Craig Thomson ruined my birthday

As has been well documented, Celtic's 'reserves' beat Inverness on Saturday, up in the Highlands.

On my birthday.

I was really looking forward to the game.  My football-hating girlfriend - 'hating' is, in this case, not strong enough a word - actually went to the trouble of contacting ICT and asking whether they could put out a tannoy announcement at half-time.  Not only did the club comply with her request, but they also sent me a birthday card signed by the players.  All free of charge.  So huge kudos to Caley Thistle for that, it made my day.  Oh, and huge kudos to my girlfriend.  Of course.  Definitely.  Err....I suspect I may get in trouble for putting those sentences the wrong way round...

Sadly, events on the pitch did not turn out well.  The league leaders rested pretty much their entire first team ahead of their big Champions League clash with Juventus - only Fraser Forster and Kris Commons went on to start three days later against the Old Lady - but the backups did an adequate job in winning 3-1 despite falling behind.

It might - might - have been a bit more difficult for them had referee Craig Thomson not been rather generous to them with his decisions.  Anyone unfortunate enough to be following my twitter feed during the match will have quickly tired of my ranting, but I insist that Inverness were hard done by.  I was already seething by the time, early in the second half, young defender Marcus Fraser blocked a cross with his elbow in the box.  On the one hand, he was only about 5 yards away when the ball was kicked; however, he had also thrown himself in front of the cross with his arms outstretched in a manner more befitting the aforementioned Forster.  Thomson, five yards away, shook his head.  Every 'diddy team' fan will tell you that, when it's Celtic who are attacking, those decisions tend to be given.

About 20 minutes later, with ICT well on top and on the attack, Beram Kayal stayed down in his own area after making a sliding clearance, holding his thigh.  With the ball about to come back in to the Celtic box, Thomson stopped play, signalling a head knock.  (I'm getting unusually good use out of italics today, aren't I?) When Kayal instantly bounced back to his feet and jogged off for a quick spray of Deep Heat on the aforementioned thigh, Celtic of course booted the drop ball 80 yards up the pitch.  At this point, the home support were some flaming torches and a couple of pitchforks short of a lynch mob.

I was so incensed that I actually went home after the match and perused Soccerbase in order to find evidence that Thomson is dodgy, that Scotland's supposed top ref gives the 'tic all the decisions.  Did I find any?  Not a bean.  He's officiated his fair share of Celtic defeats.  So maybe he had a bad day.  More likely, I am just as biased as any other football supporter.

But, as far as I'm concerned, Craig Thomson ruined my birthday.  So there.  Reader, I demand your sympathy.

The one thing almost - almost (those italics again!) as annoying as Thomson was the subsequent media reaction - howls of derision at how the side second in the SPL had been beaten at home by Celtic's reserves.  Let's look at this 'second-string' team.  We mentioned Forster, England's number two keeper, Israeli international Kayal and Scotland international Commons earlier.  At the back were Rami Gershon, another Israeli international, and Thomas Rogne, who has 2 caps for Norway.  Four more capped players, Tom Rogic (Australia), Anthony Stokes (Ireland), Paddy McCourt (Northern Ireland) and Miku (Venezuela) also started.  (For the record, I claimed on this week's podcast that Miku was so bad before he scored a late tap-in that he looked like he could end up in a Findus Lasagne.  He was horrendous).  And the other two, Marcus Fraser and Dylan McGeouch, are under 21 internationals for Scotland.

Second-string?  All eleven are probably better players than their Inverness equivalents.

In fact, having come to that conclusion, I then racked my brains - if no Inverness player could get into Celtic's SECOND ELEVEN, which other SPL players could?

It's not easy.  Johnny Russell?  Leigh Griffiths?  Gary Mackay-Steven?  I'm not sure any of them are obviously better than the equivalent players who turned out in the green and white hoops on Saturday.

It's one thing for Celtic to have such superior resources that they have eleven players who are better than anything else the SPL can throw at them.  It's another for them to have TWENTY-TWO.  Even in the absence of Rangers, there is clearly zero chance of anyone else being able to challenge them in the immediate future.

And given that the Bhoys released outstanding financial figures this week, suggesting their bank debt is almost zero and that they are in remarkably rude health, there isn't exactly much hope for the future either.  Everyone else - even Rangers, I suspect, when they do return to the top tree - will be playing for second place for a long time to come.

But I suppose playing for second place is better than playing for third...

L.