It’s a well-established fact that we don’t have Beckenbauer and Baresi at the back, so the reason why we chose to play so high up the field is the most alarming element of last night’s debacle.
Dedryck was bound to misplace a pass, or Efe was bound to misread play. We all knew this. Regret over the last time mistakes like this were made doesn’t mean they won’t happen again. So when the inevitable occurred, our two full backs were 30 yards in front of the line of opposition attack, with our defensive mids well into opposition territory.
Efe’s failure to cover Kamara and Dedryck’s pass were consequences of the main mistake of the night, which was tactical. We didn’t lose the opening goal because of a bad pass, it was lost because we left an acre of Norway unattended.
Ronny, you should never have left so much space at the back away from home in Europe, we’re clearly not good enough for such an open system, not even close. We’ve learned nothing since what was supposed to be a lesson in Warsaw, when the same expansive errors cost us. Molde played rope-a-dope football, they could have watched us against Malmo, Maribor and Legia, as each opened their home games against us in exactly the same manner.
It must be an absolute joy to face a European opponent at home who leaves so much space at the back, begging to be exploited. If we had played with the same tactics we used in Amsterdam I’ve no doubt we would have won the game – no one in that Molde squad would get into the Celtic team.
There’s more. After dominating possession and creating genuine chances, the defeat looked inevitable from the 11th minute when we went behind. Body language changed in an instant and Celtic went out like a light. I’ll spare you what I said at the time in case it’s misconstrued, but the evidence suggests there’s more to worry about than repeating the same tactical mistakes.
Celtic have nine months and one and a half transfer windows to get ready for the next Champions League qualifiers. There’s plenty of time to put things right, but we can’t sleepwalk into another failure. More immediately, we could be out of a cup if we don’t pull our act together this week.
The original Holy Goalie, our own John Fallon, will be signing copies of his book, and no doubt giving you his thoughts on current events, at the Supporters’ Club on London Road on Sunday from 12:30. All are welcome. There’s live entertainment too, so get along and check it out.
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!!BADA BING!! on 23RD OCTOBER 2015 2:16 PM
……,you can’t put the shite back in the donkey…….
——–
Now you tell me!!!
Always wondered why I got funny looks at the nativity play.
HH jamesgang
Winning Captains
I like that theory…..
the players were garbage to a man last night, the manager ditto, it was like a typical Spl game when we dont score, apart from the fact that other team managed to break forward in numbers, whereas in the Spl the other team just usually give our defence the ball back …..
Croppybhoy@8:06
“Everyone and their wee brother know that we don’t have a plan B and will play the same way we did last night.”
Dont disagree … but one question for you (or any other poster)….
Can someone please explain to me what our Plan A is (cause I sure as hell cant figure out what we are even trying to do)?
thanks.
We have a ‘defence’ of individuals with no-one talking or dominating and certainly no team work. They get pulled all over the place and that’s why average teams score three goals against you.
Who cares about Ajax?
HH
NatKnow on 23rd October 2015 8:08 pm
THE_HUDDLE on 23RD OCTOBER 2015 7:31 PM
Scottish football died a long time ago, we are heading towards a part time league, and it’s not Celtic’s fault.
I’ve posted that before over the years but no one really cares :o)
Only way we change this is if Celtic buy a bankrupt club down south and rebrands it.
In the meantime we have to cap our weekly wage at say £10k, reduce season tickets by £100 and just suck it up.
—————————————————
Appreciate you’re attempting to come up with creative solutions, but..
When we buy this bankrupt club down south, do we get it’s history?
Are we still Celtic?
What do we do with the old Scottish club?
——————
We’ll still be Celtic, we will have their history and ours, we can either leave a token club up here or abandon the sinking ship.
Il Padrino…
A bit harsh :)
You need to ask the question has he been told told run the wing and leave the gaps by our manager?
Remember, he had a great game just defending earlier on in Europe…who is at fault?
