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Billy Stark today confirmed his Scotland Under-21 squad for next month’s European Championship qualifiers away to Slovakia and Luxembourg. The fixtures are the final two of the campaign and features call-ups for Reading’s Dominic Hyam and Sporting Club de Portugal’s Ryan Gauld. Ryan Christie has been rewarded for a fine start to the season with Scottish Premiership leaders Inverness Caledonian Thistle, whilst Sam Nicholson of Heart of Midlothian has also been included for the first time. Goalkeepers Jordan Archer (Tottenham Hotspur*) Jack Hamilton (Heart of Midlothian) Jonathan Henly (Reading) Defenders Stuart Findlay (Celtic) Marcus Fraser (Celtic) Stephen Hendrie (Hamilton Academical) Dominic Hyam (Reading) Ryan Jack (Aberdeen) Jordan McGhee (Heart of Midlothian) Clark Robertson (Aberdeen) Midfielder Stuart Armstrong (Dundee United) Ryan Gauld (Sporting Clube de Portugal) Lewis Macleod (Rangers) John McGinn (St Mirren) Craig Slater (Kilmarnock) Forwards Ryan Christie (Inverness Caledonian Thistle) Ryan Fraser (Bournemouth) Stevie May (Sheffield Wednesday) Sam Nicholson (Heart of Midlothian) * On loan at Northampton Town

That's amazing you also managed to get Terry Butcher in the photo

I don't like to disagree dad, but I'm not having this. Mulgrew, Commons and Griffiths are all established Scotland players. Ambrose was at the world cup, Zaluskas, Pukki, Bitton and Johansen have all played for their countries. Even one of the subs (MacGregor) has just got a call up so this was no "severely weakened" team. Celtic have a massive squad who I presume train together day in day out in various permutations. In the second half, we passed them off the park. Not my point of view but that of a significant portion of the media - usually grudging in their praise who are recognising that the style of play, regardless of the manager, is attractive and beginning to show signs of being successful. If you think that this is as good as it gets because that's where we are settled at and others will progress as far can I suggest that this team are still learning, we have Foran to return if required and we will improve. Perhaps you recognise this point in your final sentence, but they seem opposing points of view. You are correct in saying that Brill was excellent, but had we converted chances from Tansey, Ross and Christie (all of which were narrowly missed) and got a stonewall penalty in the first half, your score analysis would have been turned on it's head. There was criticism of the performance against Dundee, but I'm not sure that you can call it significant. We drew against a team that set out to defend for 80 odd minutes and did so very well. We didn't lose the game and had the lions share of pressure. The only thing lacking in the performance was a goal. Is that worthy of "significant" criticism? On the subject of eating humble pie, does that really need to be done? We are all ICT fans here. Sure Hughes was "given time" by some last year and this years judgement point seems to be slipping from October to Christmas to the end of the season, which is where it should have been all along. Even if we lose to Kilmarnock on Saturday, my personal viewpoint won't change. It certainly won't change any more than it did about Butcher's team that was dismantled by St. Johnstone at a similar time of last season, although that display showed how tactically limited we were at the time and was more worthy of concern than any result this season. I'm glad you enjoyed the game, so did I. However, I wish that more than 5600 or so had enjoyed it. We (the regulars, the committed fans etc.) need to be shouting this from the rafters to get more bodies into the stadium to get behind the team, bolster the finances and allow us to kick on. One final point, remember the last time we played a "weakened" Celtic team - we got cuffed because we didn't have the belief that we could beat them. Sure do now.

He's fat he's round he's worth a million pounds !!

Goood performance and great result. It may have been a 'weakened' Celtic team but I would be interested to cpmpare the combined salary of their starting eleven to ours. I am sure the difference would be at least five fold and probably a good deal more. Credit to yogi and the coaching staff for this one. He was right we did ride our luck a bit in the first half but so did Celtic the half time score could well have been 2 all. What did confuse me was his reference to the last 25 minutes as being 'like the Alamo'. From where I was sitting, we dealt with Celtic with the utmost ease with hardly a single scare after we scored.

Aye OK, it's Bute House, Charlotte Square...........and if you could somehow arrange the latter too....

Having had a quick squint through the rules I can't find anything which makes provision for having the draw under such circumstances. The only thing I can think would be a way round it would be to replace the "Killie" and "Rangers/ICTFC" balls with "Killie/ICTFC" and "Killie/Rangers" balls....then depending on the outcome of our game delete as applicable.

[terrible, contrived tabloid headline alert!] [obscure literary reference alert!] If Celtic get knocked out tonight because their striker scores an own goal, would that be a Maribor Stokes Nightmare? By way of an apology, I will not only fetch me coat I will also provide my own tumbleweed. :tumbleweed:

Hes a free agent... MAHNIOOOOOO

Manager-wise Rudi Gutendorf has the record for the most international teams managed and signed Steve Paterson for some team in Japan! He's managed Blue Star Zurich, Luzern, US Monastir, Duisburg, Stuttgart, St Louis Stars, Bermuda, Schalke, Kickers Offenbach, Sporting Cristal, Chile, Bolivia, Venezuela, 1860 Munich, Real Vallodolid, Fortuna Koln, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda, Botswana, Hamburg, Australia, New Caledonia, Fiji, Nepal, Tonga, Tanzania, Hertha Berlin, Sao Tome and Principe, Yomiuri (now known as Tokyo Verdy), Ghana, Nepal, Fiji (was so good they brought him back!), China, Iran U23s, China (again!), Mauritius, Zimbabwe, Mauritius (again!), Rwanda and Samoa! Bizarrely, in his playing career he was a one club man and played for TuS Neuendorf for nine years!

That's a glaring schoolboy error from me! Scarlet, I was simply being facetious in response to your post #155 which was most certainly 'Cantona-esque'!

From The Herald 2002 "Robertson is believed to have beaten off the challenge of Peterhead's Ian Wilson and Queen of the South's John Connelly to the job after Aston Villa's Kevin MacDonald dropped out of the race." Source: The Herald - 27/12/2002

Isn't that wee blonde guy a ginger?

Me too, but: On pizza = good thing Managing a football club = bad thing

A Celtic supporting colleague is claiming that one of our ball-boys wasn't properly registered......

Absolutely Brill

Chris Sutton...glad we avoided him in the end

RiG is probably already readying himself for a few 2 a.m. phonecalls from Northumbria.