Alistair Johnston

[VinceA]

Alot of people keep bringing up "But this guy was so good during WCQ!"

That was almost two years ago.

[RS]

5 minutes ago, VinceA said:

Alot of people keep bringing up "But this guy was so good during WCQ!"

That was almost two years ago.

And?

He's not 80 years old. He can regain his form.

[Shway]

4 minutes ago, RS said:

And?

He's not 80 years old. He can regain his form.

It's a good point.

Regaining form is supposed to happen at the club level, and then hope it translates to the national team. Club form is what is supposed to be the gauge for players to earn their call up. 

[RS]

5 minutes ago, Shway said:

It's a good point.

Regaining form is supposed to happen at the club level, and then hope it translates to the national team. Club form is what is supposed to be the gauge for players to earn their call up. 

These posts are in response to him having a good game with Celtic.

[The Real Marc]

Challenge is that game was against the quality of Livingston. But it's a start!

[Kadenge]

22 hours ago, VinceA said:

Alot of people keep bringing up "But this guy was so good during WCQ!"

That was almost two years ago.

In AJ's case he transferred to Celtic after the WC and had a very good half season where he was MoM  often.  His play fell off after his injury towards the end of last season. So much more recent. Celtic as a team have been underperforming. But in general, I get what you are saying and a reason why we need a higher quality coach. The status quo is not working anymore.

[TOcanadafan]

I want to give AJ the benefit of the doubt and say his refent run of poorer form with the NT is due to the injury. 
Can anyone with more in depth knowledge of Celtic sun up the effect of the manager change? Ange seemed like the perfect manager to improve AJ’s game… I wonder what effect Rodgers is having?

[Cheeta]

On 12/24/2023 at 4:30 PM, The Real Marc said:

Challenge is that game was against the quality of Livingston. But it's a start!

And followed up by a solid match yesterday against Dundee at Dens Park.   (The other Johnston got the days glory but that fine to.)

He's looking better every match to my eye, still a ways to get back into his best form but he's no slouch as it is, Rodgers isn't playing him out of kindness.  Going on more raids, trying more of those passes which are just a beauty when they come off.  He's getting there.  

Nature of the possition isn't it?  It's hard to get credit for supporting an attack with a sharp bit of running when you're only ever used as a decoy.  Also hard to get credit for a clever bit of give & go when your give is lost on a teammate who's missed the obvious "go" part of the movement.  Not blaming other players for AJ not showing his best but it's football.  The frame surrounding the portrait also makes an impression to the eye.

 

 

[Cheeta]

P.S. 

Pretty snarky bunch, Celtic followers.  Maybe they're not so different than at any other club but this season they seem a bit more irritated.  Bringing Rodgers back, the troubles with the Green Brigade, the usually CL disappointment and the fattening corporate bank account, maybe it's all getting to be a bit much.  So... a lot of players have been in for A LOT of criticsm so far this season and I'm sure AJ has gotten his more than once to but you'd have to do some looking to find it.  Just saying he's not one of those in the bullseye.

O'Riley is looking more consistant which is great for AJ, something to work with as it were.  Maeda is right off currently, which is bad for AJ because the two men see the game with the same eye. 

Carter-Vickers went out again with his hammy.  Nothing serious should be back for Saturday but he's been gaff free for a while now so also good for AJ.     

So overall optimistic going forward.  Hope the break doesn't disrupt the positive trend.

[Cheeta]

Starts today at Celtic Park against Rangers.  Celtic up 1-0 at the break.  Not much to add as couldn't get the site working until 40 minutes in.  Bugger it. 

Welsh started for Carter-Vickers (not back until after the break) just to AJ's left and was subbed out 7 minutes in for Maik Nawrocki (who?).  So 3rd choice centre-half for AJ to work with.  Might be an interesting 2nd.  Hope I can see it.

[Califax]

Was lucky not to concede a penalty in the first half stuck out an arm and the ball went right off it. 

He also hustled to run down a Rangers striker, who should’ve had a sure goal, but wasted a breakaway. 
 

First time I’ve woken up to watch an old firm start to finish in a few years. Terrible football quality, but unmatched energy.

 

 

[Cheeta]

8 minutes ago, Califax said:

Was lucky not to concede a penalty in the first half stuck out an arm and the ball went right off it. 

He also hustled to run down a Rangers striker, who should’ve had a sure goal, but wasted a breakaway. 
 

First time I’ve woken up to watch an old firm start to finish in a few years. Terrible football quality, but unmatched energy.

 

 

LOL.  From your lips to God's ear.  

Not too bad for the off foot.

[Califax]

I mean three well taken beauty goals disprove my point, but at a calamitous red card and some sitter misses say otherwise. 
 

not saying it hasn’t been enjoyable. 

[Cheeta]

AJ goes 90 in the sleet on a patchy field, now that's Saturday afternoon football.   Hard working as ever but had one of those meh matches from what I saw and he wasn't alone in that.

