We dropped points at Pittodrie on Saturday but should have buried the home side in the first half and then our two January signings combined to produce a goal. There were enough positive signs to have me relaxed ahead of last night’s game against Hibs.
What’s more, we scored with a penalty kick awarded after four minutes. Hibs fans, who have watched two consecutive 0-3 home defeats, must have feared for the worst. Almost two hours later they left the ground feeling robbed.
Before the equaliser our play was poor. Forward passes were very low percentage efforts, often trying to find Daizen Maeda who was marked and could neither catch a long ball in front of him or find space to drop deep and control. “We need a second goal” was doubtlessly mumbled by each of us, despite the fact that Hibs had not made a single attempt at goal.
After they equalised from the second ball at a free kick, Celtic collapsed. Hibs piled forward through shredded lines and would have made the points safe if they were more competent in front of goal. Celtic also made chances but just like Hibs, each move was poorly executed and often ended without an actual attempt being made.
A defending block on Kyogo in the 90th minute failed to stop the shot, but caught the shin of our Japanese striker. VAR reviewed the incident and referred referee Nick Walsh to the monitor. I know what you would all have been saying had this happened elsewhere!
At the risk of jinxing him, Adam Idah has a 100% career conversion rate from 15 penalties, good enough to win Celtic three points last night. He’s worth a fortune to us for that quality alone. After the game Brendan Rodgers was able to point to various excuses for the performance: disruption in the team being the most valid.
Alexandro Bernabei had his best game for Celtic – the boy can tackle – but he and Maeda on the left looked like they had never met. Bar those opening four minutes, the defensive line had only one of our first choice starters, and was further disordered when Stephen Welsh went off.
Nicolas Kuhn and Tony Ralston may actually have said little more to each other than “Hello”, so our unstructured right wing was no surprise. When Luis Palma arrived on the left we were at least able to hold onto possession in an advanced position, a quality Maeda was unable to deliver before him. Again, Joe Hart did enough to add to our points tally. These reasons sounded plausible until I remembered that disruptive new arrivals at Ross County were an excuse for helping them at Celtic Park.
Brendan, any one of us reading this could have done as well in the dugout last night. You need to put a team on the field that can dominate and win against Premiership sides with 10% of your financial resources and who would be embarrassed by the money you spent.
Against Ross County, Aberdeen and now Hibs, teams on terrible runs of form, we are a soft touch. Enough with the self-fulfilling excuses for failure, you have the resources to comfortably win these games. It is your responsibility to get it right, or just own up if you can’t do the job without Chris Davies.
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First ?
3 points from 2 spot kicks.
Happy Friday eve!
HH!
WooHoo, the long wait is over. Podium to the aul fella !
Brendan, any one of us reading this could have done as well in the dugout last night. You need to put a team on the field that can dominate and win against Premiership sides with 10% of your financial resources and who would be embarrassed by the money you spent.
We should not underestimate the opposition Scottish football is improving overall as our European status would suggest.
Also we have a right to win!
We have the best players!!
Really!?
Players like Shankland, Miovski, Boyle etc, who are top players for the Clubs outside the Glasgow are said not to be good enough for Celtic.
Well let me turn that argument around.
Let’s look a Celtic’s superior player and ask…
If the any of the Celtic players yesterday were representing Hibs, who would we be having nightmares about. Would we have been so much worse with Boyle playing for us.
If the any of the Celtic players from Saturday were representing Aberdeen who would we be having nightmares about. Would we have been so much worse with Mioski playing for us.
Sure we pay more out on transfer fees, we are the second highest, in terms of wage bill, yet lets face it, our much superior players line is a nonsense isn’t it?
Would you put the team that played last night up against a team that played in Scotland not so long ago…
1 – Hart
88 – Juranovic
20 – Carter-Vickers
6 – Jenz
3 – Taylor
13- Mooy
33 – Turnbull
41 – Hatate
9 – Jota
8 – Furuhashi
7 – Giakoumakis
Celtic had a real golden year in 2022, Angeball flying, yet we still struggled in the UCL, we still felt we needed to strengthen.
