The Newco team who knocked us out of the Scottish Cup yesterday were barely competitive, which shows just how straightforward Celtic are to beat. Ryan Kent sold Scott Brown then Stephen Welsh to create the chance that led to the opening goal. The defensive disorganisation at the second goal was a collective failure on the part of Diego Laxalt, Kristoffer Ajer and Jonjoe Kenny, although the latter was least culpable. For a critical period in the middle of the first half, we were not compact enough to halt Newco on their occasional forward runs, which cost us the game.
John Kennedy’s big call was giving Laxalt the left back role. It was a mistake, rectified at halftime by the arrival of Greg Taylor, who made a goal-saving tackle. Greg is not going to threaten the two incumbent Scotland left backs, but he gives all he has for the jersey. Diego is one of many who will take their last stagecoach out of town next month.
Our 0-2 defeat at Celtic Park earlier this season, when we failed to register an attempt on target, was definitely the most inept performance of the decade. By contrast, we created enough high value chances to win two games yesterday. The Welsh and Ajer double chance, the Elyounoussi and Edouard double chance, the Elyounoussi chance when Edouard put him clean through and the penalty. These and more were all passed up. Did any of us celebrate the penalty award with expectation of a goal? Not in my house. The lack of confidence was palpable.
Chris Sutton reckons Odsonne Edouard looks “almost like he’s not interested” – and having watched Chris walk around the field after Celtic lost possession in his last two seasons in Glasgow, I’m prepared to believe he knows when a player is not interested.
Odsonne has been wanted by Leicester for a year, his languid appearance perhaps a final sting in the tail of February 2019. He could be in for a shock. Since the Leaving of Liverpool, Brendan Rodgers has coveted the now-available Tottenham job above all others. There may well be a new sheriff in town at the King Power when the transfer window opens.
Compare and contrast the sheer effort from Leigh Griffiths. Give me a man with something to prove every day of the week. Leigh won the penalty because he was playing on his toes. His chest and volley effort was a low percentage chance but the agility he showed is a lesson to the rest of the squad.
More on the consequences of England’s managerial merry-go-round on Celtic later in the week, and we will pick up on the breakaway European Super League proposal. Today is only about a fifth successive Scottish Cup win evading Celtic; we just did not deserve it.
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Simple sport
lynott67
Do you get a free Sinclair C5 or a betamax video recorder if you sign up?
I got 100% in my O-level Arithmetic too. 1976.
I also got 99% in my Higher Maths. 1977.
The first I know because the teacher told me.
The second I know because Maths questions have precise answers – not like stupid English – and I got one wrong when I swapped the x and y co-ordinates around on one of the graphs.
markiebhoy
i will watch for free on my firestick .
just the same as i have done with all our home games this season .
certainly makes me think twice about spending over a grand on virtual season tickets again when i can watch any game for free. HH
On the subject of missed chances –
Some strikers sell for £2m some for £20m
Generally, the £20m are better than those at £2m. Generally, all have 2 legs and 1 head.
They usually have a track record to back that up and, the top European teams usually have the most expensive sides. Barcelona would beat Arbroath, that kinda thing
We should not see missed chances as a sign of how close we are. Rather, and over a period of time, it should confirm the quality of our strikers, our formation, our coaching.
We fish from the shallower end of the gene pool. Missed chances aren’t a hard luck story, they are a representation of where we are.
They talk of our recruitment, our asset management, our dressing room motivation, our formation, our tactics.
We shouldn’t see missed chances as an ‘if only’ moment. Not when we’re 20 points behind and regressing further.
LYNOT67 – long live the Firestick 🤪 I get everything on mine that is on Sky, BT, Premier etc etc not to mention all the clubs own channels.
Costs about 60 pounds a year.
Used to pay for Celtic TV but the quality/reliability was so poor I had to find an alternative. Luckily some entrepreneurial sorts over here helped me out.
as an aside,
Steve Guppy has made the team in an Leicester Premier League 11.
And the voters picked Rodgers as manager, ahead of 2 times league cup winner O’Neill and League Winner Ranieri.
Deniabhoy
Same here mate. I got fed up logging into CTV after a few games .
Yeh for around £60 per year its not too a bad a deal.
every live sporting event and all films .
Thanks for the replies.All made good points and all were civil.Right now in Arbroath, though, it feels like Denia(!) so I am off out to sit in the sun.
Cheerio for now.
ROLLING_STONE on 19TH APRIL 2021 12:33 PM
As poor as Eddy was yesterday, he will still be one of those in the running for player of the season (not that it means much) come year end, together with Turnbull and Ajer.
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Odsonne Edouard has been a shadow of the player we know he can be.
I would rather cancel the award than to give Eddie a player of the season title.
What a kick in the teeth that would be to suffering supporters.
Cheers and HH.
What a season What a shambles
However life goes on and next season a beckons
When does the preparation start because as we can all see we have major problems to try and resolve
Huge season coming up and the Management Team has to be spot on
Will it be low key appointment resulting in some miraculous transfer work Motivation and Coaching or Premier Appointment and complete clear out
In current climate think it will be former rather than latter
However time is of the essence and action must come now
Odsonne Edouard is the very last “player” to be considered for player of the season. The very last.
He needs to be gone. Lazy. Disinterested.
How about, a biggest disappointment of the year award .
Plenty of front runners for that one
bombed out again
Scott Brown’s no longer a concern more so is who replaces him?
Ismaila Soro clearly isn’t the answer and there are too few potential others that don’t only replace the player and the captain they have to replace his personality, something we are clearly incapable of doing from the current squad. Otherwise his pre contract with Aberdeen would see him sailing out four more league games.
