This was a defensive and tactical failure. Efe Ambrose was slow to follow his man for the first goal (Fraser was the beaten easily, though redeemed himself later). Efe was also brushed off the ball at the second goal. Strength in the six yard box is imperative for a central defender.
Mikael Lustig was caught underneath his man for the cross which led to the second goal, a feature of our defending all night. All he could do was attempt to block the header back across goal, instead of challenge for the ball. He was also in the wrong starting position, and therefore, unable to stop the cross which led to the fourth goal.
With Lustig and Ambrose already culpable at the second goal, Virgil van Dijk was caught napping. He may have expected better from his team-mates, but he should have remained alert with the ball inside the penalty area. The space afforded to Radovic, Virgil’s man, should never have existed.
I’ve no idea why Emilio, our only left back, was omitted from the starting line-up. He offered balance when he came on, until his late horror show when he was turned inside out, then inside out again, at the third goal. It was like watching a clip from the 50s, when full backs didn’t know to get tight and close-off one option for the attacker.
Charlie Mulgrew had a nightmare beyond the level of the others, which is saying something. Two penalty kicks, failing to attack the ball with his man, who headed the third goal, failing to track the run for the fourth, and the debacle which led to possession being lost when Efe was red carded, was a calamitous return.
I’ve heard transfer rumours about everyone who played in defence last night apart from Lustig and Izaguirre. It looked like the defenders had been listening to them too, and had minds on other things.
The squad’s weaknesses were exposed by Legia.
It’s probably too late to lament the absence of Wanyama, but with Brown again out through injury, we’re short of bite in central midfield, exactly what we needed when the defence was comatose. Stefan Johansen and Charlie Mulgrew had the senior combative roles, it just didn’t work. We need to fix this gap as soon as possible.
Ronny got things wrong.
I agree with the manager’s assessment in his post-match BBC interview, the back four didn’t defend as a unit, which is fatal at any level of football, and we didn’t press as a team. I’ll make no excuses for the defenders, but playing this specific 4-3-3 away from home in Europe was asking for trouble.
If we’re short of bite with Johansen and Mulgrew, we’re shorter still if the third man in the middle is the creative Kris Commons. Love him, though we do, he is neither a tackler nor a box-to-box player. The middle three in this formation need to be mobile, covering as much ground as four, sometimes five, opponents. Johansen, Mulgrew and Commons was wrong on all levels. As a result, the Legia midfield probably had their easiest game of the year.
Callum McGregor delivered a goal, as much as anyone could reasonably expect of him, but this was his first game against top-flight full-timers. He needs people to ease him into the role. Jo Inge Berget hasn’t trained with the club, has played only twice since January and there’s a reasonable chance he didn’t know the names of all his team-mates.
If you want to know why we didn’t press as a team as soon as Legia got in amongst us, the clues are everywhere. Of course we didn’t press as a team.
On top of this, we ran the same Pukki experiment as last year, with the same outcome. We’ve seen a lot more of this Celtic team than Ronny, who might now be on the same page as the rest of us.
“Anywhere but Warsaw” was title of the CQN article on the day of the draw as this one was entirely predictable, and that was before Legia won in Dublin. The new manager has yet to get his feet under the table. The squad are in a state of flux. We are short of experienced, reliable, players in several positions, and football in July is often a lottery. There was a chance Legia would capitulate but it was more likely that they would be fitter and better rehearsed.
Seven days is a long time in preseason terms, and as you don’t need me to tell you, we’ve been here before. Don’t think this is over.
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MickTT
Even in football ‘resignation’ cases, there is usually an element of confidentiality, even if it amounts to a gentleman’s agreement.
There may well be more to follow, – but I think he’ll clam up.
Bobby. So who in your opinion is the big problem
If you pay players good salarys they would play for us
We do not even offer
sipsini
I agree. Our approach is too risk averse and we believe we should get a VW return each time. There’s no flex in our recruitment strategy and it’s becoming a revenue line for the wider business more than a sustainable team building strategy.
I liked the fact that Ronny talked in your terms (1 good rather than 3 ordinary) and I’ll be interested to see how August pans out now we are heading down a tier to the europa it seems.
There are three primary reasons IMHO why we seem to struggle at this stage every year:-
1. The difference between our domestic standard and that of teams in or attempting to get in to the CL is enormous.
2. We play qualifiers at the worst possible time , given our lack of competitive games and
3. We can talk about signing players but the only attraction in coming to Celtic Park for quality players is the CL which gives us a pretty toxic Catch – 22 in trying to qualify.
Having said all that the players on the pitch last night ought to have been capable , if not of winning , at least of avoiding a thumping, which that was.
