Over the past nine months, we have run a series of posts outlining our notional “All-time Celtic Squad”.  This was a strictly broad-brush and totally tongue-in-cheek exercise, with absolutely no pretence whatsoever at being to any extent definitive or authoritative.

Essentially, it has been a bit of harmless Celtic-minded fun, conducted from an entirely subjective point of view.

That said, we genuinely believe that the final, make-believe squad, assembled here for your delectation (with a little last-minute fine-tuning), would be a formidable one.  Make of it what you will.

GOALKEEPERS:

Johnny Thomson … Willie Miller … Ronnie Simpson … Artur Boruc

FULL BACKS:

Dan Doyle … Alec McNair … Bobby Hogg … Jock Morrison …. Sean Fallon …Tommy Gemmell … David Hay … Danny McGrain … Tosh McKinlay … Didier Agathe

CENTRE BACKS:

James Kelly … Willie Loney … Billy Cringan … Willie Lyon … Bobby Evans … Billy McNeill … George Connelly … Paul Elliott … Alan Stubbs

MIDFIELD:

Holding –

Roy Keane … Roy Aitken … Paul Lambert … Neil Lennon … Beram Kayal

Creative –

Sandy McMahon … Patsy Gallacher … Jimmy McMenemy … Peter Johnstone
… Tommy McInally … Charlie Napier … George Paterson … Malky MacDonald
… Willie Fernie … Paddy Crerand … Bobby Murdoch … Bertie Auld … Paul McStay … Lubomir Moravcik … Paolo di Canio … Ki Sung Yueng

Attacking –

Phil O’Donnell … Stilian Petrov … Brian McClair

WINGERS:

Alec Bennett … Jimmy Delaney … Charlie Tully … Jimmy Johnstone … Alan Thompson … Shunsuke Nakamura … Paddy McCourt … Kris Commons

STRIKERS:

Jimmy Quinn … Jimmy McGrory … Bobby Lennox … Joe McBride … Kenny Dalglish … Henrik Larsson

For us, there can only be one manager, “The Big Man” himself, backed up by a pool of legendary assistants, in strictly chronological order:

MANAGER:

Jock Stein

ASSISTANT MANAGERS:

Willie Maley … Billy McNeill … Martin O’Neill

We rest our case!

Johnbhoy