When looking back on last season I suggested we would not have won the league if we persisted with the 4-2-3-1 formation that brought us to the brink of crisis in December. Creativity was ponderous and the players looked out of ideas. We switched to three at the back after the winter break and rolled towards the title. The same players looked commanding and worthy winners.
There were many failures last night, but reverting to the tried-and-tested-and-failed formation is high on the list. If there is another reason we failed to score more with so much possession, I don’t think it had a material impact.
After the Hamilton Accies demolition, it felt churlish to gripe about the volume of chances we conceded, but I could foresee having to write today’s article. High on my mind that day was what some unknown, but infinitely better, European striker would do to us in qualifying. We are wide open to the counter attack. Ferencvaros’ winner was a dreadful goal to concede – a clearance from the middle of their own half that we failed to defend. Although Elhamed was culpable, it was a consequence of how we play.
You have seen the opening goal before this season. Accies threw a set piece into the box, which was headed to the edge of a penalty area that was a Celtic Free Zone. We have conceded three goals this season, two of them as a consequence of not getting out to the edge of the box for the second ball at set pieces.
Neil Lennon seemed more upset about the second goal – which involved a clear individual error – than the first, which was a systemic failure to defend set pieces. We do not push out with rehearsed purpose. Motherwell will know that and if we do not fix it by Sunday, they will exploit what Hamilton and Ferenvaros already profited from.
For years I have written here that suggestions players do not look interested is a naïve comment by people that do know little about football, which is usually borne out when they burst into creativity following a tactical change. Neil threw this theory (and his players) under the bus after the game. Whatever mistakes Neil Lennon made last night, we know the man well enough to be sure something significant lay behind his post-match comments about players not wanting to be at Celtic.
We have been here before, from Kelvin, to Moussa to Dedryck. Based on the manager’s comments, I have no doubt some of the current crop are up to the same tricks. This is very disappointing, but it is not why we were knocked out of Europe, again, by a team with that cost a fraction of our own, and on this occasion to a team who have played fewer games than us.
The value for money return on our wage and player investment spend has brought historical highs domestically. Money spent is the blunt weapon that’s delivered nine-in-a-row, three trebles and counting, but we are regularly out boxed by European financial minnows, and if you blame Hatem Elhamed for last night, you are missing the big picture.
On a tactical note, I am not getting into whoever wants a move until the window closes. There are very important weeks ahead. Eye on the (remaining) prize.
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Tosb
“Are we going to ignore that we have been dismissed from Europe 3 times in 12 months at Celtic Park and have conceded 9 goals in the process. That’s 9 goals lost at home in 3 games.”
Er, No!
I made two points in the original post
1) We had been defensively poor in qualifying rounds in Europe (so I was in agreement with your point) and also at the start of the domestic season
but 2) We improved this aspect of our game as the league progresed and at the Group Stages of Europa (before falling away again at the post-qualifying round: Copenhagen)
No ignoring was involved. I accounted for our poor spell and for our better period. It was not a one eyed analysis.
AN DÚN on 27TH AUGUST 2020 1:47 PM
Eddie will go now and Ntcham, Ajer or both will probably follow. That will keep the bean counters happy as a financial loss can not be tolerated.
_________
This might be true but not for the reasons you suggest.
The truth is we don’t budget to reach the CL. We won’t need to sell these guys to break even. Europa League group stages would be good enough.
The problem is, these guys don’t want to stay unless it’s the CL. One of our main appeals to players is a chance to showcase themselves in the CL. Too bad.
So which is it to be?
The Board has been selling our best players from underneath the manager?
or The Board has failed to sell wantaway players and left these dissatisfied players in the squad for the manager to deal with.
So which is it to be?
We don’t want the turgid/torpid side to side passing that we saw at Killie (and imagined we saw at United)?
Or we want a more cautious approach to defending because a Ferencvaros side that had stopped being threatening , scored from an aimless clearance up the Park?
cakeandeatit csc
The fact that Ivan Toney is still with Peterborough while Brentford have met the asking price tells us that he has been told to sit tight by Celtic (probably Gavin Strachan) which means two weeks after we sign Ajeti we know that someone is definitely leaving. I don’t think we would pay £5-7 million to replace Leigh Griffiths. I think the club know that Edouard is leaving and Toney will be signed to replace him.