Anyways, catching up with eastenders, my god it’s a free for all neighbour on neighbour literally, thank god I don’t live in the square, I’d be feart to let Caesar oot. :)
roy croppie
Look forward of some photos from last night in the future
Love
GlassTwoThirdsFull
There speaks the man who never played full back in his life.
Utter shite!
Lustig’s defending was absolutely woeful- as was his overall performance-he did nothing all night.
Not one forward pass.
‘Hung out to dry. Aye right.
Unfortunately Ronny seems to over-estimate our players abilities when playing less famous teams away in Europe. His tactics in these games leave gaping spaces for counter attacking teams to exploit and Malmö, Legia and now Molde have all helped themselves. We are better prepared when playing better known teams as we focus more on defending, and this has been where individual errors have let us down, not necessarily tactics. For the remaining EL campaign we should set up in each of the games to defend and break quickly. Ajax will come out as they need the points and the Turks will feel they can out score us. Molde will require a lot of patience and no cavalry charges like we saw last night. The biggest worry is that Ronny doesn’t seem to have learned from this.
The Spirit of Arthur Lee
they’re water damaged…
HH
Having supported Celtic since late fifties I have come to realise that the terms and conditions are that no matter how high we reach , eg EC winners and 9-in-row that we will falter against many lesser teams many times even when we were supposedly invincible. That is Celtic, let us down over the years, nothing to do with ‘the board’ or people with initials like PL and DD. It’s only a game, until the Huns appear.
Last night was hard to watch especially for those supporters who made the journey to Norway. Outplayed by a team seventh in the Norwegian league. It is sad to see how far we have declined.
GORDON64, declined since when? 2,4,6 ,8 years ago? Since Seville? Since Lisbon?
Is there another club with such a well known chief exec as Celtic?
Going by my work and pub tonight, both predominately Celtic orientated, the fans have turned against Ronny and Collins. Totally unscientific and you have to factor in last night’s disappointment factor but no-one offered them any support. More worrying was the amount of people not arsed about Sunday.
morebannerspeterCSC
Drive my truck midway to the motorway station
Fairlane cruiser coming up on the left hand side
Headlight shining, driving rain on the window frame
Little young Lady Stardust hitching a ride… and it’s
G64
I wish Kris and his team mates showed as much passion and fight on the pitch,as he showed after being subbed. Shambles of a performance by our highly paid players.
BANKIBHOY1, who knows
Delaneys Dunky on 23rd October 2015 8:42 pm
G64
I wish Kris and his team mates showed as much passion and fight on the pitch,as he showed after being subbed. Shambles of a performance by our highly paid players.
———–
Someone posted earlier that we don’t have enough experience in our team.
This wasn’t a young Celtic team, and to rub it in our worst players were some of our oldest and experienced.
Who were the two belters that ran into each other last night
comedy gold
MIT
You have obviously not being paying attention- plan A is to pass the ball around very slowly until you have 9 men ahead of the ball then give it away to the opposition!
Ronnie has read the big book of modern European coaching that say possession,possession, possession!- if we have the ball then the opposition can’t score!
However as Blackadder would say – there is a slight flaw – namely that it’s bollocks unless you have players of the quality that Barca have!
HH
Some really good posts from INIQUITO and rwe.
The ‘I will still wake up a tim brigade’ would only further the decline were they in charge.
KC’s apology was indeed weak. He has to go. He isn’t good enough to undermine the coaching staff. If he survives, the rot will continue and Ronny will have to leave.
the_huddle
Three quarters of the ‘defence’ were very experienced but played like amateurs. Sorry amateurs! They all played like individuals and that concerns me greatly.
HH
Vale Bhoy
Think you must have mis-read my post. I didn’t say Lustig played well. In fact I posted earlier in the day that I thought he had his poorest game for us.
My post related to the third goal in reply to RWE who reckoned he was out of position.
Which part of my description of the goal do you disagree with?