John Kennedy has nothing to lose by dropping all the players that are now by at Celtic.
Leicester won’t be interested in Edouard, Vardy,and Iheanacho signed a new deal last week.
I thought Gary Neville done football a service, by speaking out against this Super League nonsense. Didn’t miss anyone, and particularly in about his own Club.
We didn’t deserve the cup but Lawwell’s bonus and golden handshake are secure as is his reignition of his precious o** f*** brand so suck it up and buy your season books plebs.
Now we know that Odsonne should have left us at the beginning of the season. But after his goals against Hibs Lenny said success this season would depend on keeping him. Most supporters would have been raging if we had sold him. And PL would have been the villain of the piece. Like Kris Ajer we have allowed our two main assets to be with us with only one year left on their contracts. Shouldn’t we have sold them both and got big money? Ajer admittedly would have been hard to replace. Now we’ll lose them both for a fraction of what we would have got. Leaving Odsonne out of the team for the rest of the season – so we can confirm how awful Griff and Ajeti are – will reduce his value even more. Like it or not, we’re a selling club (but we shouldn’t be signing players on loan).
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/apr/19/jose-mourinho-sacked-as-tottenham-manager
Jose on £1m a month at Tottenham.
That should be the end of any Jose to Celtic nonsense.
SAINT STIVS on 19TH APRIL 2021 12:36 PM
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Bray Wanderers FC
@BrayWanderers
We wish to confirm that we will not be taking part in any European Super League.
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Good on them ! :O)
I heard Jose is coming to Celtic.
SAINT STIVS on 19TH APRIL 2021 2:19 PM
I heard Jose is coming to Celtic.
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Aye, if he gets a pay rise.
Compare and contrast the sheer effort from Leigh Griffiths. Give me a man with something to prove every day of the week.
Thought I had logged in to a CQN archive from 2016 !
Seems it isn’t just the Celtic Board who have misjudged the mood of the support !!
Jose says he will come but only if JK and PL stay.
It’s going to be funny listening to the hypocritical SMSM wailing about how the European Super League is an absolute travesty and that football should always be merit-based.
The same lot who were demanding that a new club should go straight into the top league in Scotland in 2012 because the top leagues should be made up of the biggest teams.
Leicester and indeed any other club will look at Eddie’s performances this season and surely think twice. What happens if he wants a move from Leicester? He’d barely get a touch in the EPL.
Some players bust a gut to get the best move available. Others down tools. Leicester’s recruitment has been second to none and I think they’ll look elsewhere.
Don’t care who buys Eddy as long as somebody does, he’s done at Celtic, hope we get a decent return on the money we invested which a lot forget was around £9M .
McGregor, Armstrong, Boyata etc looked incredibly average when coached by a poor manager in RD. They were different players under BR.
Similarly, all of our players present over both BR and NL reigns have regressed significantly in that time.
Any EPL coach will look at Eddy’s potential and performance over the course of his time with us (including appearances for the French U21 team) and not in isolation this season, playing for a team losing the league by the largest margin in 100 years and conceding the joint highest number of goals in Europa League history.
As poor as Eddy was yesterday, thank god we had him this year or we would be relying on our other 3 strikers.
I can only imagine the vitriol for Eddy if he has the same approach to his profession as wee, cheeky LG.
ROLLING_STONE on 19TH APRIL 2021 2:47 PM
I think there’s a difference between a player looking poor in a poor team and a player downing tools.
Top clubs look at attitude as well as ability.
GEEBEE1978
Peps up and scores, when he plays for France.
Being down , should be temporary but not over two seasons. Personally don’t think its all down to attitude. he’s just not as good as he was before illness IMO. £20M plus should be achievable and there should never be a Celtic player that plays permanently in the dumps.
I really don’t think we can depend on Odsonne Edouard’s performances for the French under 21 team to enhance his eventual fee.
After all he is is 23 now.
HH.
A tale of three goalkeepers, all deficient, another first for Celtic?
Douglas Broto Hedman CSC
On a change of tack from the demise of this tragic season – to the subject of the European Super League.
When it was mooted earlier I raised this same point – where will they find their match officials ?
It takes a referee 10/15 years to rise from grass roots to FIFA listing and possible appointments to European competitions and International matches, culminating in European Championships and. for the elite. the World Cup.
If say 20 clubs form this new League, that will mean 10 fixtures each round requiring a minimum of 40 officials plus VAR plus backups so 60/80 officials each match day. And these officials will likely be blacklisted by UEFA / FIFA and the chances of a Champions league or World Cup final are gone.
What’s the trade off ? They would have to be paid a large sum of money to compensate them, meaning the clubs pay for these refs and that itself is a dubious practice – if it doesn’t go our way you’re fired ?
What standard of referee would move to any new Super League ? Those willing to forego a career path to the pinnacle of refereeing for a few big pay days ?
Can’t see too many decent referees (and there are a few across Europe) give up these prospects for a few quid.
I hadn’t realised OE plays centre half and or fullback, who knew. I’d be getting rid of a few posters on here before I’d get rid of OE, he’ll be playing in a bigger league next season. There are too few players who could be considered for having a decent season in the whole squad.
It’s always interesting the use of the word lazy with certain players, not too dissimilar to the study on commentators descriptors on players over the years.
Embramike,
i expect a combination of some of the best retired refs and VAR would do the trick.
Bhoys how can I watch the Aberdeen game on Wednesday
Timbhoy2
From between your fingers or behind the sofa. Same as all the matches this season!
HH jg