If nothing else ,as last year with Karagandy, those players owe us big time.
Hey. Didn’t Paul 67 say Ronny doesn’t offer 2nd chances
Wow which players play next week
Sydneytim
I don’t believe a word Peter Lawell says.
He should resign.
But of course…he wont
He will continue to claim Celtic are one of Europes biggest clubs, while he hoovers up the perks and all the kudos that Celtic fans generate.
HH
sydneytim
11:02 on 31 July, 2014
2 or 3 quality high earning players, suplimented with some journeyman filled up with youth
You’ve just described our squad from last season.
We did have a few high earners (brown, Ledley, samaras) last season.
The squad was mainly journeymen & projects (Mulgrew, Lustig, Izzy, Commons, Stokes etc & VVD, Johansen etc). Some home grown younger players (Forrest, when fit, Henderson, fisher)
So what you are saying is what the club are trying to implement, but badly.
The high earners are not worth what they are being paid and are not of a sufficiently high quality to make the difference.
The ‘strategy’ isn’t wrong, it’s just being badly executed.
Why? Who’s at fault?
Who know.
Sorry Paul, I will be there next week hoping for a miracle but really it is over.
You say we have seen a lot more of this team than Ronnie has, but surely he is aware of the consistent history of failure when we have lost the midfield. Dropping izzy beggars belief, I am afraid Ronnie has a lot of ground to make up if he is to convince me he is the wonder coach we have been promised.
It seemed like after the match Ronny was putting all the blame on the players, but the comments on BBC show he sees it as a collective failure.
“It was not the plan to go forward at 2-1. We had a spell when we had good control but started making stupid mistakes and they got space behind us.
“That is my responsibility. I have to be much clearer as to what I expect and how we perform as a team, defensively and offensively and tonight we lost our heads and that is not good enough.”
That’s reassuring. Partly because he needs to be aware of his own failures, but it also shows that a combination of panic and a lack of understanding of Deila’s tactics (rather than naive tactics themselves) are a big factor behind the disaster.
The coaching team obviously has to take the blame for not getting his position across clearly enough, and the players also need to question their decision making.
But I’d be more worried if it was his gamelan to play so open and go on the attack with a tired and demoralised team that was down to 10 men.
Tactics, positioning, strategy, mentality can be fixed.
The Green Man
Celtic lose and PL gets it in the neck.
PL is an employee. I think your gripe is with the board who instruct him what to do.
LB
Green man. Since the “wilo window ” I have know that man holds our club back
No other club operates like ours
No other club has a CEO who is only interested in his personal bank account
A CEO should make sure that the manager is supported financially if they can afford it
We are just a bank and balance sheet
Not a football team
Gary67 I would not describe any of the 3 you mentioned as high quality
They were just part of the average journeymen who make up our squad
Big P67,
Shocking result, Lennon speaking earlier expected it?
It’s very clear that Lawell & Co need to speak out and seal out now? What exactly is their vision?
Sammi, Lennon both gone, no answers? Quite frankly they are treating the support with contempt.
We need answers on the vision! You have his lug so maybe worthwhile telling him Parkhead will be a graveyard next season unless he respects the punters.
Utterly disgusted.
SPC
P.S. I normally support the board but enough is enough!!
SydneyTim
You reckon the board would allow that to happen? Surely is bonus is related to some level of football success. I have to really laugh at some of these posts about PL.
Looking for someone to blame? Blame the players. Couldn;t get the basics right last night. Everyone involved was to blame including the coach. Do we know that PL hasn;t made funds available? Maybe Ronny hasn;t spent it yet. The squad was not in good shape last season due to some poor buys last summer. A rebuild takes time and patience. In fighting helps nobody.
LB
Im being serious here….any one of us on this blog, would be better on the board, than the mugs we have at present.
So…if your looking in Peter….im putting myself forward for a place on the board.
Lets be honest, I couldn’t do any worse than you have.
So…you can get me through Paul67.
I reckon….mad as I am, that I could transform the PLC, by sacking all of you, and replacing you with Celtic supporters rather than so called top businessman.
You couldn’t run a raffle.
Move over….your time is up.
The Green Man
HH
sydneytim
11:22 on 31 July, 2014
Gary67 I would not describe any of the 3 you mentioned as high quality
My point. Highly paid but not of a high enough quality to make a difference. The recruitment is wrong. The money is being spent, but badly. Wages are being paid, but we’re not getting value for money.