Other things to emerge from last night’s game. I don’t think Elyounoussi is worth £16m. Jullien is a nervous player and is often suspect. I bet everyone shouted at the telly/tablet/pc last night when he gave that underhit passback to Barkas last night which the goalie scrambled away under great pressure from Topmac. He needs a big, bullying partner beside him to show him how it’s done.
TIMALOY29
Our last few year end accounts demonstrate clearly that profit from player sales has seen us turn an overall profit.
We’ve had an operating loss for every season we fail to make CL and player sales of Dembele and Tierney in particular seen us make a profit.
The money from the Europa this season will come without match day income and you’d have to question whether it’s worth the effort given the pittance it will now offer.
there want away players put in plenty of effort last night – I thought ntcham and Ajer both played well and were clearly trying to help us win the match. Lennon has looked tired and frustrated for a couple of weeks. The board let Rodgers down and the same is now happening to Lennon.
its a disgrace how much money has been wasted on projects , it s disgrace the number of targets we just miss out on because we faff around negotiating. Get rid of the projects and push the boat out for quality.
see current – where is center back to help Julien ? Where is left back to defend – the club is in a mess right now and needs an overhaul ASAP.
SETTING FREE THE BEARS FOR RES. 12 & OSCAR KNOX on 27TH AUGUST 2020 2:27 PM
So which is it to be?
We don’t want the turgid/torpid side to side passing that we saw at Killie (and imagined we saw at United)?
Or we want a more cautious approach to defending because a Ferencvaros side that had stopped being threatening , scored from an aimless clearance up the Park?
cakeandeatit csc
—–
Balls mate. Stop presenting the world in some bipolar way and treating us all like feckin idiots.
Play the best system to get the best out of your players. Make in-game changes and nudges to manage the context. None of this is evident.
I thought Taylor played very well last night.Apart from not fouling the guy who scored the winner,I thought El Hamed played very well.As did,Ntcham,Moi,Calmac.
SETTING FREE THE BEARS FOR RES. 12 & OSCAR KNOX on 27TH AUGUST 2020 2:23 PM
Tosb
“Are we going to ignore that we have been dismissed from Europe 3 times in 12 months at Celtic Park and have conceded 9 goals in the process. That’s 9 goals lost at home in 3 games.”
Er, No!
I made two points in the original post
1) We had been defensively poor in qualifying rounds in Europe (so I was in agreement with your point) and also at the start of the domestic season
but 2) We improved this aspect of our game as the league progresed and at the Group Stages of Europa (before falling away again at the post-qualifying round: Copenhagen)
No ignoring was involved. I accounted for our poor spell and for our better period. It was not a one eyed analysis.
…………………….
A permanent solution needs to be found to the two points that you make. There is too much inconsistency to our defensive performances particularly in Europe and against Rangers. I have noticed a couple of posters advocating that a defensive coach be brought in even on a temporary basis to organise the defence and to coach them on how to deploy while defending set pieces, counterattacks etc. It’s been a shortcoming at Celtic for a long time but we can’t afford to go on conceding an average of 3 goals per game at home against clubs no bigger than ourselves in important knock out qualification games.
STEBHOY on 27TH AUGUST 2020 2:32 PM
there want away players put in plenty of effort last night – I thought ntcham and Ajer both played well and were clearly trying to help us win the match. Lennon has looked tired and frustrated for a couple of weeks. The board let Rodgers down and the same is now happening to Lennon.
its a disgrace how much money has been wasted on projects , it s disgrace the number of targets we just miss out on because we faff around negotiating. Get rid of the projects and push the boat out for quality.
see current – where is center back to help Julien ? Where is left back to defend – the club is in a mess right now and needs an overhaul ASAP.
—-
We signed a striker in January and left him on the bench. Last season we signed a 7 million CB and left him on the bench.
We played Christie as a lone striker and the year before CalMac as a LB.
Our board are far from perfect but Lennon owns our recent failures. His team set up is all over the place.
Someone posted, on twitter, our signings over the past 6 or 7 seasons.
Absolutely dreadful return rate.
Less than 50% have been effective. Some big money signings gave barely featured.
We should look to recruit to need. There is scant evidence of that. We seem to favour the scatter gun approach. Kiss 100 frogs.
Strategic signing policy needs overhauled.
I’m interested to find out who Neil believes is not committed to Celtic. Thinking through all the players last night and the effort they put in, I wouldn’t say Ajer or Christie looked like they didn’t want to be there. I thought Callum had a poor game and lacked determination throughout the game. He might have had his head turned. Hopefully ElHamed will learn from his mistake – I think we have a player there.