Couple of days off then it's across town to St Mirren before the break.  Celtic 8 points clear of Rangers and likely to stay there.    

[Unnamed Trialist]

9 hours ago, Cheeta said:

AJ goes 90 in the sleet on a patchy field, now that's Saturday afternoon football.   Hard working as ever but had one of those meh matches from what I saw and he wasn't alone in that.

Couple of days off then it's across town to St Mirren before the break.  Celtic 8 points clear of Rangers and likely to stay there.    

I'm relieved for Celtic, even more than for AJ.

[InglewoodJack]

Just scored in the first minute.

 

https://twitter.com/giuseppecam22/status/1751261185683452084?s=46&t=spIaqlQfufAO3HreB1455Q

Edited January 27 by InglewoodJack

[InglewoodJack]

MOTM, Celtic win 1-0. Loturi also played 90 for Ross County 

[Cheeta]

Had a good day at the office didn't he?  Looking more of his old self.

For those who haven't seen it, a left side cross found it's way to Abada I believe, who's short range shot was blocked and came to AJ at 19 yards.  Nice cross body right footed one-timer curling into the keepers right got deflected to the opposite stick and found it's way in.  Not pretty but actually quite a decent hit in the moment, deflection notwithstanding. 

Lots of good runs, lots of those slide rule passes you come to expect from him and of course, that non-stop engine.  Worth saying it's a bit tough working it with Abada because it's always about Abada.  A run to create space will only every be a run to create space for Abada.  It can't evolve into something more because it's about Abada.  Has to be frustrating. 

For CONCACAF watchers the Honduran Luis Palma arsed one penalty, then the retake.  It was pretty fu'king ugly.  Grew into the match as it progressed but all and all was still underwhelming.  FYI, Loturi was one of a handful of Staggies who encroached on the original penalty that resulted in the retake. 

Ross County were game.  Checked some of their ambition in the 2nd but they were gaming for a result and didn't go quietly.  A Nightingale header had the Celtic frame ringing like a churchbell for minutes afterwards there in the 2nd half and if they hadn't buggered up a few breaks with absolutely embarrasing passing could have been a very different result. 

Happy to say I though the two best outfield players were Johnston and Loturi.  Biased opinion I'm sure but there it is and I'm going to crow about it.  

 

 

[PegCityCam]

Worth repeating how well spoken this lad is. Had his elder teammate blushing with what basically amounted to an impromptu ode to a "living legend". God bless him

 

[InglewoodJack]

Made EA FC’s team of the week. They gave him a pretty good card for anyone into that sort of thing. Second Canadian of the year who made TOTW after Theo Bair a few weeks back. 

[Bigandy]

2 hours ago, InglewoodJack said:

Made EA FC’s team of the week. They gave him a pretty good card for anyone into that sort of thing. Second Canadian of the year who made TOTW after Theo Bair a few weeks back. 

With the whole Messi TOTY debacle, they could easily give out TOTW AJ cards to everyone as compensation.... 

[InglewoodJack]

57 minutes ago, Bigandy said:

With the whole Messi TOTY debacle, they could easily give out TOTW AJ cards to everyone as compensation.... 

Woah now, we're just gonna give everyone the best RB in the entire game now all for that?

The reaction to the Messi TOTY thing is insane to me because I don't even think people are most upset that he's overpowered (if you're in a top div of rivals or w/e you probably already have mbappe or eusebio or someone), it's because it's going to mess with the market value of cards and people that spend more time buying and flipping cards like crypto. This is my first year of playing Fifa where I've been exposed to the online community and it seems like people are more interested in the stock market aspect of the game rather than actually playing it though.

90 pace/90 physical for AJ though is pretty good. Would love to pack him. Tried unsuccessfully to get Bair a few weeks back.

[Bigandy]

On 1/31/2024 at 3:19 PM, InglewoodJack said:

Woah now, we're just gonna give everyone the best RB in the entire game now all for that?

The reaction to the Messi TOTY thing is insane to me because I don't even think people are most upset that he's overpowered (if you're in a top div of rivals or w/e you probably already have mbappe or eusebio or someone), it's because it's going to mess with the market value of cards and people that spend more time buying and flipping cards like crypto. This is my first year of playing Fifa where I've been exposed to the online community and it seems like people are more interested in the stock market aspect of the game rather than actually playing it though.

90 pace/90 physical for AJ though is pretty good. Would love to pack him. Tried unsuccessfully to get Bair a few weeks back.

In game AJ switches to CB. Best Striker vs best defender. Its the only logical thing for EA to do.....


Isn't the community wild. EA have produced gambling addicts/ stocks brokers. I actually dont think TOTY messi messes much with the market though. All of him were untradable so theres no increase in supply on the market which is already incredibly low. Demand is still at an all time high. TOTY 23 VVD was like 2million, in 24 hes 14m or something. The whole TOTY promo has messed with the market alot. 