Watch it back – all the other defenders were beyond the six yard box at the left side. He came into the middle because nobody else was there. He can’t be in two places at the same time.
K. Commons such a delight to watch…no side passing or back passing from this guy…..his goal record proves it best “striker”. we have had in years….the guy with the technique and vision…..should be first on team sheet every week…..fits in well in this current Celtic side as the pace they play at suits him fine…. Why the hell is it at Celtic Park every other week when there is a kick out from the Celtic keeper we have 20 players all bunched together at the stand side ????? spread it out lads and play attacking football…the square and back passing went out years ago…
The Huddle
Kris and Broony were dreadful last night. Mik and Craig not much better. I was in a silent kind of shock for 90 mins in my local last night. Couldnae believe my four favourite players were so poor.
Do you remember the first time? The 50 best debut singles
Read more at http://radiox.co.uk/x-lists/50-best-debut-singles-all-time/#YxHGCIRDFHaqkI6s.99
Oh it’s been a tough old day.
Where do we go from here? Well the first thing is to remember that we have a game on Sunday.
Thousands of Celtic supporters will once again troop along to our spiritual home with hope in our hearts. Our hooped heroes will be applauded politely onto the park and by KO off time they’ll be met by, I imagine, a slightly more muted than normal, “Get intae thum!” as the huddle breaks apart.
The mood of the crowd from that point on will be largely dependent on the performance and subsequent result.
I expect us to win on Sunday and I expect us to win with at least two goals to spare. And for some, possibly the majority, for a short time, everything will be alright in the Celtic world again and once again their faith will be restored. There will be others, like me, who will think back to Thursday night in Norway and be of the opinion that a victory over a mediocre Dundee United side isn’t sufficient to mask our current failings.
I like Ronny Delia and like every genuine Tim I want him desperately to succeed. If Ronny is successful then so are Celtic and ultimately that’s the goal and the wish. A while back there was a lot of praise for him for his ‘football lecture’ which was doing the rounds on social media. I decided not to watch it. Not because I didn’t think it would be worth a viewing but because I knew that I would find out all I wanted to know about his abilities as a manager from watching his Celtic team on the park.
I’ve attended most of Celtic’s games since Ronny took over and it’s fair to say that there have been peaks and troughs. There was a clamour after last season’s European campaign for him to be sacked or to walk away. Personally, I thought that was ridiculously hasty. Ronny was new and he was deserving of support, from the board and us the supporters, time to implement his own footballing philosophy and money to help build his own team.
In my opinion he got all of these.
After Pittodrie last season and a last minute winner when down to 10 men, his fist pump and roar resulted in the Celtic support taking him to their hearts. This almost iconic image was soon all over the place from T shirts to social media avatars. Yep, the support were backing him.
I’m not sure of the numbers but Celtic have signed probably in excess of 10 players since Ronny took over. The board, to an extent, have provided him with the funds to build his own team with players to play in his system. And yes I’m acutely aware that the funds have been limited and we’ve recently sold possibly our best player in VVD from under his feet. However, it can’t be denied that he’s been given financial backing and that he’s brought in his own players.
Ah the players.
Ciftci?
I’ve got to be honest, he’s a WTF signing for me. I watched him at Utd and never thought he was an out and out striker. He doesn’t have the pace to be considered quick and he doesn’t possess the strength and aerial prowess to be a target man. Yet it would appear that Ronny decided that he was to be our ‘other’ striker. I couldn’t believe when, knowing that he had a six game domestic ban, that Ronny elected him before Griffiths in the early European games.
Allen?
A number 10?
Is he better than those we’ve already got who can play in that position? Commons, Armstrong, Rogic, Johansen and I’m sure there are more. I’m not even convinced that he’s better than McGeouch.
Janko?
Has looked decent and certainly improved the more game time he’s been given. Strangely though he seems out of the picture.
Boyata?
Who knows, some decent performances against the flotsam and jetsom of the SPFL
Sumonovic?
