After the Old Firm defeat at the hands off the ref/ sorry Rangers,SPL football comes back with a bang this Saturday as Celtic take on Jim Gannon's Motherwell side in a match which the Fir Park gaffer is looking forward to and why should he not?
Loads also happening at Celtic Park and beyond in a week,were rumour after rumour has surfaced and stories of not only the Old Firm leaving the Scottish game but a possible return to Celtic Park of King Henrik???? Surely not????

Yes much has happened since the Celts last played and lost against their old rivals Rangers but much has been said and written about that match,I think now is the time to put it to bed,it is gone,Rangers got the three points but Celtic until later today at least still stay a point clear of their rivals but Rangers do go to Perth for the lunchtime kick-off so by the time Celtic kick off at three today,Rangers could be top of the league,I think most fans expect that they will beat St.Johnstone today or is that being too disrespectful to Derek McInnes and his men?

Many things have gone on this week with the talk that both the Old Firm want to up sticks and get a move to England or to some kind of Atlantic league involving a few of the big Dutch clubs.
lets just say that this chat has certainly got the supporters and jurno's talking and the one thing which does come out of this is,something has to be done somewhere!

I agree with Walter Smith's statement when he said that people don't want to invest in the Scottish game and we have lost far too much of our talent down to the Championship,not even the Premiership as people are willing to invest in their game down south and this makes their league so much more exciting.The fact that people want to invest money in their squad's and this includes paying more money to players in the Championship than the big boys in Scotland,which is not good!

There has to be a serious rethink of how we attract fans back to our football and how do we keep our good players here in Scotland?

For Celtic they have already seen the fruits of their labour come through with young Islam Feruz not only coming to Glasgow from Somalia and settling in to the Scottish way of life but only this week he was called up under the new ruling that if a player holds a British passport and has at least five years of schooling here then he is eligible to play for that country.

Young Islam has been the fruits of the labour and hard work that the late Tommy Burns put in to keep the young man and his family here.Celtic will now benefit from this as I have seen the youngster in a live match when he made his debut for Celtic in the Tommy Burns benefit match,I am not even sure that Tommy would have believed that his young prospect would be given a call up to the Scotland Under 17 squad so soon! But such are the young mans talents it is not hard to see why the coaches at both Celtic and Scotland have been impressed with him,so good on him and best of luck in the future to a Bhoy we hope will be around Celtic Park for a very long time.

Young Islam could be the new King at Celtic Park but the old one was in the news again as he admitted that he would love to come back to the club as a coach but I don't think the fans should get too excited just yet as Henrik still has his coaching badges to do and we do have a coach or and manager in place at the moment,he is called Tony Mowbray!

Celtic players have been all over the world in the past couple of weeks and our under fire defensive duo played for Scotland against Japan in the 2-0 defeat and coped quite well until the og went in from Berra and it looks like they will have to start the game against Motherwell as the ban on Glenn Loovens will now take place five months after the actual challenge! I remember Nacho Novo comitting a foul against Stephen Pearson a few years ago,do you think something will be done about that?

As well as Loovens,Celtic could well be without Andreas Hinkel and Danny Fox for the visit of Motherwell and old boy Jim O'Brien so I think Jim Gannon will tell his men to have a right go at Celtic straight from the off in what should be an entertaining game as the former Stockport gaffer has got his team going well,excuse the expression!

Just before I sign off for this weeks article,I would like to draw your attention to one of the many Celtic books that will be on the shelves in the weeks to come before Christmas!

The latest being former player and manager,Davie Hay who's book,"THE QUIET ASSASSIN" follows the dramatic career of another Celtic legend in a fantastic book that will be a welcome present to any Celtic fan.

I was lucky enough last week to pick up the Lisbon Lions and Bertie Auld books along with a Jinky DVD and I am looking forward to reading them and very soon the Davie Hay story also.

Think of the winter nights coming in or all those Wednesday nights when our neighbours are in the Champions League,would you not rather be reading one of these rather than watching them?
You could always buy a Davie Hay book for yourself and buy a Lisbon Lions one for your Gers supporting pals just to let them see what it is like to win the European Cup and not only that the first British team to do so! Not bad was it for a wee team from Glasgow?