The most frustrating thing about last night’s meek exist from the Europa League is just how self-inflicted it was. After previous European defeats I criticised Brendan Rodgers tactics, but no tactics in the world will help a team which cannot defend a corner kick or stop a shot from 24 yards into the middle of the goal.
I saw the Hamilton Accies keeper recently concede a similar goal to the second Dorus de Vries failed to keep out of the net last night. At any level of the game, it was an unforgiveable error. For years Celtic were imperious at defending corner kicks. Now, also for years, it has been a persistent weakness.
Celtic have been far too weak at the back this season – not just in Europe. After the game Brendan suggested we lacked the experience necessary to play in such environments – certainly one of our issues. Hopefully the addition of Marvin Compper will bring sufficient authority to allow our youthful defenders to progress.
By contrast, Zenit were a study in the art of defence, even at home against a team from Scotland. We were unable to land a glove on them until the contest was effectively over. Substitutes Tom Rogic and Scott Sinclair both made things happen, but it is difficult to isolate their effect from Zenit’s own tiredness.
This was a European tie which got away. Sure, Zenit are better resourced than us, but on the showing over both legs, I’m not convinced they are significantly better than Anderlecht – who played us off Celtic Park but had their own troubles when we visited Belgium in September.
Lots of excuses, Celtic, but we really should have done better.
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SOUKOUS on 23RD FEBRUARY 2018 4:49 PM
Hope De Vries can knuckle down and save any knuckle balls coming his way on Sunday and not be complete knuckle head.
He is possibly 1 mistake away from being replaced by Bain IMO
Cambhoy
Are you a
SOUKOUS on 23RD FEBRUARY 2018 4:49 PM
Hope De Vries can knuckle down and save any knuckle balls coming his way on Sunday and not be complete knuckle head.
Knuckle in the balls is what he should get.
Should be dropped, play Bain on Sunday. Better keeper.
Non-happy clapping mineshafter?
;-)
I have a variable
E=FCK squared pass
MWD scouting parallel universes for excuse matrix variable professionals. Off pot of this universe. Be back 5 mins ago.
The Hoops await the Hoops. It’s Glasgow Derby night in Greenock…Celtic v Partick Thistle KO 6pm.
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Celtic Line-Up: Mullen, Duffy, Church, Welsh, Deas (Capt.), Bell, McInroy, Roberts, Henderson, Caffrey & Aitchison (4-2-3-1)
ROBERTS
in short p67, we’re not very good; sweet mother Zenit are shi*e, they’re not even a technically talented and strategically aware euro team.
CQN A Tale of Two Ditties.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…
A Celtic win brings out the best in us.
A draw or defeat provides an opportunity to keep on doing it.
I heard yesterday Roberts was starting today.
When on form talent like that is sorely missed.
Mon the Paddy, that coupled with Rogic coming back to fitness could be the lift we need..
QUONNO
My post at 12-31 pm was an opinion from me, my opinion, I agree regarding spending money on a couple of players would be great, but it’s not justified when playing in Scotland, we have quite a good team for the Scottish League.
I was at the Lisbon Final,Playing against the best team in Europe at that time, their motto was get a goal and defend for the rest of the game,they were unbeatable at it, but along came Celtic and gubbed them by playing attacking football,and at that time Celtic were supreme at attacking football,Well you know the rest.
Next season Celtic were drawn against a Russian Team (or it could have been a Soviet Union team) they had different rules from anyone else in those days,We, Celtic were the best team in Europe playing against Dinamo Kiev, We were beaten 2-1 at Celtic Park & 1-1 in Kiev,Bobby Lennox scored our goals,The main reason I’m pointing out that game We were Champions of Europe, but still managed to lose a game.
As I will reiterate, No one’s infallible,we can get beat by any team, A couple of mistakes will make a difference,if our Keeper had made those two saves last night instead of letting them pass him,who knows what the score would have been?.
QUONNO, you’ve done well today, you got me posting more than I usually do.
CRC,
Thanks for your clarification re the Player Registrations earlier.
The actual figures given later in the Report are,
Additions (for the period) 6.634m (Ntcham/Benyu and Paddy’s loan fee?)
Disposals, 2.591m (Janko and GMS?)
= -4.043
The magicians get to work and produce a 500k profit, I guess.
Do any of these numbers represent what was actually spent in real terms over the accounting period?
Fair play for the work for Michael Jardine.
HH
QUONNO
Reading that first part of the 1st sentence would make you think I was playing, I wasn’t,
CC
I will get back to you in the morning on your Qs if that is ok?
HH
CRC
FIELDOFDRAMS
Boyata and Ajer have definitely improved under Brendan but i think KT ‘s strengths have been neutered by him.
A lot of our potency last season was KT’s aggression and forward runs and crossing.
Like all youngsters he could be rash in the tackle but he did not hold back.
This season he has developed a habit of turning back and passing to centre backs.
His forward forays have diminished and he is more likely to run with the man than tackle.
Last night on the 3 goal he was the guy playing them onside at the start of move as he was a yard behind our other defenders.
He is a brilliant natural talent who should be allowed to flourish.
Much hyperbole, with a smattering of hysteria evident in both happy clapper and mine shafted camps, with the usual suspects underlining their clickbait status. Our latest European humbling hardly came as a surprise, albeit the manner in which we crashed out was disappointing, especially for those traveling. Getting this far in Europe through qualifying out of a Champions League group is already a success, hell getting INTO the Champions League was already a success.
“Operation Brendan Oot” is already in full swing in the Hootsmon media, aided and abetted by Krafty SFA officials that give license to the hammer throwers to maim and assault our team week in, week out. Panic is evidently spreading in the ludges, as we edge ever closer to the mystical (reference used purposefully…) ten.
