2018-05-19: Celtic 2-0 Motherwell, Scottish Cup

Trivia

• Scottish Cup Final

• Celtic win the Scottish Cup

• Celtic complete the Domestic Treble, and make history with first ever back-to-back treble; an historic day.

• Battle of the two Irish managers.
• First cup winners medals for Ajer, Ntcham, Bain andKouassi.
• Celtic celebrate with a open top bus to Celtic Park, previously not done.
• Celtic defeated Sevco in the semi-finals 4-0 and M’well defeated Aberdeen in same round 3-0 to get here.
• Sevco striker Michael O'Halloran said sorry to Sevco after found sitting with Celtic fans at Scottish Cup Final.
• Boxing's legendary announcer Michael Buffer opened the game by calling out the teams with his signature "LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE…."
  
• Scott Brown and Brendan Rodgers awarded Ladbrokes Premiership Player and Manager of the Year.
• Kristoffer Ajer signs new four-year deal with Celtic. Tom Rogic signs new 5 year deal.
• Musonda has his 18mth loan terminated early after just 5months.
• Dedryck Boyata is hoping to sign a new deal with Celtic after opening talks with the Parkhead club. The Belgian has just one-year left on his current deal but he insists he’s not in a rush to go anywhere else.
• An email has surfaced online of an MSP telling a Celtic fan to stop supporting Celtic and support a local team after questions were raised about Glasgow City Councils plans to ban fans from parking near Celtic Park on match days. According to our friends over at CQN the fan in question is Gordon, a disabled fan who hails from Newcastle and frequently visits Celtic Park on match days. When his concerns were raised to MSP John Mason, his response was for the fan to go find another small local side. Absolutely disgrace, and pilloried in social media & outwithg.
• Royal wedding in London on same day, very few in the north have any interest.
• Rumours:
  Celtic could land Red Star Belgrade winger Luka Adzic for less than £1.8 million if the 19-year-old – whose current deal expires in December – doesn’t agree a new deal with the Serbian giants.
  Celtic have been linked with out-of-contract Hull forward Abel Hernandez, according to reports south of the Border linking the Uruguayan international with a move away from the Tigers.
  Kieran Tierney is on the radar of Spanish giants Atletico Madrid.
• The Scottish FA have charged Rangers with breaking the rules over a tax bill prior to being awarded a licence to play in European football in the 2011/12 season.
• The Scotland manager + ex EBT FC manager has the total brass neck to say "I do think it's not a level playing field" His appointment to Scotland manager shows the @ScottishFA IP to be corrupt to the core

Review

(The Poacher of KDS)
Its been a tricky season but we've completed back to back trebles. Just an amazing achievement, unthinkable. We have set new standards for what this club, when it sets out to do its very best, can do. We cant be complacent, we cant be greedy we just got to do the very best we can.

If players move on in the summer they can be proud of the part they've played because from here it looks like a team effort. We do need to freshen the squad up and we do need to develop the club's standing in Europe; we dont want other teams rolling up to Parkhead thinking this is a Disney ride. Going to be tough, qualifiers are getting harder all the time, we have to expect that but there is a realistic expectation that theres room for improvement.

Glory days.

Spent the evening enjoying aperitifs in Maryhill's finest, The Rams Head. Everywhere I looked people were drinking pink stuff. God save them.

Teams

Articles

• Match Report (see end of page below)

Pictures

• Match Pictures

Forum

• Pre-match
• Match
• Post Match

MOTM

• Voting Thread
• Result Thread
• Winner –

Stats

Celtic
Motherwell

Possession
Home61%
Away39%

Shots
Home16
Away10

Shots on Target
Home6
Away5

Corners
Home8
Away6

Fouls
Home9
Away20

Articles

Celtic 2 – 0 Motherwell: Celtic cruise to double treble success
Olivier Ntcham makes it 2-0. Picture: John Devlin
Olivier Ntcham makes it 2-0. Picture: John Devlin
Andrew Smith
Published: 16:51 Saturday 19 May 2018
https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/teams/celtic/celtic-2-0-motherwell-celtic-cruise-to-double-treble-success-1-4741952
Celtic under Brendan Rodgers have redrawn the parameters of the possible in the Scottish game. Fitting, then, that there were some pretty pictures sketched out at Hampden as they achieved what had proved impossible for the previous 71 seasons in becoming the first team to claim back-to-back trebles.

It wasn’t a vintage display that snared Celtic a 38th Scottish Cup triumph and ensured that Rodgers’ men have hoovered up every domestic honour across his remarkable two years in charge. The colours overall were far more pallid, both in the encounter and the celebrations, than the vivid euphoria that greeted the club’s dramatic clinching of an unprecedented invincible treble at the same venue 12 months earlier. There was, however, sufficient flourish in some of their key brushstrokes to paint Motherwell’s artisanship out of the final landscape.

Celtic have now racked up 18 straight win in domestic cup ties – registering an astonishing 14 clean sheets in the process – through being absolutely secure in the knowledge that they will have big players that will turn up and produce big moments.

Yesterday, it was the turn of Callum McGregor, Tom Rogic and Olivier Ntcham to be the men making the difference on an afternoon where performance levels in the winning team were otherwise more adequate than anything else. Symbolic of their second treble, in certain respects.

Yet, for all that Motherwell never stopped grafting and giving it their absolute everything, and for all that they had chances and a courageous late rally, the truth is the outcome was essentially settled after only 11 minutes.