Yet consider the year before, 2021, losing out in the League to Rangers and remember how chuffed we were when Ralston scored a 97″ Angeball winner at Ross County in December that year.
What about the year after, 2023, instead of strengthening that team, many first team players went and we were a much poorer side, both under Ange and Brendan.
We lost 4-2 at Easter Road in May 2023.
So before we really get stuck in on the blame game, maybe understand, we have got no given right to dominate Scottish football.
In the “Twenties”, we’ve had one good year, even then, quite some distance away from the “elite” UCL side we were striving towards and we NEEDED to be at the start of 2024/25 season.
Yet Heart in mouth stuff yesterday brought back a passion for the Scottish game and we need to select our three main contributors.
Winging it’s way to SENCELPOTY@GMAIL.COM
1. Idah
2. Hart
3. Meada
Hail Hail
“Brendan, any one of us reading this could have done as well in the dugout last night. You need to put a team on the field that can dominate and win against Premiership sides with 10% of your financial resources and who would be embarrassed by the money you spent.”
What money is Brendan supposed to be embarrassed about?
FFS….yet another assassination attempts on our Manager..
imo most of the purchased players this season are only worth/valued about a tenth of what we paid for them, someone or somebody have been ripped off, who sanctioned our transfer fees.
SCULLYBHOY on 8TH FEBRUARY 2024 9:34 AM
Liam Scales’ dominance at Easter Road
One player who was better than the Irish marksman was his international teammate Scales, who dominated at Easter Road and produced a complete performance.
The former Aberdeen loanee has established himself as a regular starter, with 23 league starts, and showcased his quality once again against Hibs on Wednesday night.
Liam Scales
Vs Hibernian (via Sofascore)
Minutes played
90
Duels contested
Ten
Duels won
Nine
Clearances
Four
Blocks
Two
As you can see in the table above, Scales was a rock at the back for Celtic as he won 90% of his duels, which included all three of his battles on the deck and six of his seven aerial contests.
======================================================================================
Thank you !
I was beginning to believe I was watching Celtic in a parallel universe.
Scales has been outstanding all season, especially when you factor in the various Centre Backs he has partnered and on some occasions, carried, over the last lot of months.
Of course things deteriorate when CV is missing, but this is hardly Scales fault.
If I have slight criticism of him, it is that he can be unwilling to release the ball unless the perfect pass is available. His Stats prove the amount of good work he is doing week in week out.
We are being overrun in midfield when the opposition press us. We are also offering hope to lesser teams by fluting around at the back for no apparent reason only to maintain possession in dangerous areas.
Very disappointed in Kuhn last night, but it is early days. Likewise Maeda, who will die for the cause but, is very limited in footballing skills.
There was some extremely harsh words exchanged on this forum last night. As one Blogger said, cheer, sing and shout for the team when at the game, but do not be afraid to express your opinion on this Forum, positive or negative. And above all, lets not personalise our different opinions. Life is to short for that.
very poor defending at there goal last night , nobody marking the 2 or 3 hibs players just outside our box , all our players backed off into our box giving them a free hit, schoolboy stuff once again , who is coaching these guys.
AIPPLE on 8TH FEBRUARY 2024 12:08 PM
“Brendan, any one of us reading this could have done as well in the dugout last night. You need to put a team on the field that can dominate and win against Premiership sides with 10% of your financial resources and who would be embarrassed by the money you spent.”
What money is Brendan supposed to be embarrassed about?
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
I make it around £21 million spent since Brendan arrived, not counting wages
Criticism of BR is fair enough. I don’t agree with it but each to their own.
It’s amazing though how p67 can call out BR ( top of the league) today and yet kept his mouth shut for months about Neil Lennon when the season was falling to pieces in October and November 2020.
