Celtic surrendered another two points to fall further behind in the championship race, drawing 0-0 at home against Hibernian. It was a unorganised looking performance from the home team who gave Graham Stack little to do in the Hibernian goal.
Gary Hooper squandered Celtic’s only gilt-edged chance of the game when, after playing a one-two with Anthony Stokes, he struck the outside of the post with Ki available for the square pass. Anthony Stokes had earlier tested Stack, who failed to hold the ball but did enough to clear.
When the same teams met on Wednesday James Forrest transformed the game when he drifted inside but he spent most of today’s game adrift on the right wing. On two occasions he cut inside with purpose, once testing Stack with a blistering shot from 22 yards and later when a 25 yard pile-drive struck the crossbar, but Hibs were content to limit Celtic to such speculative efforts.
Neil Lennon was justified in his criticism of his front pairing of Stokes and Hooper today but Celtic were equally clueless in midfield. There appeared to be no cohesion and there was certainly not a productive match plan.
Motherwell’s away win in Inverness gives the Lanarkshire side a three point lead, having played a game more, going into next week’s crucial game against Celtic at Fir Park. Manager-less St Johnstone dropped three points at home this afternoon, leaving them four points behind Celtic in the fight for the last Europa League place.
This is where we are people, scrapping between Motherwell and St Johnstone. Get used to it.
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I see bolton lost again…owen coyle anyone?
Coyle would easily get a job in the EPL with a half decent budget. Why would he want to go to Celtic an deal with PL and DD?
Lenny seems pretty clear on today’s cilprits, though he didn’t name them.
Changes ahead as the last throw of the dice might imminent
You never, ever give up, no matter what.
But we are hopeless just now.
Where is the team that gave us 92 points? Where is the team that leathered the huns 3-0 at a canter?
Forster
Izaguirre
Majstorovic
Wilson
Mulgrew
Brown
Ledley
Kayal
Samaras
Commons
Hooper
is not all that much different to today’s team, or Kilmarnock 2 weeks ago or St Johnstone in August.
What on earth has happened to our team?
But, you never give up, ever. No matter what.
oglach
“why bring Sammi on with only 7 minutes left?”
Why bring Sammi on with 87 minutes left?
Coyle had his chance, knocked it back and then made sure everyone knew about it. No thanks, I’ll stick with Neil.
“Get used to it”. Paul67, i think that is the saddest sentence you have penned. Personally, I don’t think Stokes or Hooper deserve as much criticism as the midfield. The midfield provided the front two with almost nothing.
Lenny needs to select a balanced team, not put square pegs in round holes.
El Khaddouri at LB, Matthews at RB
A midfield of Kayal or Wanyama, with Ki right centre and Ledley left centre. Choose who you want to be the floating/link midfielder, Broon/ Forrest/Commons/Paddy/Sammi/Stokes.
What we had today was a right footed LB being useless out of position.
Ki wide left, useless out of position.
Kayal swamped in centre simply outnumbered.
Ledley playing a far forward as Hooper at times.
And we were totally rudderless, leaderless and yet again picked off by hard running, committed limited ability SPL cannonfodder.
We need to address basics in that we play units that function, not a collection of individuals.
Right footed RB & CB, left footed CB & LB.
A right wing pairing, Matthews & Forrest. (last year it was Wilson &Broon)
A left wing pairing, (Izzy & Commons anyone).
Central mid pairing or trio (depending on opposition) Kayal Ki & Ledley for me
Striker who is hot, today Hoops was woeful, so Stokes today.
What we cannot continue with is decent players being made to look bad in a poor system and being out of position.
Simple really, Lenny.
Get it sorted.
EC67
Fr jack…
drink…….
my heart is broken by that shower of imposters from top to bottom at Celtic park….
OKbhoy
At least in those games we had them under pressure for a while.How many corners today ? How many saves did their keeper make ? We are rank rotten
right now.Even when we took on NL i said why are we going down the rookie manager road again.ie JB ? We need guidance from the CEO not the best cheap option in the hope that it works .That policy has failed us for 3/4 years. Drink please,lashins of the stuff.Dear doctor.