Our injury laundry list is shortening, and together with no European distraction now we can concentrate on League duties. Intae thum sheep, as their boss will have them hyped up for the game.
Never happy to lose, but if exit means focus on main objective,The Title, which allows us to get to Europe then I can live with it.
Everybody commenting on tactics,player dis-satisfaction,and player ability,all of these are down to one thing,and that is injuries,which has curtailed a free choice of selection.
Now this can be down to several factors,Pitches,Lenient Referees (allowing us to be kicked of the park) an overly aggressive training regime,or player attitude.
However despite all that, the players are entitled to feel they will get treated and resolved quickly,and that is not happening.
How come Glasgow Warriors are the fittest team in Rugby which is more of a contact sport than football,
this is down in part to fitness coach Mark Bitcon who joined from Wasps,and was also involved with the Royal Marines,plus a number of Top Physios,many of whom are more than a little Celtic orientated.
Why is James Forrest injury free,you’ve guessed it is suggested the inhouse team got a second opinion!
Was Patrick Roberts being treated for the wrong route cause? I noticed Man City were involved !!
now he is on his way back.
Bottom line if you splash out Millions on players,least you can do is get them the top,and quickest attention,time for a review of the Medical side,its slow and not suitable for purpose based on missing players recovery time to date.
We don’t have injured players we have players who go missing.
It’s Friday it’s five to five its……
BOURNESOUPRECIPE
It’s CQN Jack!!
Dorus De Vries is 6ft 1in small
Starry
Doh
Peter Glaze csc
That awkward moment when you read if Brendan was Ronny
Overheard at the water cooler
“They’ve crashed we’ll win this league”
BOURNESOUPRECIPE
Stop hogging the blog you.))
Ah the Sevvies God love ’em…
HH
Mancini has built his team on a rock-solid defence and the match stats show both teams were quite evenly matched but Zenit excelled defensively. Celtic were on fire in the game at Celtic Park but even then it took a superbly worked goal to penitrate that defensive curtain. If you cannot depend on your goalkeeper and cheap scores are given away it fairly knocks the stuffing out of a team nevertheless i never saw that result coming and i was confident Celtic would score and make it through on away goals so dominant were the team at Celtic Park.
I reckon we had six players under 23 years of age on the starting eleven last night and very inexperienced at this level. Surprised to see James Forrest withdrawn, he looked the only player capable of causing them problems. Assuming we can go on and win the title it will have been another successful season for Brendan Rodgers added to his run in Europe.
just a thought.
i think brown is our most expensive player at the moment. i think that was ten year ago we bought him
might be wrong.
The 1st SSB caller will no doubt, find himself in the CQN doghouse, guarded by the CQN sweetie paper rustlers, lol.
CmonThe Balance Sheet Dreamurs CSC
……..oot.
Since they didn’t show the highlights of the 1st leg I suppose the BBC won’t show the highlights of the 2nd leg on the news tonight…..
Concerning Patick Twumasi
One month ago he was very close to a move to Bursaspor. The player has agreed he would get circa 900 000 euros per year. The negotiations broke down when two clubs froze their positions on 1,5 million offered by Bursaspor and 3 million euros asking price by Astana. According to the sources in Kazakhstan there were also offes fron Stuttgart and Caen, both at the level of 1 million euros and an interest from Celtic Glasgow.
Crc
Your right mate
I was trying to make the point of Brendan’s philosophy v Lenny’s horses for courses
But with not quite the correct analogy.
That sounds a bit like count Arthur strong trying to buy a cup of tea while wearing the suit with not quite enough money in it
Mike in Toronto
Got the wee dug then. Got to name him LUBO or Henrik or even Larsson.
As I said recently, I had a breed of dog called Sooner. Sooner piss on the carpet than go in the garden!!
KINGLuBO
De Vries taking a lot of flak for the second goal, but there were other mistakes. Brown went out wide chasing after the ball leaving a big space in the middle, Kouassi let his man run off him. Simunovic should maybe have came out to close the player down, although this would have left his man free and a fairly simple pass would have put him in, so it would have probably been a goal anyway.
De Vries should certainly have done better with the shot, but very rarely only one error in a goal.
A wee quiz. Who said this – a Happy Clapper or a Mineshafter?
Wottpi, I think that is a very good point you make about European football and how it can not be relied upon for financial stability.
It was different perhaps when the winner of the SPL automatically got into the group stages of the CL, but the current situation with numbers of qualifiers make it increasingly difficult for any Scottish side to progress far in Europe.
When is the last time a side outwith Celtic got into the groups of either tournament? Whilst as a Rangers fan I would hope in future we would be able to beat amateur teams like Progres, there are so many difficult trips to places like Russia, or mid table teams from Italy or France that I cannot see us making it into the Europa League groups any time soon.
Celtic too have shown that they are not a match for the larger teams in Europe, and it is no stretch of the imagination to think that an unlucky draw could see them up against a harder side than Zenit in the early qualifiers for the CL next season.
I still can’t believe after all this time that teams still spend in anticipation of European football (I know Celtic don’t do this) after the lesson almost 15 years ago of Leeds United! The only sustainable model is to work within the financial certainties and any European money is a bonus to the playing squad. You work with the squad, hope to qualify for the CL or EL groups, and if you do then you spend that money on improving the squad to give you a decent shot at qualifying from the groups. There is so much uncertainty – unlucky draw, off night, bad referree, key injury – that to spend the money in anticipation is potential suicide (Leeds, Rangers etc).
Taken from a post on SFM made by a Rangers supporter.
GLASSTWOTHIRDSFULL
De Vries was also urging his players to get out to themas with the ball after the shot that lead to their first goal:((
The man*
Any Twitter updates on Development game.?
Corkie
0 0 half time Joe McHigh via twitter