RIEPERMAN @ 12:29 PM,
Well, the wages thing I get, he offered improved contracts to many of our “senior” players
Yet the 21 mn doesn’t ring a bell, yes, he did intimate we’d be signing 10 mn pound players but don’t remember him buying any, who did Brendan Rogers sign for 21 mn!?
Hail Hail
hatchet job from the chairman’s poodle..
absolute joke
BR wanted the board to be brave in the transfer market
so brave they hide behind CQNs leaders
Chairbhoy,
Some quick back of a fag packet maths:
Kuhn £3m
Palma £3.5m
Nawrocki: £4.3m
Lagerbielke: £3m
Yang: £2m
Holm: £2.5M
Tilio: £2m
Kwon; £1m
You could argue they weren’t all his signings, and that many of those didn’t play – but that’s besides the point. He has a team worth many millions more than the opposition he’s regularly struggling against
CHAIRBHOY on 8TH FEBRUARY 2024 12:06 PM
We should not underestimate the opposition Scottish football is improving overall as our European status would suggest.
———-
I’m sorry but I have to disagree. ten out of the twelve clubs in the Premiership would be hard-pushed to finish mid-table in the Vanarama fifth-tier in England; indeed Engish non-league clubs are a rich source of recruitments for many of them. Most clubs in the Vanarama can pay better wages than the afore mentioned ten. If you add in the plastic pitches at Kilmarnock and Livingston, the league in which we ply our trade is not conducive to either honing, or, displaying our skills.
You are right that the national team, due to Steve Clark, is making headway in international competition, however that sqaud consists predominately of players from the top two leagues in England, and is, but for the Scotland brand, no way representative of the game in Scotland.
Celtic with its resources should be able to ‘skoosh’ all teams, save for the Ibrox club, we don’t and that says all about where we are today.
———
On another matter, I am quite taken aback by the strength of Paul’s criticism of Brendan this morning. He obviously thinks that our manager is a spent force and surviving on past reputation only……is it really that bad?
Brendan, any one of us reading this could have done as well in the dugout last night. You need to put a team on the field that can dominate and win against Premiership sides with 10% of your financial resources and who would be embarrassed by the money you spent.”
whereas the board/recruitment team are not embarressed by the annual shitshow when prepping for the new season, prepping for euro campaigns, prepping for the asia cup, prepping for the winter-restart ??????
Celtics POOR Form is very worrying obviously.
I cant explain this except to suggest that in recent times at LEAST Two or Three DIFFERENT Players are having poor games, in every game ?
This means that Celtic are starting each game with ONLY EIGHT or NINE Players playing reasonably okay or slightly better thru the 90 minutes. This in effect means that maybe ONLY Eight or Nine Players are trying to combat the opposition, while having at LEAST Two or Three ” Empty Jerseys” ?
Last night we had NICOLAS RHUN, LIEL ABADA, DAIZEN MAEDA in particular NOT performing to an acceptable level..at different times throughout the game, there MAY have been MORE who FAILED to meet an acceptable standard in separate spells throughout the game ?
Honestly, WHEN was the LAST TIME that most of the support felt that EVERY Player had AT LEAST played reasonably well during the course of 90 minutes or more ?
IF just EIGHT or NINE different Players are forced to face ELEVEN opposition players playing above themselves in each and every game, then we are in real trouble ?
I sincerely hope and pray that Celtic can get back on track asap.
HH.
Apart from his considerable success first time around with us, Rodgers had 2 top 5 EPL finishes with Leicester and won the FA cup for the first time in their history. I’ve no doubt he and his confidant, Chris Davies, worked exceptionally well together. BR may have his managerial imperfections but, by golly, so do many, many others operating out of CP.
More puerile drivel from our brainwashed host.
I think Brendan has probably forgotten more than you know about Football Management Paul.
With each passing daily header post; you are sounding more and more like a child shouting insults at the big boys, from a safe distance.
I can’t ever remember you being as blunt with any other Celtic manager, Paul but at least you’re not talking around your opinion.