We have some decent players
BUT
WE NEED
Experienced coaches who can coach and organise
the team.
NL & team are too inexperienced
Think it a good time for Neil to step down and be remembered
for what he did for us in the past as player.
He obviously doesnt coach and whoever does – cant.
The league CAN still be won but only if the club
make it easy for him to move aside
GBNL
Just back in from the game and read a few post’s…..
Did Neil ask for the same cup performance against Hibs today, It wasn’t the first half performance he wanted was it?
That debacle from a gutless team just sums up some of the problems Celtic face.
It took Wanyama (why was he benched) a nineteen year old to give us some solidity in midfield,but by then we were chasing Hibs payers.
I can take being beaten fairly but i want my team to have some fortitude and football intelligence and that includes the management. During the second half those around us openly discussed our bench and the the Hibs bench,you could distinguish them easily our were sitting there without a clue.Why didn’t we bring on Sammi when Victor and Paddy were coming on? instead of leaving him less time to do what he does.
Does anyone know what happened with the steward/police and the green brigade?
TLWIO
sammi gave us more in seven minutes that hooper did in 83…he is either injured or kidding on..
every time he gets a tackle he hobbles away on the injury he received from buggy…
Where are all the Lawwell supporters now?
I told you so , I told you so…what’s the point – the happy clappers never listen..?
I can’t believe we have fallen this far..Huns can take a 25 point deduction at this rate and still waltz the league.
Mind you got to credit Lawwell getting the AGM out of the way while we were just 10 points behind.
Right now , I’d take David Hay, no purchases in Jan and
TET
And Hiddink will ?
Why ?
Hun will win the league as they need to. I have said so for years. But they have lost the financial battle. I am off to. Bed now. We can pick this up next week.
Standing up for Neil Lennon
HH
So Lenny knows the culprits? Thn why did he leave them on the park for so long? He didn’t explain that did he? No it is easy to balem players. Where is the required management skill to motivate players where is the tactical nounce? Where is the experience not to wash your dirty linen in private. FFS we are not a Sunday league team – it is not as if Lenny has been in the job a matter of weeks.
I have no idea where we go from here.
Play the development team v rennes on thurs
At least they would try
Did someone say he wanted Scott Brown back? That’ll be the same Brown who is refusing to sign a new contract until Celtic pay his agent a large fee!!!
We do not need Scott Brown back. He has been a disasterous investment.
We need to sell Scott Brown in January for as much as we can get.
If we cannot sell him let him go for nothing and use the wages to buy a player(s) who can actually do something for the club.
We mistakenly gave Samaras a new deal. That was criminal. We must not repeat the error with Brown.
thelongwait isover
Why bring on Sammi???? I’l tell you why, at least the big guy TRIES. OK he’s not the most gifted player in the world but he never hides like some of the monkeys we have in our current squad.
And I’m fed up with Lenny publicly blaming the players. Ok in private. Lenny is suffering the “wisnae me” syndrome
Fed up
KINGLuBO
BT
We may have to agree to disagree on Sammi. I think him useless whether he’s on for 7 minutes or 87.
I agree on Hooper – hes not been the same since Bougherra raked his studs down him with a depressingly inevitable impunity.
More later.
Suffice to say that regardless of what the Rally Round the Flag Merchants and Happy Clappers think, both on and off the field, Celtic is in it right up to the neck.
BSR
So the answer is?
Keep all of the incompetents or get rid of them all?
Aint gonna happen.
Neil might jump. The board will stay snugly in their feathered nests.
We’ll get 2 loan deals done in Jan. Maybe.
The nests will be re- feathered in July when the season books will be sold long before the window shuts amongst a barrage of rumours of us being linked with A,B and C.
This will all be done under a new manager. Brendan Rodgers? Possible. Probable if Swansea have been relegated. Or Mick McCarthy if Wolves go down.
