Greatest Celtic Team 1989 - Present

[Bridie Bhoy]

Seeing as its now the close season, how about a little bit of fun? In the past there have been numerous votes on the greatest ever team. However, it is impossible to compare different generations and we usually find that very few of the very old legends get selected despite being some of the greatest players in the world at that time. Therefore, I am suggesting that we split the team selections up into THREE distinct time-periods.

The first would be the early days and cover the period 1888 through to 1938.

The second time-period would cover the next 50 years from 1939 to 1988.

The third time-period would be from 1989 through to the current time.

The only rules are that the team should be in an appropriate formation for that time-period (so no 2-3-5 formation for this recent time period), you should select 7 substitutes (including at least 1 goalie, 1 defender, 1 midfielder and 1 attacker) and a manager. If you are selecting more than one team and a player’s Celtic career spans two time-periods then you should only select them for only one side.

Remember this is for fun. It is all about opinions so there are no right and wrong answers and any debate must be kept civil and light-hearted.

This will probably be the most interesting and most debated team. I envisage lots of friendly arguing between people wanting Lennon, Lambert, Wanyama or Broony as a holding midfielder. Do you select the 3 Amigoes or lots of Seville heroes? And if anyone wants to select Brendan as the manager then please respect this decision, so no(t too much) harassing them! And if you are selecting Wayne Biggins ahead of Virgil van Dijk then you are either a troll, closet rangers fan or a footballing maverick/genius/fool!

 

[Bridie Bhoy]

And here is my Recent Heroes team. I really wish I’d suggested we had to pick a 23 man squad as this is far too difficult!

F Forster
T Boyd, V van Dijk, J Mjällby, K Tierney
P McStay, V Wanyama, S Brown (captain), A Thompson
H Larsson, C Sutton

Subs
C Gordon
M Rieper
N Lennon
S Nakamura
L Moravcik
P Di Canio
J Hartson

Manager
T Burns

Another set of tough decisions. I plumped for Forster as goalie as he was just outstanding when he was with us – ask Barca! Perhaps controversially I went for Craig Gordon as his back-up. Craig’s stock has plummeted with many fans over the last couple of seasons, but for a few years he was very consistent and managed to go on lengthy runs of clean sheets. It was latterly when BR insisted on him constantly playing out from the back under pressure that he really struggled – this wasn’t his strength. If Bain keeps going with his current form then he will be in with a shout. Sadly I missed out Artur Boruc who was excellent in many games and possibly should have been ahead of Gordon (I suspect he will be in many teams), but I genuinely think Craig was a slightly better keeper.

I think my defence is very strong. I probably should have chosen Constable Lustig as sub for many years of excellent service, but instead went for Marc Rieper who is one of the classiest defenders I’ve seen at Parkhead – pity injury hampered him. Paul Elliott, Jackie McNamara, Dider Agathe, Joos Valgaeren and Bobo Balde were all strongly considered but in the end I had to leave them out of my final squad.

My biggest struggle was not selecting Paul Lambert who really was class, and probably should be in this team. Perhaps surprisingly I went for Wanyama in midfield who I thought was an incredible player. I couldn’t find room for John Collins, Pierre Van Hooidonk, Jorge Cadette and Mark Viduka who were amazing players but maybe not Celtic through and through. Only at the last minute did I pick Paolo as he was an brilliant talent, but I really don’t like his political beliefs – I already feel very guilty about dropping the wonderful Stilian Petrov for this arsehole – so no need to point this out to me.

I had to select Broony as captain as I believe he would have been a great leader and driving force in any era – he would have been a bigger legend if he played in the 70s and 80s when football was more brutal and I think he could have held his own against the likes of Bertie Auld, Billy Bremner & Graeme Souness when they were in their prime (just my opinion – but can’t be proven either way).

As for the manager, well I am just a sentimental old fool. Before BRexit, I would have gone for Brendan Rodgers, but he can clearly sod off now and enjoy the pleasures of Leicester! MON is the other obvious candidate for a manager, but I love TB and am disgusted that he was robbed of much deserved success by the disgraceful financial doping that Murray was conducting at Ibrokes in cahoots with his funny handshake brethren in the banks. They run up huge debts that he could never possibly pay off to win trinkets at the expense of all the other teams throughout Scotland. Tommy Burns’ Celtic team played with a flare and verve that was exciting to watch and, but for some awful refereeing decisions (paranoid – me? you bet) and downright cheating by Jim Farry & his cronies, he should have halted their 9 in a row. For all these reasons I would like this absolute legend to enjoy the success his talents so richly deserved.

Hopefully there will be a couple more current players who will progress over the next few years to join this elite team if we revisit this in the future.

OK – I’ve put my neck on the line, now let’s hear where I went wrong (keep it friendly) and what team you would pick instead that would thrash my Bridie Bhoys.