Last night we made the same defensive mistake for their 2nd goal as we’ve seen before in Europe. We get our tails up in games and we flood forward with no thought to defensive organisation or an eye on the counter attack. It doesn’t hurt us in the SPL but we get sucker punched in Europe. ElHamed was left isolated 1:1 with no cover. He should have done better, but he should not have been in that situation. If JK is our defensive coach, then he needs to get this sorted.
Welcome to Celtic, David Turnbull. I hope you have a very happy and successful career at Celtic for many years to come.
“Celtic have signed David Turnbull from Motherwell in a deal that could be worth £3.25m – 14 months after a previous move for the player collapsed.
Turnbull has signed a four-year deal, with Motherwell receiving a record fee, with potential add-ons to come.”
BBC
Lots to ponder.
The following is mostly conjecture.
Exactly 18 months into the job, the core of Neil’s team is still Brendan Rodgers’ team.
Turnbull signing could be a declaration that Neil wants a blend of talent and oomph rather than talent and sophistication.
Neil might find this type of player easier to manage?
Neil doesn’t project effectively as a leader.
IMHO, he looks unkempt and, worryingly, unhealthy.
If money is an issue, I’d sell Rogic and Ajer before I even considered bids for Calum and Odsonne.
Remainder of the transfer window will be indicative.
To Paul’s point about about “rehearsed purpose” we don’t, currently, look like a team that is drilled or does details?
Paradoxically, we don’t seem like a team that does the simple well either.
Am reminded of the tale of the newly signed Kenny Burns asking Clough what his team did with free kicks around the box.
“Shoot” was the answer.
When he followed up with “What about indirect free kicks”
“Pass the f*****g ball to the side and shoot”
Hail hail
Keep The Faith
If Turnbull were to come straight in to the starting 11, where would he play/who would he displace?
Big Wavy
“Balls mate. Stop presenting the world in some bipolar way and treating us all like feckin idiots.”
—————————————-
I am merely repeating two polar options that both represent views expressed on here by my fellow Celts. I subscribe to neither of them but I recognise that they are incompatible
“Play the best system to get the best out of your players. Make in-game changes and nudges to manage the context. None of this is evident.”
———————————————-
It’s a fine sentiment but one which may managers struggle to operationalise. The things you advocate are happening but we never see them when we lose or drop points because our reasoning is that we lost so we cannot have had superior tactics.
I saw nothing evidently superior from Rebrov last night. His team were regularly carved open by ours. and if the tactics had been so superior that would not have happened. We, had obvious operational problems at both goals, especially the first but Rebrov’s tactics did not produce a sensational strick by his player. Rebrov’s tactics did not produce an ineffective tackle from Elhamed who had his man exactly where he wanted him and had kept pace with him in covering.
I can assure you, from caoching experience, that I have fielded teams against coaches who were better than me and coaches who were poorer than me. I lost to some of the poorer ones and I beat some of the better ones, but I remained a poorer coach than some of those whose teams I had beaten and I remained a better coach than many who had triumphed over my team. As a coach, I helped my team perform better but any team we beat was beaten because my players beat their players. I never won a match by out-coaching an opposition coach and I played in a sport that is much more rigid and less fluid than football and where shocks and upsets are far less regular than they are in football.
Ferencvaros got lucky last night but we did not do enough to take their luck out of the equation.
SFTB
Like your earlier post mate, you disappear down so many rabbit holes.
Brevity fella.
Our coach is a huge part of the problem. Our previous coach was cr*p in recruitment. I’d like action rather than inaction now. Our current coach is a master of inaction as he doesn’t appear to learn.
Time to go before 10 is lost.
don’t think the Dundee Utd goalie would have lost the 2 goals last night and he wouldn’t have cost anywhere near the alleged £5m we paid the geek goalie
greek
I feel the discussion about what players want away is a red herring and an easy diversion.
Put simply, every single one of our players want a move to the EPL. We actively sign players up on the back of further big money potential moves.
I don’t see why this year is any different to all the others.
Neil Lennon is payed to manage this situation and doesn’t look at the moment to be handling it well.
Our much talked about standards under Rodgers that has seen us embark on an unprecedented level of domestic dominance look to have slipped.
Neck on block time.
I think Elhamed is a good pro and actually did well last night.