I noticed once again NFL mentioning £10 or £8 million pound players” last night. I don’t think I have read ONE Celtic fan talk of us signing players at that money, but more of an acceptance that when we have signed players circa 5 or 6 million they have been more successful.
Anyway, putting that aside I do agree that the manager does need to get more out of what he has. I don’t even agree with some of the excuses you have offered about not knowing each other. When Idah ran through last night and then dithered before wasting a very good chance, he’d already made the run. That comes down to decision making. He obviously gets a pass for two excellent penalties but that and his hitting the bar need to be remembered.
Kyogo is along with CCV, Calmac, O’Reilly and Hatate our better performing players. Two of them have worrying recurring injuries which is a worry. The former has been a big game player for us and we NEED to get him back scoring goals. The difference between a goalscoring number 9 and not is probably winning the league.
There are 13 games to go and we NEED immediate outcomes to win us the league.
BR does need to step up, work out who he can rely on to battle in adversity and who can win a match when we have played like we did last night.
There are some in the squad that don’t look like they have anything to offer under these circumstances.
RIEPERMAN on 8TH FEBRUARY 2024 12:44 PM
Chairbhoy,
Some quick back of a fag packet maths:
Kuhn £3m
Palma £3.5m
Nawrocki: £4.3m
Lagerbielke: £3m
Yang: £2m
Holm: £2.5M
Tilio: £2m
Kwon; £1m
—-
I think a lot of us would agree that this is a colossal misuse of our financial resources. We could a couple of more transfer windows back in time and add to that list.
I fear though that p67 is misdirecting his fire in who he’s holding to account for this.
Can anyone believe how much Govan has changed? Astonishing.
https://www.croatiaweek.com/the-croatian-island-where-only-one-person-lives/
So Brendan spent 21m. Did he aye?
He bought all those players.
He took that scattergun approach?
And still made a profit in the jota starfelt and turnbull money…..
That said he should be getting a tune out of players who seem to look like they have never met.
Every worse performance is superceded in the very next game,
The whole place from board down is a shambles this year but it all started with the summer recruitment.
Thank god for Mickey Beale t that we are still top of this league.
We are downsizing on quality, with the biggest bank balance in our history, look upstairs to your pals P67
Does P67 get paid by Celtic PLC to write the leaders for this blog? Free tickets for high profile games?
If not what is his motivation for never challenging how the club is run by the board? Never a peep of criticism.
Rodgers over inflated salary matches his ego perfectly so don’t expect change from him.
His glib “we need to better” garbage after the last two performances mean absolutely nothing.
I have to agree with AN DÚN however. Paul, you failed to call Lennon out for his continuing failure in the covid season and at least this time we are still in the race……
According to ACSOM we have spent 56m in fees alone (not counting wages) before this season on players who haven’t played the equivalent of a full seasons games with us.
Our transfer strategy is a disgrace. Constantly relying on young inexperienced guys trying to make their way in the game in a foreign country away from all their pals and family. In the hope one of them comes good and nets us a sell on fee.
One season we deviated. Ange signed experienced pkayers in hart jj gg mooy kyogo starfelt all to fulfill particular roles and was then able to supplement these guys with 3 great prospects jota ccv abada and Matt all of whom played regularly.
Young lawwell comes in and the strategy reverts to inexperienced projects whether we need them or not.
Utter shambles.
RIEPERMAN @ 12:46 PM,
Well they weren’t his signings were they?
We know they weren’t, so he didn’t spend any money on them, though someone certainly did.
We know how the model works and they were development players identified by the recruitment team.
Brendan has made it clear what he wants, quality, established players with “personality, “, pace and physicality
He’d seen Nawrocki play for Legia…
He seems to have signed off on Kuhn but was hardly gushing about him.
He said he knew Idah and was exited to work with him, so he’s a definitely a Rodgers’ signing.
So let’s see how he does.
In the meantime let’s look into the reason we are paying way over the odds for development players, we are going cheap but even then, the majority aren’t worth it.
My post @ 12:06 PM mentions three players in Scotland worth around the 5 mn pound mark.