Seal = speak
I Think the main culprit at Celtic Football Club is Dermot Desmond ,after all he is the main man.Lawell is doing what he is told to do ,by you know.Somebody mentioned about the deadwood at our club,picking up decent money. but nothing in return from them.and we have to ask the question,who recommened these players ,and back to Dermot Desmond.is there someone else who could buy his shares,and take our club back to being a decent football team, anyway i will be at Murrayfield next week.
Paul67 etal.
I’m not what you’d call a conspiracy theorist, but last night I began to wonder if there were a couple of players who didn’t try that hard when we faced problems after Ambrose was sent off.
Basically our problems started after Ambrose left us in the lurch by getting sent for a quick bath. An hour is a long time to play with ten men and we definitely weren’t up to the task, they were out on their feet after 70 minutes they failed to help each in their hour of need.
who can we blame for our troubles last night. Efe must get a big proportion of the blame for taking down a player and getting sent off for his troubles, if he wasn’t 100% certain of getting the ball, he shouldn’t have gone for it.
Mulgrew. Captain for the night, he seemed to be posted missing A captain should lead by example, he set an example allright by disappearing for long spells.
He was a hero when he was scoring spectacular goals, but when was the last time he scored one of those spectacular goals. And he could have joined Ambrose in the bath and was lucky not too.
And where was he when the Polish guy flicked the ball over the defence, he was caught short for that one, by a mile.
How do you go about criticizing our keeper who saved Celtics bacon a few times, but in my opinion there were a couple of times he blundered, at the first goal, and he should have come out for the headed goal, big, big, mistake with that one.
The manager must come in for some criticism, playing a new signing a couple of days after he arrives, could be described as an error of judgement, but he’s a new kid on the bloc much too early for the criticism he’s getting on here at the moment.
Ambrose, Forster, and Mulgrew are my main worries, Mulgrew as Captain should lead by example, sorry, but I never saw any of that.
The games not over, we still have the second half to play.
Conspiracy Theorist. I wonder, if Celtic go out of the CL, would the supposedly wanting away transfer players be easier to let go, what’s to say that FF tried as hard as he usually does, as there is a good chance that he will get his desired move down South if there is no more CL games to come.
Livibhoy. That mans salary increases with reduction of debt and financial results
Accounts out soon The revolt among the support will be massive if he is paid any bonus
Ronny said his targets would be only secured if CL qualification happens
Paul67,
In other words we were shoite…….but we will hump them next week …. \o/
The Green Man
Now you are saying the board aren’t Celtic fans?
Take a breath mate. You are not thinking logically. This is a big club. You need professionals on board. Football fans have run numerous clubs and ran them into the ground.
There is a huge knee jerk reaction to last night which is understandable but sack the board chat because the players blew it in a one off game?
The Celtic fan reaction if we do well is over praise players and when we lose majority blame everyone except the players.
We have a new manager it was never going to be easy. Some of the match predictions yesterday were baffling on here. I would have taken a score draw at lunchtime yesterday Poland is a very tough place to go and they had some very fine players on show.
Our team lacks leadership on the pitch. We did not look a team last night. Individuals thrown together for the most part. Ronny has work to do and he knows it. I don;t think the board or PL are involved in team selection or tactics.
Our 11 players who started the game are better than a 4-1 defeat. Questions need to be asked of the players. Some will not last. They let us down last night.
LB
The multitude of issues we have at the moment on and off the pitch and here we have two crackpots debating Polish licensing laws and the sponsor on our jersey.
And we should be pulling out this f*cking friendly on Saturday before we do more damage to our ‘worldwide brand’.
The Green Man
I believe the board are celtic supporters but I get your point. If Paul67 needs a few references for your application I’m happy to oblige.
Like others here, myself included, you bring an uncanny knack of being correct after the events :)
And are you really green ? I’d love that. Entertainment value at press conferences with a green man speaking would be fantastic.
You are however not the same green man who Sevco flirted with ?
By my rough calculations we can afford to spend £10M and not be in the CL but that will eat up all our cash reserves. If we sell FF, VVD etc then that could also be put back into the team.
However we’d need to be in the CL next season or we’d be facing a big loss or probably have to sell those players we’d had for a season to compensate.
That’s where we are. Non CL seasons now give us a big loss. Last 16 big profit, decent group performance dropping to UEFA reasonable profit. Just getting to group stages but dropping out of UEFA small profit.
3-4 years from now (assuming costs keep rising at the current rate) a bad group stage performance won’t result in profit at all. I want people to think about that in a wider context. How can mid-level European teams (as I’d state we are) hope to prosper if even being the CL potentially generates no profit?
If we had spent £10M on a couple of decent players and we’d got to the CL group stage but only managed a couple of wins and went out, we’d have a loss making season.
