras can be frustrating. But at the moment he is one of ours. I also know that it wasn't just Thursday's night performance that raised the abuse on him. Thursday night as, I have said before wasn't all Sammy's fault. The fools who kicked the ball up high and Stokes making no attempt to get to knock down. You say its a culmination of previous lack of efforts. If that is true then Lennon should be getting your wrath, Sammy has never put a gun to the head and demanded a game, he has always came off when requested. Let everyone know that Lennon is wrong in picking Sammy would be a lot better than abusing Sammy throughout the game and then afterwards on the forums. Sammy could go back to Greece and claim he was racially abused. That wouldn't help Celtic trying to sign skilled but unproven players from abroad.
Come on now, there was no racial abuse towards any player on Thursday night. As far as I'm aware there was no racial abuse against Sammy or any other player. Let's not go down that road. As for your point regarding Lennon, yeah you're right, he has to take a share of the blame, especially for Thursday's performance. Every 'tic fan on here has criticised him for his tactics on one thread or another. However, in terms of Samaras, he may be "one of ours" but that just makes the criticism all the more understandable. Celtic fans want every player that pulls on the shirt to do well and give 100%. They recognise when a player is doing that and realise that they're going to have a bad game here and there. But when you try and think back to the number of good performances from Sammy in the past couple of years you struggle to remember more than five. That simply isn't good enough. I would love to be proved wrong and Samaras goes on to have a wonderful season but, even with every Celtic fan cheering his name, I just can't see it.
But stereo, how do you think Samaras will be able to go out and have a wonderful season, with all the abuse hurled at him from the outset when he plays, and all the abuse written about him. He is human after-all. I did not say it was racist, what I did say was what is said and written he may claim to be racist. Stereo, would you like your signature to be written about a son or nephew of your own?
I honestly wouldn't care what anyone on an anonymous internet forum said about me or anyone else. I think you're going a bit OTT in your analysis of the Sammy situation. He's had plenty of support from the Celtic fans in previous games and has failed consistently to provide the goods. What makes you think it's going to change now? Maybe a bit of booing and jeering from the crowd will be the wake up call for him that the fans expect better from him and he better start showing it. The club put faith enough in him when they gave him a new contract in March. It's time he started repaying that faith.
The club put faith in him, I agree. That being the case the least our supporters should do is support the club's support in him. Is it "a la carte menu" Do we support the parts of Celtic club we like and ridicule the rest ? I would have thought that the Celtic supporters would have done a far better job abusing the referee or booing a couple of Sion players. Again my main point has never been answered, how come loud abuse of a Celtic player can help the Celtic team ? As regard your signature, I don't think everyone would be as thick skinned as yourself. It is easy to have a benign approach to something written about yourself, when no one has been targeted at the outset
I like Sammy too, there, I said it. I also would never boo a Celtic player, never have never will because it's counter productive.
Were they booing him? Didn't have the sound so genuinely don't know. It's human nature to groan etc when someone makes the wrong decision every single time for 90 minutes. Stokes was playing on the wing in a 5man midfield so why would he be next to Samaras or beyond him? He wouldn't so why flick the ball on and not try & control it on his chest or head to another player? If the crowd groaned everytime I flicked the ball I'd like to think my brain would start to function and ask the question why are they? And maybe 52000 are right & flicking the ball on is not working so I should try something else..........but Samaras continued to do so. The groaning also lets Lennon know that the crowd want to see a change because we never looked like scoring whilst Samaras remained the lone striker. Lennons downfall will be his stubborness to pick Samaras over Stokes so often........simply comparing both strikers goal records show the difference in class between the 2! Yet the backend of last season Stokes who was top scorer at the time found himself dropped for Samaras, we failed to win enough games & the title.
Still no one has told me how booing and shouting abuse at a player or players helps the team to win. Why should someone pay good money for a season ticket book or match day ticket in order to make team play worse. Really if Samaras is so often so bad, it should be Lennon whom we should be getting rid of. We should all write to Lawell demanding the sacking of Lennon. ( however Lennon is a popular manager, so something is wrong) SURELY WE ALL REALISE THAT ENCOURAGEMENT HELPS A TEAM/PLAYER TO PERFORM. If one player is getting abuse it has a bad effect on whole team. Fortress Parkhead was built by 50,000 + fans roaring their team to success.