Why am I telling you all this……since you already know.
Keep the faith….and in summer, for 1 season only, keep your season ticket money in your pocket.
Awe naw
Yup
…… We are finally dragged into … What knows
Board??? Manager??? Team ?? Tacticis ??
Who cares .. Just heal the pain …. Now…
We are faithful through and through …..
But our performance is verging on our collective turning of the other cheek too often
Rise up Celtic….Now
Neil ….. If you are not the right man … Move on and learn
Board …. Learn and move on!!! .. Simple???
Just sort it now
Still love you Celtic … Just don’t like you at the moment
Ramie
Bring back John Barnes…well..you gotta laugh…just to get break from greetin’..bad, sad days..
We may have an outside chance of making the next stages of the Europa Cup with a win on Thursday, but the eleven who play must bear no resemblance at all to the eleven who start next weekend. This is a critical game for us, a real six-pointer.
Regarding today, it was flat to start with, as usual, and never, like Wednesday, picked up. We are so one-dimensional it’s not ture, players who seem not to care, who cannot rise to last season’s form, who cannot tackle, who cannot thump a ball past the first defender from set-pieces, who don’t work hard, who chuck it when the get hurt.
We also have a management incapable of learning, incapable of putting the sensible hat on, but clearly capable of playing an inexperienced right-back at left-back and leaving an international left-back on the bench, capable of playing a mercurial South Korean passer, clearly off form, at left-wing to be an out-ball for a keeper who practices kicking before and at half-time in games yet cannot find a man during, fine shot-stopper he may be, but he’s not the full deal, and his loan is a big mistake. This self-same management is also incapable of coaching players in the positions they played – a rough, touch tackling hard-man defender coaches ball-playing centre-backs who get pulled out of position, the same mould of defensive midfielder coaches midfielders who are weak in the tackle, let alone in the heart. We have a strikeforce capable of linlking up in flashes but the guy who makes the tea in the kiosks puts int a harder shift than the two regular strikers.
And this management chops and changes the captains like the weather, cold and bit damp? Make it Wilson. I make it Brown, Kayal, Samaras, Wilson, Majstorovic, Mulgrew starting as captain in nine months – Neil is making the mistake of thinking several captains makes several leaders. Could not be more wrong Neil – you are cuplpable of not buying a leader, of buying 22 year-olds when wwhat was needed was round-the-block 30 year-olds. WGS was accused time and again of playing his favourites – it’s a facile point, a silly accusation – what it really meant was that he was playing players he trusted, who had beaten Man U for him, beaten top European clubs for him, won Championsips for him. Neil, stop not playing Padddy, stop playing a right-back at left-back, stop chopping your capttains, stop making the same mistakes over and over. We are trying to wrestle a championship back, not re-brand a team year after year. Thunder? There was a damp squib today, and you and I have seen the movie before. Sadly, we know how it ends.
And PS – don’t ask me for the answers, don’t ask me who I would bring in as manager. There’s a guy in a suit getting paid handsomely for such decisions, but I shall tell you this. He is culpable, the manager is culpable, the players are culpable. There ain’t a quick fix, but I’m sorry, I don’t want to accept this Paul67. Fight. Fight. Fight.
I am miserable, I have man flu and shouldn’t have gone today – Mrs moaning at me, but she’s damn right. And to make one thing quite clear. No way we have lost a league. I concede nothing to that mob, nothing. It may take a new manager. Sorry.
Never mind Bhoys – Auld Heid will be on soon to tell us all about the balance sheet…that’ll make us all feel better, eh?
aldersyde avenue says:
29 October, 2011 at 19:16
That may have been me.
We miss Brown’s drive and agression.
Now – if he won’t sign a new contract -of course we must sell him. If he goes of course. I think he’ll wait his contract out
But – IMHO – we have missed him big time.