Injury has meant that so far we’ve only had one game on which to judge him.
Armstrong?
A quality player by Scottish football standards who in my opinion is being fitted into a round hole when he’s a peg. He seems far more comfortable and threatening when playing in that hole behind the striker yet has rarely been played there.
Commons?
The enigma under Ronny but a first name on the team sheet prior to this. For me he’s our biggest threat in an attacking sense. Ronny clearly rates him otherwise there would have been no contract extension and he wouldn’t be playing as often as he does. The huge problem for me is that Ronny won’t play him in his most threatening position which is immediately behind the striker. This I just can’t understand and one of the biggest examples of Ronny’s failings as a manger and his refusal to adapt his system to suit the players at his disposal. “Aye but he’s fat and he’s lazy!” is the cry. “He doesn’t track back!” they shouted. In the team of the time would you ask Larsson to chase back or would you have preferred him to be in the position where you thought he could most hurt the opposition? Commons is that player in this current team.
Ah, the system.
All over Europe football teams play in a 4-2-3-1 formation. For some it will be more successful than others. The most important factor, however, is that you have footballers who can play it. It’s evident, to me anyway, that in European competition we simply don’t.
Paul mentions in his article that Boyata has a tendency to misplace the odd pass or two. He’s right, we’ve all seen it. Was Ronny wrong to start him because we know that he has this in his ‘locker’? No, Ronny’s team selection was fine with what he had to choose from. The failing is that you need to set up your team to take allowance of that.
Last night when Boyata took the ball out of defence he already had Lustig 10 yards ahead of him, he was the intended recipient of the misplaced pass. Our two holding midfielders are even further ahead than Lustig and our left full back, Izzy is in a line with Bitton and Brown but on the opposite side of the park. Now, my level of coaching only got as high as the Glasgow Catholic school’s team but even there the weans knew that in that situation, the left full back drops in beside the remaining centre half and at least one of your sitting midfielders drops deep as cover. Celtic last night played suicidal fitba. Izzy, on the left hand side is close to the Celtic bench, yet no instruction is given to fall back.
Ronny was a bit of a gamble, he’d had relative success in Norway and was considered a good up and coming coach. I wouldn’t disagree when he took over at Parkhead and I wouldn’t disagree now. He won the title last season and despite what anyone claims, naw a guy aff the street wouldnae win the league up here. He has promise but he has much to learn. Firstly, how to adapt his system when things aren’t going to plan. Without that no manager will progress in my opinion.
If Ronny is to stay then his first target is a performance and a result on Sunday but for me the real examination will be how we set up against Molde at Parkhead. If he persists with 4-2-3-1 then I expect us to lose again.
Good luck Ronny Delia and Hail Hail.
TSOAL
ANARCHY!!!!!
GLASSTWOTHITDSETC, too long, best get a job with a ‘newspaper’
Croppybhoy…
In other words we have too many Baldriks in our team:)
Sorry Glass, was Hamilton time pish
HT
Great post bud.
Only because I agree with every word of it. :)
Asked the convenor of Dalmuir CSC for a spare for Tynecastle for you. He has my number if one appears. Good luck.
HT…
How long did it take you to type that?
On a Friday night as well, the minx must be oot.:)
HT
Enjoyed that.
HH.
GlassTwoThirdsFull
Lustig was awful all night…as were many others. To even suggest he wasn’t culpable is wrong.
His positioning was terrible as was evident with the pathetic mistimed attempt to cut out the cross.
He was stinking!
He, Izzy and the rest of the defense were rotten.
Overpaid underachievers.
Still sick.
Don’t defend them…management or team.
Still sick!
The Spirit of Arthur Lee
50 debut singles and not a mention of Norman Greenbaum and ‘Spirit in the Sky’?
Or even The Archies and ‘Sugar Sugar’!
Then again the latter would probably get banned these days for encouraging behaviour likely to cause obesity!
Celtic Mac
Nice one