They are experienced professionals who know the SPL.
Getting bargain basement development players from Asia or Scandinavia isn’t cutting it, is it?
Blame BR for the formation, blame BR for the tactics, blame BR for lack of motivation, sure
Yet don’t blame him for wasting money on substandard players he didn’t know
Or the flawed moneyball strategy that he said only last week needs adapting.
Hail Hail
We are the proverbial baw hair away from the wheels coming off. Last night we flirted with disaster.
Never mind the fans, the club itself is riven based on P67’s increasingly open attacks on the manager.
FWIW I am increasingly dismayed at Brendan’s inability to improve the team over the course of this season. In fact it’s getting worse. We were shambolic last night.
However, it wasn’t his decision to gamble with the playing squad by replacing seasoned pros with wee bhoys who might come good. Put the two failings together and we are in a world of trouble.
first they shat on the fans
now they shit on the manager
(and btw I am no fan of BR)
Ridiculous character assassination of the manager from Peter Lawell’s glove puppet.
Manager was quite right to demand better transfer market activity in January.
Why no criticism of Mark Lawell?
Last two windows have been poor, and he is the “Head Of Recruitment”.
Moreover, it is a clear conflict of Interest for the Chairman’s son to hold a Senior Executive post within a company.
You’re embarrassing yourself now Paul.
Done with this blog.
Hmmmm……..interesting point about Chris Davis. I hadn’t thought about that.
I had Bernabei in my top 3 for Jobo’s MOTM last night. For the 2nd game in a row, he showed more effort and fight than many of his team mates.
But it worries me that a player with so many deficiencies is in my top 3. Alexandro continually makes “imaginative” passes to imaginary teammates in imaginary positions. When he does so in attacking phase, we can often regroup and recover to prevent damage, though Aberdeen managed to score a goal against us from one of his final third passes. But, when he gives up possession so cavalierly in passing or dribbling in our half, we will end up overworking the aged Joe Hart, who had to do very well last night.
I praised Bernabei for a great curling cross from deep that just failed to reach Adam Idah but Hibs hit three better early curling crosses from deep that did reach their attackers and caused Joe Hart to bail us out.
There is a mentality issue at play with our team. We had a storming first half v Aberdeen and a mental end to end 2nd half where we looked spooked by conceding a goal. At Hibs, we had an OK first half but , again deteriorated to panic, even before they scored. Unlike Aberdeen, Hibs had as many decent chances as us.
Kuhn last night showed no urgency. His appetite makes the occasionally lazy Palma look like an all action whirling dervish in contrast. Abada’s head seems all over the place and, if he is so unhappy, we will need to consider selling him in the summer but let’s get him right to perform just now as, apart from Maeda’s defensive strengths as a winger, we have no in-form wingers on our books just now- both positions are wide open- I’d even consider giving Kyogo a go to squeeze him into the team if we persist with 4:3:3, as likely. Matt O’Riley has carried us for a lot of this season but he did not wake up last night till injury time was on us. A spell on the sub’s bench would be merited as Holm’s average form IS better than Matt’s poor form.
Injuries will force us to continue with 2nd choice full backs for a game or two yet, but I can’t see us hitting peak Celtic until both CCV and Hatate return. Meanwhile we need a team structure that works for us. I think Brendan can do that sort of thing as he patched us up for both Sevco wins this season but the team and Brendan cannot afford the kind of rifts that we, as a support can indulge in.
AN DÚN on 8TH FEBRUARY 2024 12:33 PM
Criticism of BR is fair enough. I don’t agree with it but each to their own.
It’s amazing though how p67 can call out BR ( top of the league) today and yet kept his mouth shut for months about Neil Lennon when the season was falling to pieces in October and November 2020.
___
I was thinking exactly the same. Constant anti Rodgers articles, unbelievable. It’s like some folk want him to fail.