McGregor is becoming the aesthete for such occasions and his opening goal was indeed a thing of beauty, combining panache and precision.

When a Charles Dunne clearing header dropped at the edge of the box, he was on to it with the agility and menace of a cat pouncing on a ball of wool. Without breaking stride, he flicked it forward with his left foot and in the next instant lashed it home with his right.

Celtic took charge then. Their criss-crossing to open up the pitch, both with passes and personnel had five and six players stretching their opponents in the final third. In this passage there seemed at times to be two and three of Rogic. Irrepressible and – in earning a new five-year deal this week – irreplaceable, Motherwell simply could not suppress him.

It cost them dearly when he was the fulcrum in a four-man move that led to the second goal in the 25th minute. The Australian received the ball out wide from McGregor and then fed it back inside to Moussa Dembele. The Frenchman then took over, holding it up for countryman Ntcham. He opted for accuracy more than power to tuck a low drive into the right-hand corner of Trevor Carson’s net from the edge of the box, the strike grazing the heel of Cedric Kipre on its way in.

At this point, the fear was that Stephen Robinson’s men could be facing a flailing. Instead, they started to swap chances with a Celtic that played as if they subconsciously considered the tie over. Curtis Main, Motherwell’s main threat in attack, blazed over when he should have tested Craig Gordon before the interval, and did so with an arcing effort the keeper clawed over straight after it.

In the closing stages, the Lanarkshire side altered the dynamic in forcing Celtic on to the back foot. Robinson was firmly of the belief that their endeavours should have changed the composition of their opponents’ team, convinced that Dedryck Boyata should have been shown a red and not a yellow card from referee Kevin Clancy after he tugged back the motoring Chris Cadden as he reached the D of the penalty box in the 78th minute. From the resultant free-kick, substitute Gael Bigirimana curled the ball onto the crossbar. Close but not close enough, typifying a season wherein the Fir Park men were vanquished but no passive victims in both cup finals.

Rodgers’ Celtic, meanwhile, simply continue to raise the bar.

BBC
Celtic: 'Brendan Rodgers will stay for 10 in a row' – Kris Commons

6 hours ago From the section Celtic

Celtic staff with the Scottish domestic trophies
Brendan Rodgers has known nothing but domestic success since becoming Celtic manager

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers could stay at the club long enough to guide them towards 10 titles in a row, believes former player Kris Commons.

Commons was at the club for the first six of their current run of seven successive top-flight titles, though did not feature in his last season.

Under Rodgers, 45, Celtic have won back-to-back domestic Trebles.

"It's whet his appetite that he may be around for the elusive 10 that everyone talks about," said Commons, 34.

Celtic have become legends – Gordon
Rest of Premiership 'must grab Celtic's coat-tails' – Clarke

The Scottish record of nine successive titles is currently shared by Jock Stein's Celtic team of 1965-66 to 1973-74, and the Rangers team from 1988-89 to 1996-1997, under first Graeme Souness and then Walter Smith.

Former Liverpool and Swansea manager Rodgers, who is contracted until 2021, replaced Ronny Deila in 2016 after the Norwegian had won two Premiership crowns at Celtic.

Deila's predecessor Neil Lennon, who signed Commons in 2011, led Celtic to three top-flight titles.

Rodgers' Celtic were unbeaten domestically in his first season in charge as they beat Aberdeen to all three domestic trophies.

The Dons finished as runners-up in the league again this season and Celtic beat Motherwell 2-0 in both the League Cup final and Saturday's Scottish Cup final.

"I think probably when he first came up, he's probably thinking two, three years top and then try and get back to the English Premier League," Commons said.
Highlights: Celtic 2-0 Motherwell

"He said after the game [on Saturday], 'you know, I've got three years left, we're up to seven'."

Former Rangers, Motherwell and Bradford manager Stuart McCall agrees that Rodgers will be targeting 10-in-a-row.

"He's been outstanding," said McCall, who won six titles as part of Rangers' nine-in-a-row side.

"That signing above all, getting him as manager, has been a great acquisition for Celtic. People say, 'will he move on?' I think he's here for the next few years without a doubt because it's his dream, he's loving it.

"If you're at a place that you want to be at, sometimes the grass isn't always greener. Certainly, financially going down to England, yeah, you'll probably get a bit more money.

"I think the challenge will be enough for him up here because he'll want to get the next three. There's no doubt about that. I don't see him being tempted to go anywhere else."

And former Rangers midfielder McCall, 53, joked: "For me, I think he's stayed too long now, Brendan. I've sent his CV down to Arsenal, I think it's about time he moved on."
Brendan Rodgers has led Celtic to six domestic trophies out of six

In Europe, Celtic have reached the group stages of the Champions League two years running, progressing into the Europa League knockout rounds this season.

However, Rodgers' side won only twice after the qualifying rounds this term, and were knocked out of the Europa League by Zenit St Petersburg, despite winning the first leg.

"A lot of people will say the European campaign has been a little bit disappointing to say the least," Commons added. "The expectation will rise.

"The past managers, the past years, you've watched Celtic create a little bit of history in Europe. That's probably the only thing that is lacking.

"We had relatively good success under Neil Lennon. Looking at this squad now, I think they are a far superior footballing team that are just lacking that little bit of luck sometimes.

"It's very, very cut-throat at that end of football. I think he could spend £100m on the squad and still be way short.

"You look at Paris St-Germain, I think they spent over the course of the last three years nearly £1bn on transfer fees. They're still not making [European] finals."

90'+4'