[InglewoodJack]

22 minutes ago, Bigandy said:

In game AJ switches to CB. Best Striker vs best defender. Its the only logical thing for EA to do.....


Isn't the community wild. EA have produced gambling addicts/ stocks brokers. I actually dont think TOTY messi messes much with the market though. All of him were untradable so theres no increase in supply on the market which is already incredibly low. Demand is still at an all time high. TOTY 23 VVD was like 2million, in 24 hes 14m or something. The whole TOTY promo has messed with the market alot. 

Yeah, it's crazy, because at the end of the day, FIFA is still a skill based game and a good player with a team full of gold cards is going to beat a bad player with a team full of TOTYs, and if you're deep enough where you're playing high divisions of rivals, you're probably elite and you probably have a squad full of meta players and your striker is probably one of the multi million coin SBCs. I don't even know if TOTY VVD is significantly better than gold VVD who I've packed like 5 times all season without spending anything but you'll have people spending real money to buy the $14M version of it which is several hundred, just to they can defend against TOTY Mbappe who is another several hundred dollars, and at the end of the day, you're gonna get smoked by someone who uses gold greizmann and potm salah who they've been using since like september.

I realized this year that the most messed up part of the FIFA ecosystem isn't EA themselves, it's the third party communities on twitter- futbin and all those accounts. they make these kids believe that you need these ultra expensive cards to have fun in the game, they're tweeting about the game like a stock broker/bookie, implicitly encouraging people to buy coins off those sketchy sites that will get you banned from the game- they constantly tweet out pack openings where they're packing pele or mbappe or any other card that no one who isn't dropping thousands on the game is packing, etc. One of those pages tweeted out a DM from someone being like "can you please lend me 4000 coins (about $60 CAD I think?) because I don't get paid until next week and if I don't finish the mbappe sbc I'll have wasted literally hundreds of dollars I spent on it" and it's insane because you know whoever sent that is probably like 17 and making no money.

Game is so much more fun when you just use whatever squad you feel like without worrying about what the community says. I have a pretty good team this season, but my favourite squad that I've been using for the past bit is this canadian squad I'm trying to put together. I have Jonathan David's RTTK card that I've never seen anyone use but is extremely good, I have the new Davies card that just dropped, I went and got the special Sinclair retirement card a few months back, and I'd love to pack the totw johnston card one of these days. team will get washed by anyone who plays rivals semi-seriously, but whatever, the players are fun.

[Bigandy]

32 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

Yeah, it's crazy, because at the end of the day, FIFA is still a skill based game and a good player with a team full of gold cards is going to beat a bad player with a team full of TOTYs, and if you're deep enough where you're playing high divisions of rivals, you're probably elite and you probably have a squad full of meta players and your striker is probably one of the multi million coin SBCs. I don't even know if TOTY VVD is significantly better than gold VVD who I've packed like 5 times all season without spending anything but you'll have people spending real money to buy the $14M version of it which is several hundred, just to they can defend against TOTY Mbappe who is another several hundred dollars, and at the end of the day, you're gonna get smoked by someone who uses gold greizmann and potm salah who they've been using since like september.

I realized this year that the most messed up part of the FIFA ecosystem isn't EA themselves, it's the third party communities on twitter- futbin and all those accounts. they make these kids believe that you need these ultra expensive cards to have fun in the game, they're tweeting about the game like a stock broker/bookie, implicitly encouraging people to buy coins off those sketchy sites that will get you banned from the game- they constantly tweet out pack openings where they're packing pele or mbappe or any other card that no one who isn't dropping thousands on the game is packing, etc. One of those pages tweeted out a DM from someone being like "can you please lend me 4000 coins (about $60 CAD I think?) because I don't get paid until next week and if I don't finish the mbappe sbc I'll have wasted literally hundreds of dollars I spent on it" and it's insane because you know whoever sent that is probably like 17 and making no money.

Game is so much more fun when you just use whatever squad you feel like without worrying about what the community says. I have a pretty good team this season, but my favourite squad that I've been using for the past bit is this canadian squad I'm trying to put together. I have Jonathan David's RTTK card that I've never seen anyone use but is extremely good, I have the new Davies card that just dropped, I went and got the special Sinclair retirement card a few months back, and I'd love to pack the totw johnston card one of these days. team will get washed by anyone who plays rivals semi-seriously, but whatever, the players are fun.

I totally agree with most of what youre saying, however I would say that 95% of the teams I play in elite/weekend league are multimillion teams. I cant remember the last time I played a team that wasn't worth 3 times what my team is. So ya, a good player can use gold salah, but I dont think the great players are ever behind the power curve. At a top level, its very pay to win. 

I would love a world where you can have fun with an all canadian squad. Its just very sad when mbappe flys down the wing and cuts it back for a tap in over and over because your backline is too slow.