The editorial slant on the blog is disappointing but nothing new, CQN has been reporting against Rodgers ever since he signed in the summer. Up to now it’s been sly but constant one-liner closing digs, however this latest attack feels like gloating opportunism. Dropping this random “can’t do it without Davies” bomb is the kind of cheap and obvious line I’d frankly expect to read in the MSM rather than an influential Celtic blog. Poor form.
We’ve seen poor runs of games from numerous managers, most notably Neil Lennon, and we’ve also heard plenty of “excuses”. However they’ves never elicited this level of attack. We all have some residual issues with Rodgers, but for better or worse he’s our manager and will see us to this year’s league conclusion. This is not helping.
I’ve previously been relatively ambivalent regarding Lawwell, but if the over-riding effect of his presence at the club is to create this level of division and vitriol, then I’m more often feeling his presence is not beneficial. I’m sure we’re all tired of every issue with Celtic becoming a Lawwell v the manager debate. Therefore whether these constant internal divisions are real or perceived, they’ve now become so synonymous with Lawwell’s presence that I don’t believe they will go until he does.
DARWIN @ 12:47 PM,
For someone that calls for facts you certainly have a knack of pulling abstract ideas from the ether.
Wycombe Wanderers play in the third teir of Scottish Football, against teams like Fleetwood.
Matt O’Riley was a golden boy from that league.
He’s a great lad, good player, but he doesn’t make the rest of the SPL look way below him, he struggles against good opposition.
And has done as well in the UCL as he’s done in the SPL, that tells you a lot.
Aberdeen were robbed by VAR in Europe this season.
Celtic with its resources should be able to ‘skoosh’ all teams, save for the Ibrox club, we don’t and that says all about where we are today.
Too true, the situation is, that apart from Lenny, Ange, Brendan, the main proponents at Celtic have been there since 2020 (and obviously before, in some cases decades before).
Now there is a mystery of what these “stalwarts”, do in a day to day basis and what the processes and strategies are.
Let me give you an example, and I’ve tried to choose a non controversial approach, one that garnered different opinions, certainly, but not the blame game…
Sometime after the Rangers died and Celtic viewed the new world order in Scottish football a strategy was unfurled…
Call it the 4-2-3-1…
It meant that a new formation and tactics were to be deployed by Celtic throughout their coaching and teams; youth, development, first team etc
That with this would come with a player wellbeing, nutrition and conditioning regime, introducing the best practice for a top footballers/athletes to ensure elite performance.
A consistency of backroom expertise so that when managers or top coaches move on the impact is minimal.
All good right!?
So, let’s not go into the implementation and the fallout successes and failures at this point, yet of course that did happen.
Let’s ask ourselves who (maybe a collective) devised this strategy, refined the processes and undertook the implementation.
Because we know that all that happened, we know it must have been resourced and funded.
Part of the implementation was the engagement of specialist Norwegians, headed up by Ronny Delia.
Of course Lenny, who was Manager at the time didn’t accept this, he resigned (for multiple reasons of course, it had been a tough innings) and Ronny was made Manager.
So we know that Lenny and his coaching staff didn’t come up with the idea, we know we didn’t have a COO at the time and we never had a head of/Director of Football at the time.
So, we ask again – who (maybe a collective) devised this strategy, refined the processes and undertook the implementation.
The point is, there are high level strategies being formulated, which must have aims and objectives, for the football Club created and brought to bear by person or persons unknown.
Some of these strategies seem very innovatory and practical.
Yet who within the Club had the ability to devised then
Who, refined the processes
Who was responsible for the implementation
A very odd state of affairs from my point of view, my love for openness and accountability stunted by these invisible, unaccountable fholk.
For instance, we have had the same backroom set up since then outside the few seasons of the BR/CD specialists.
What has been their worth? The same Lennoxtown staff through Lenny Mk2, Ange and BR Mk2.
With very variable outcomes.
This is not a “current” malaise we are looking at, this is an issue since Ronny Delia and BR Mk1 and Angeball the first eighteen months, doesn’t mask the fundamental issues that are over a decade old.
Hail Hail