Which would be fine, we have money in the bank. We’d then need to hope we could qualify again without too much spend to recoup those losses.
Never mind speculate to accumulate, we’re fast approaching speculate to tread water.
werealldoomedCSC#1
Just did a wee list of players sold and bought under NL seems to be about a balance of 40 million sold to 25 million in. So £15 million balance.
While some of these like McGeady were not his signings and came through the ranks and of course in the case of others like the fee was not disclosed coming in orgoing out it so it is hard to say for definite. So I only went with the figures available.
Also you have to take into account fluctuations in the wage bill to get an idea of what has been spent on players as a package but this was not available to me. Others might be able to say if our player wage bill has gone up or done in real terms over L’S period.
I don’t know how accurate this is and I got the info from wikiceltic but it would appear that we have a positive balance coming in over his tenure.
Gary67 when I say highly paid I mean 30k +. With youths in the team being paid substantially less salaries
We pay huge amounts for youth development , let them be our projects and maybe sell them to increase income
They would benefit playing 1st team football along side quality players
Bring in a couple of quality players and play them until their contract runs out,
Livi Bhoy a rotten apple starts from the inside. PL has been too quiet whilst criticized by Many of the support. If you also read Lennons comments, that tells you why he left!?!
It wasn’t that long ago he was talking about the CL qualifiers then WHAM!! He left!?!?
Something stinks within the power corridors on Kerrydayle Street.
Spc
Livibhoy
Let me ask you a wee question.
If you were on the Celtic board, would you be happy with the Wizard of Oz strategy.
And also…What Celtic supporter doesn’t want the team strengthened, show me.
HH
DBBIA – wishing you a long and happy retirement, old bhoy!
You might even get time to start posting the shipping forecasts again?! :-)
T4
SydneyTim
I believe we have no debt. If the board are giving him an increase on those targets is it not them to blame? The objectives are wrong for him.
I’m sure he will struggle to meet the financial targets with no CL football. How does PL now make his bonus and wage increases?
As for not signing anyone unless we make CL that won;t happen. We will sign players. Sell our two assets for top dollar and rebuild. Get shot of the under performers too. Ronny knows what he is doing at this club. It will take time though.
LB
bournesouprecipe
11:09 on 31 July, 2014
MickTT
Even in football ‘resignation’ cases, there is usually an element of confidentiality, even if it amounts to a gentleman’s agreement.
There may well be more to follow, – but I think he’ll clam up.
Cheers….HH
John Park scouted the players that were brought in.
Lenny was given the players.
Lenny didn’t play them cos they were not good enough.
Simple when you think about it, the club have all but said this, it’s the policy.
We won’t be bringing in journeymen players cos they have no sell on value, yet these are the self same players we need.
Failed policy.
HH
big wavy
Im serious….could I do any worse, than the board members we currently have.
Celtic supporters fund the team, if they didn’t…..there would be no board.
We have no voice on the board….its time that was changed.
Im just as valid a candidate as any current board member.
Thanks for your support:)
HH
I know many are taking Ronny to task on him starting with berget, perhaps we should instead be asking the question “Why he felt he had to?”
We had Boeriggter, Stokes and Griffiths on the bench yet Ronny felt the best option was to go with a guy who has had 2 training sessions.
What does that say of the managers opinion of those 3?
timbhoy2 @ 11.26
Couldnt agree more
I wont say I told you so but this Norwegian is a nobody,another cheapest option fro mr bonus ous ceo ,It,s now obvious why lennon left or was sacked,he stated in the press that he wanted to bring in 3 or 4 quality players,before the qualifying ,and Lawell nearly had a heart attack,he could see his bonus shrinking by the second,as for last nightwhy play such an open game away from home,and why play a player who could not possibly be match fit and only arrived at the club couple of days ago,and could not get a game at a poor cardiff team,
this was unfair on the player,and we really should be looking for Lawwell to chuck it and take
the daft manager he appointed with him
Dontbrattbakkinanger
Happy retirement mate. although I hear most people end up bussier than ever.
I’m normally a half full (or is it fool) type of guy, but I think we will be lucky to win the game next week, let alone the tie.
The team last night was an absolute shambles, there was no cohesion and our passing abilities have not improved one bit.
Our manager got it badly wrong especially in midfield, with his team selection, but nobody could foresee the meltdown in defense.
I was thinking going into the last 10 mins that we had ridden our luck big time and that a 2-1 defeat was not too bad given the way the game had gone, but those last 2 goals were so easy to avoid , and will ultimately prove costly.
I’ll be at Murrayfield next week cheering them on, but deep down cannot see a way back.
As they say in a well watched TV Drama .. Winter is coming.