Anything but a quiet week off!

 It’s been seven long days and nights since the St Mirren match but probably the busiest of the season in terms of news and events.

Crammed into a week we’ve had the transfer window closing, two new signings, a visit from Barcelona, the verdict on the Neil Lennon assault, the launch of Peter Lawwell’s stand-up career, a Europa League reprieve and signs of increased activity from HMRC in the affairs of Rangers- and not a competitive ball kicked in anger.

Most Celtic fan websites, newspapers and all sorts of waifs and strays have already commented on the court hearing regarding the assault on Neil Lennon. I think I fall into the latter category there so here are my thoughts. As always, please let me know what your thoughts are on what I have written.

To start with, the Edinburgh verdict confirmed for me that I never want to pursue a career in law – the reason is that the law in Scotland utterly baffles me. Some men say that woman are confusing but not in comparison to the John Wilson assault decision.

How the scum bag that went for Lennon can get with it is beyond me. Call me paranoid but does anyone honestly believe the outcome would have been the same had some other idiot tried to attack a manager / coach / player who wasn’t from Celtic? I doubt it very much.

The obvious thing to do would be for us, as a collective group or even as the Celtic family, a phrase that I don’t really like, is for us to give nobody any reason at all to have a go at us. We are better than all the bigots that inhabit Scotland.

Our way to stick two fingers up to anyone who is against us is by the team winning the league, more on that later, and by us supporters sticking to non-bigoted and non-political songs.

My final thought on that verdict is that it really does suggest that it will be ok for other like-minded idiots to come up with a similar idea and try to attack opposition staff.

Our supporters are the only Scottish supporters in history who have ever received a FIFA fair play award. We generally get a good write up from local authorities and opposition teams whenever we travel. We are often invited to tournaments including some of world footballs big boys and the reason for that is us, the supporters.

I’ve suggested that the best way to stick up two fingers to anti-Celtic folk is by winning the league. Peter Lawwell has said in the past that he feels it’s important for us to leave a transfer window in a stronger than what we entered.

I fell this time round that we did. Ideally, we would have got rid of a few more players but at least we got left back cover and a new striker which is what we have all being crying out for. So now, it’s really up to the new guys to prove that they are good enough to come and give us what we need- the SPL title.

My final thoughts will move on to Sion. UEFA have given their verdict and correctly booted them out of the Europa League for fielding ineligible players.

Do we have much of a chance of qualifying from a group consisting of Rennes, Athletico Madrid and Udinese?

Had we qualified as a seeded team, as opposed to un-seeded team like Sion, we wouldn’t have been up against such opposition so may well have been in a group that we had a better chance of progressing from.

A lot of people have been saying that they would rather we never got into the league based on the fact that we never won the games. The obvious counter to that would be to ask if Sion had not fielded players who were ineligible, would they have beaten us?

Like so many things I have written on here, there is no answer to that question and of course, no way of ever being able to answer so I will leave for the readers to discuss.

Regardless of the reasons for that, can we really afford another year without European football and the money that it generates? I don’t know enough about our clubs finances but based on the fact that we made approximately £500,000 profit last year while bringing in about £10m for one player, I would suggest that no European football isn’t an option for Celtic.

One way that I have tried to look at this is to think of what other teams may do if they are allowed in the back door so to speak. Look at Rangers recently up at Inverness. They were awarded two debatable penalties but never said well we shouldn’t have got those so we won’t take it.

There are plenty of other teams who get dubious decisions against us who will take them. For years, we have been told that the dodgy decisions will even themselves out, I’ve been waiting for over 20 years for that to happen so maybe it’s coming up to the time where the decisions are going to even themselves out?

I doubt it but at the very least, if Sion had fielded ineligible players and we are to lose out as a result, it seems justifiable that we get to go back into the competition based on the fact Sion shouldn’t have been there to start with.

The other thing is the £4million or so revenue, how valuable might that be in January to us? Generally, January is a good time to look at bringing a fresh face or two to keep the squad ticking over so if we can get £4million from the Europa League and are able to buy a better standard of player then I am all for it.

CLICK HERE for Sion go to war with UEFA and FIFA

CLICK HERE for youth team win over Dundee United

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