I rate his contribution much much more than the likes of Ki, Kayal, Hooper. Maybe damned with faint praise that as I honestly have to say that I feel nothing but contempt for these three guys.
He is more honest and comitted.
Kinglubo
I agree some dont try as hard as they should.
I agree that Sammi tries but he does not try that hard frankly. There’s no guts there.
Trying should really be the least of it. Put me on and I’d try really really hard but I’d be hopeless
That someone as ineffective as Sammi is held up as an example of what we need is , with respect , part of what is wrong with us now.
Where in the pecking order would Sammi have come in the Seville team?
Somewhere out in the car park IMHO.
Today isnt about Sammi though. Our problems ran far deeper than that.
Jeez, that was a miserable 90 minutes.
We’re just going to have to pray to the gods of Karma and decency to see things turned around.
Ommm Souch!
There is no shape to the team this season. I believe that the players are arrogant and above themselves. The management team are not far behind them. But, there are good players there. They need organised and they need the fear of God put into them. Lennie ain’t the man for that, or his buddies. They may prefer to go for a drink instead of booting the goolies off that shower of imposters today, but I can’t stand it when Celtic are made a laughing stock. That’s what they are at the minute, a laughing stock. I’ve asked this before–how does the Swedish centre half look so poor in a Celtic shirt? I’ve watched him be immense for Sweden. How does Sammi play so well for Greece? The answer is that they are coached and managed properly. They know the job they have to do with their country’s teams. Neil has lost the dressing room. Players are not doing for him, and the “coaching” staff are a bloody joke. At the minute Billy Davies is without a club. A Hun? –I hear you say? I’d take Hermann Goering if I thought he could get them going. The players have lost respect for the manager and his coaches. Change the players or the management staff. The outlook is as bleak as that.
Do not understand why anyone would want Neil’s head…
We are CELTIC supporters faithfull through and through (Win Lose or Draw)…
We are all Neil Lennon (Remember)…
Sammi is and never will be the answer to out striker probs. I thought sStokes did ok today, as for Hooper if someone offers what we paid for him i’d sell at once. No character no bottle – get rid of ASAP.
Neil, i am sorry, but it is time for you Thomo and Dolph to leave with a bit of dignity. You do not know how to compete with teams at the bottom of the SPL let alone with Rankers. You have gathered a group of players who either can’t or are unwilling to battle when required .
Cultsbhoy hates being second
It’s bad and sad alright. It’s so bad and sad that you’re going to have to change your name to Cultsbhoy hates being third.
I feel we ought to be playing Sammi snf Brown whenever possible. They never hide. But our manager has to let players take up the right positions. Ki at outside left??? Daft. Matthews at left back, almost as daft.
The only Celtic person I heard vehemently denounced, on my way out of the ground, was, “Lawwell!”
He wasn’t on, or beside the pitch.
TLWIO
OK bhoy…
i argue every week about sammi.and foster, we are all supporters and always have our favs and our hate figures…
its all about opinions…
I know you don’t hate sammi…
Neil Lennon Abbot of Clonmacnois says:
29 October, 2011 at 19:10
You never, ever give up, no matter what.
But we are hopeless just now.
Where is the team that gave us 92 points? Where is the team that leathered the huns 3-0 at a canter?
Forster
Izaguirre
Majstorovic
Wilson
Mulgrew
Brown
Ledley
Kayal
Samaras
Commons
Hooper
is not all that much different to today’s team, or Kilmarnock 2 weeks ago or St Johnstone in August.
What on earth has happened to our team?
But, you never give up, ever. No matter what.
———————————————————————–
Spot on, what HAS happened to these players?
Of course it is all Peter Lawwell and Dermot Desmond’s fault that these players, who played so superbly well last season are now a pale shadow of themselves.
They beat Rangers for fun last year, toyed with them home and away. What has happened? Have their heads been turned? If so, sell them on.
As for the next few weeks, let’s give some of the U-19 stars a taste of first team action.
What has happened to the team from last year? No Izzy, no Commons. End of argument.