In the absence of Cameron Carter-Vickers, Celtic will pair Stephen Welsh and Moritz Jenz in central defence in the Bernabeu against Real Madrid tonight. These two have only played together once before, at St Mirren Park, which saw our only domestic defeat of the season. The omens are not good.
If you are in the business of looking for more generous portents, there’s always that game in Barcelona 18 years ago, when a teenage David Marshall and 20-year-old John Kennedy were drafted into the Celtic side that denied Ronaldinho et al. Results like this do happen, as most of the CQN demographic are old enough to testify.
What does not happen, ever, is the likes of Celtic pitching up at the home of the European champions, playing open, expansive football, with an inexperienced and young central defence, and leaving with anything other than an absolute drubbing.
Ange, for the love of everything green and white, defend tonight. Regard forward runs with anything more than three players a ridiculous extravagance. Deny Real openings, like a two-on-one overload at the back post. Ask John Kennedy how exhilarating it was to be the extra man necessary to scoop the ball away from an opponent just before he shot.
We are five lessons into the Champions League this season in a group that held such promise when the draw was made. Nothing will be learned from discovering what will happen if both full backs simultaneously bomb forward to give Stephen and Moritz forward passing options. Even a win, unlikely as it is, will not affect our bottom of the group status.
Tonight is hopefully a dry run for what we will do away to tier one teams in next season’s Champions League. Let’s use it effectively.
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Turkeybhoy
Be interesting to see Carl play on the right of the central two.
Good opportunity with CCV missing as Moritz is comfortable with either foot and is a good player on the left of a two.
I think Carl is a good defender on the left side but distribution can be wanting.
Anytime CCV plays he will be on the right. Tonight would give Carl a chance to show what he can do on his natural side.
TURKEYBHOY on 2ND NOVEMBER 2022 1:11 PM
Bit like that time you had to Google ‘peripheral housing schemes’ to find out what I was talking about?
MADMITCH on 2ND NOVEMBER 2022 11:52 AM
City Break CSC — overgrown weans.
Madrid sing-song — would curdle milk.
The ignorant following the incoherent.
Not good.
Just how the fek are posts like this allowed on here. Disgrace.
Afternoon
Whilst agreeing with the tone of the article there’s still a part of me that thinks that with that central defence attack may be the best form of defence.
As Real have not confirmed first place in the group I fear for us tonight whatever way we set ourselves up- it is Real Madrid that will dictate how the game is played.
Jimbo
Jenz and Welsh played together for the Leipzig game.
Welsh had a good game and Jenz was okay apart from a couple of missed placed passes.
Our midfield in that game was so open, they seemed to run through us at will. I actualy thought we addressed it in the home game.
Did Michael Kelly and the peripheral housing schemes ever play in the auld burns’ how’d?
Howff
Ernie,,
I don’t have to Google anything.I was mocking you for putting this on.As usual,you ignore people’s answers,or questions,while you frantically Google another question.
Google,the refuge for an uneducated,but desperate to be font of knowledge.A 3rd rate Pseud.
TURKEYBHOY on 2ND NOVEMBER 2022 1:32 PM
Totally agree.
Don’t want to let the Lurkinhuns feel left out on the Rushmore thingy, so I did this one on their behalf. Murray, White, Hector and McMoist!
GGH,
Yep,think you are bang on there.I remember getting a Taxi in to see them,and he charged me fare and a half,because he had to travel away out into the dreaded,Peripheries.
FRED COLON at 1:12PM
AULDHIED for sure mate!
————————-
MNCELT
Recount? Are you Trump in disguise?
Sorry!
TURKEYBHOY on 2ND NOVEMBER 2022 1:40 PM
You’re lying.
The reference went straight over your head.
That was the first time you referred to me a a pseud.
About the same time you posted about the money you’d made by selling bananas to Celtic fans to throw at Mark Walters.
Ft
U19s beat 4-1
P67 — Your tone would suggest that you are unhappy with AP’s efforts in this year’s CL.
Very negative — are you preparing the ground for AP to be thrown under a bus?
Peripheral housing…..or peripheral vision?
Depends how you look at it
We might as well go down fighting . Hopefully avoid a real (pun intended) doing …apart from anything else the MSM will use it as a deflector shield from Sevco’s history making CL campaign .
What about Willie Maley?
Half man / half poultry @ 1.32
Where have you been — slept in?
Paul67
“The last time we tried that we lost 7 to Barcelona”
Copyright Brendan Rodgers
For Stephen Welsh see Erik Sviatchenko for Moritz Jenz see Kolo Toure.
If we were paying attention we’d know Ange’s best form of defence is attack.
Cliches CSC
I feel t would be unfair not to give recognition to our dear neighbours for creating another record. Is there nothing going to stop them.Congratulations
Laughed until the tears ran down my leg
KINGLuBO
U19’s — poor performance / lost the game in the bus to the ground.
They didn’t have the belief / energy / vision to make it competitive.
Some weak performances on show — too many kept tripping over their petted lip.
Our youth system has collapsed with the football on show.
TMcI has a lot of blame to shoulder for our poor youth set up.
Good afternoon all from Sharkeys. Just do your best tonight Celtic.
Enjoyable chat but it is just chat.
Ange will do as he sees fit.