Someone made a good point last night on here …
– no game time due to injuries
– good shift for 70 mins on heavy pitch
– booked already
Wasn’t surprised he couldn’t quite catch the scorer or that he didn’t make a desperate challenge.
TOSB
I would like to know how we do it.
I regularly see in the EPL and CL teams breaking against the elite clubs in counter attack and achieving 1 on 1 or 2 on 2 situations. The main difference I see is that their defenders are skilled enough to face these challenges and win many of them. As far as I can see Elhamed did most hings righ up until the timing of his tackle. Yes- he could have tried to intercept the ball in the air but his calculation was that he might not make a clean clearing header and, if he didn’t, he was giving the attacker a clear 1 on 1 with our goalie. So he elected to keeppace with the fast attacker, edge him away from the central are and block his shot or stab tackle the ball away without fouling. He gave himself the chance to do the latter but stubbed his kick at the ball and only sent it into the path of the attacker. It was a technique error not a tactical one.
I see far more wrong with tactics at the first goal. The coaching team must show all 5 players who ambled out of our right hand side of the box- what they did wrong. Brown and Taylor looked bad but they were at least in the vicinity of where the danger lay.
Lennons interview last night was a disgrace and pure deflection from his lack of tactical knowledge. Cluj all over again .
I said on here yesterday afternoon that if we went without a striker and lost the game the manager couldn’t survive.
He should be sacked as soon as possible and take the rest of the coaching staff with him.
This season reminds me of Ronnys last season when we had a squad of good players but they were clueless
on the park.
I hope we don’t leave it until it’s too late
So which is it to be?
if you can’t see what we need heaven help us.
BIG WAVY
That’s if the managers are in total control of the transfers. Rogers certainly didn’t sign Shved and I’d be surprised if Lennon signed Klimala and Soro. If he did, why? Either way, questions need asking.
And who signed Bayo? While I accept he’s no world beater, he is still a striker. Was there any sense in loaning him out?
Big Wavy
“Like your earlier post mate, you disappear down so many rabbit holes.
Brevity fella. ”
—————————-
See! That’s what I’m talking about! :-)
i made two very brief posts involving contrasting expectations and you came back at me for being simplistically bi-polar.
I then go into more detail and it’s rabbit holes and lack of brevity :-)
You can’t realy win, can ye? :-)
still ragin from last night, ill stand by what i said, that team were a good spfl standard team no more no less, we had a couple of spells where we done some nice one touch passing and then ntcham hit the bar, you could see the fear in them at that point, they were hoofing the ball anywhere, if neil lennon had played a striker instead of a midfielder as a striker, we would have won that game comfortably, sorry neil your time is up,H.H.
SFTB – Agree with what you said there. about Elhamed
The first goal was like a 10yr olds game as everyone ran out of the box without any real idea of where they should be going. Not sure why Taylor would not be in the area where the player picked up the ball. His job should be to patrol the left side of our box and not get sucked into the middle
RC
“So which is it to be?
if you can’t see what we need heaven help us.”
I see that I need to mind-read RC’s thoughts becaue he appears to have the obvious answer. Wonder if he’s ever thought of managing? :-)
MN Celt
I don’t want to watch it again but, from faulty memory, I think Taylor was first to attack the player in the middle who received the clearance from our box. That player simply passed it to a player on his right and took Taylor out of it- leaving Bronny on his own.
I am not a fan of Taylor’s but i this case, if my memory is right, he went to close down the immediate danger and prevented the boy who received the clearance from getting a shot off.
GeeBee1978
There’s a lot to spiral into at the club which looks really half-empty of me given the domestic success (more the competition than our brillance maybe) but recruitment has been a mess of 1 in 5 decent return proportions, egomaniacs like Lawell getting involved, Lenny the ‘yes’ man and Brendan & Congerton, 2 Haddies in the market.
Is it still continuing? Probably, depressingly.
need to take a break now- chores to do
and another thing ,
the number of times the ball was in the main front stand and we had to collect it to continue play could JK not have organised and spaced the cones and placed a football on each to keep play going quickly or was it a time wasting ploy.
RC on 27TH AUGUST 2020 3:14 PM
100%. A Champions league qualifier and players having to go into the stand to get balls. Pathetic.
We’ve seen this film too many times for it to be coincidental
I see that I need to mind-read RC’s thoughts becaue he appears to have the obvious answer
better than some , no thought reading required just read back , more qualified than me giving the correct answer.