Last season a few of us were expecting a serious counter offensive in Bodo/Glint second leg.
Didn’t happen. Ange weighed up probability of success in the tie, prioritised the league (correctly IMHO) and put out fringe players.
No idea how we’ll set up today or who will play.
But, if there was EVER a game devoid of any pressure to deliver or deal with high expectations?
A dead rubber away to the European champions is it.
I hope the lads selected play with freedom and really go for it
(Whatever “it” is).
Can’t wait.
Ernie,
Oh dear,you just can’t let it go.I called you a Pseud long before that,and even gave the impressions I have of you,sitting in your wing backed chair,smoking jacket,and cravat,surrounded by dusty tomes,unused since you found out about Google.A poor man’s Cyril Fletcher. Google him.
The Mark Walter’s thing.What I actually said,jokingly,was it was my first attempt at being an entrepreneur,selling Bananas outside the Jungle.Never mentioned Mark Walters.What people do with their comestibles,once bough has nothing to do with me. The poor guy could have been pelted with yer Macaroons and Spearmint Chewing Gum,or yer stale Rolls and Cheese.Or are you being Racist.
U19s — GK was our best player by some distance.
RV was absolutely honking until he got the ball in some space.
Showed touches of quality but looked a flat track bully in RM’s company.
When he had time and space they just crowded him out.
Miss at the end suggests that he was overwhelmed by the occasion.
Good player / a lot of talent but he stares at his laces when times are tough.
Overall the performance was bad because we couldn’t complete 3 basic passes together.
Lack of confidence and mounting frustration limited the opportunities that we had.
I think that they are not used to playing teams with the focus / precision of RM youths.
Need to be pin-point accurate to survive.
And we are not there yet.
Not a huge amount of help from the sideline.
They looked as out their depth as the team.
Only 4 months in but change is needed ASAP.
Erza………..Roll n Spam
Jungle chants CSC
Half man / half poultry @ 2.05
Selling bananas outside the Jungle — if it is true then you really are lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut.
If it was a joke — and I really hope it was an attempt at humour — then you really are scraping a particularly decrepit / dangerous barrel given the events that surrounded MW’s first appearance at P/head.
I can find humour in most topics but trying to make fun of the horrible / cheap cartoon racism against MW is beyond my understanding.
Any other “laughs” out there — adding some pithy comments to the £5 notes?
MW vs our support / Scottish humour shames us all.
Thank heavens for PE — showed that we could be quick learners.
Large hole spotted from space in Anatolia.
One man dig — still at full throttle.
No let up — just keeps going.
In other news , Tony Watt can thank his lucky stars that it’s us DU are playing next .
If it had been Sevco , the SFA would never have rescinded his red card .
Think Maeda will start tonight, he puts in a shift. Think that is why he is going to the World Cup
He is just a low rent attention seeker to me .
On the lookout for a rebel to rouse..
DENIABHOY on 2ND NOVEMBER 2022 1:27 PM
Parking the bus is a cliche but like all cliche’s there is some truth in it, and we probably use it to describe the opposition when its used against us as anybody. I’m sure Barca described us in similar terms when we drew 0-0 and beat them 2-1. If it has a potent offensive threat like SD do in Mudryk it turns into something completely different, but very few teams have that sort of threat, we certainly dont.
Its also a cliche, though, to suggest we only play Angeball and dont adapt according to the circumstances. We dont play all out attack for 90 minutes in Europe. In the game against Shakhtar Jura stayed back a lot more in the fist half to counter the threat of Mudryk and at the start of the second half we let them have the ball and play in our half until they scored when the game changed again. We’ve done it against the Huns, to good effect, but it seems like its not enough for a lot of us and we really do need to park the bus when we get ahead in Europe.
I dont think we have the personal to play 4-4-2 in Europe, I’m genuinely interested to know who would be in the team.
U19’s — our speed of thought / decision making was our biggest failure.
We looked very slow physically for long spells but we moved up a couple of gears on occasion when we had the ball and some space to play into.
glendalystonsils
That entire incident shows VAR up as a complete waste of time. Ref sees the incident doesn’t even give a foul.
VAR calls him over – he shows a red. Decision downgraded to a yellow. The whole thing utter Gladys Knight.
Douglas Adams Said ” We are stuck with technology when all we really want is something that works”
I don’t think he took cheating into account though.
C40M @ 2.33
At times we play 2 – 4 – 4 when we are pressing.
Whoever is the central AM joins the front 3 to press the Left CB.
Leaves a lot of space in the MF that good teams can utilise.
MF — aren’t good at closing down space / tackling.
LA / JPNF — not quite CL quality in defence.
Consequently teams that are good at passing through the lines can give us a lot of issues –see B/G last season for confirmation.
MARKIEBHOY on 2ND NOVEMBER 2022 2:36 PM
Expect a lot more where that came from .
Including the cheating , of course .
M ARSE,
It’s called “Humour”.Something you do with your mates and good acquaintances.Oops,I can see a massive fault line appearing there.Sorry.Only a Cretin would believe that story.Oops,there I’ve done it again.Sorry.
I could correct you on your frequent use of the word”Anatolia”,but on second thoughts,my parents did not work their fingers to the bone,giving me a wonderful education,only for me to try and educate knobheads like yourself.
Try and get out more.