I liked a lot about what we did last night. Leigh Griffiths provided more evidence that he is a remarkable predator. Kris Commons delivered another driven corner, his third of this European campaign to result in a goal, Lustig made first contact leaving Griffiths with only instinct to produce a shot on target. That same instinct clicked an instant later to turn the second shot over the keeper and into the net.
Do you remember a moment, before the first goal, when Fenerbahce enjoyed their best spell of pressure, and we cleared our lines aimlessly four times in a couple of minutes? It looked ugly and invited Fenerbahce to continue to pile the pressure on, but it was a salutary indication of how tactically well Celtic played. When under pressure, clear your lines, regroup, and get ready to go again.
On two occasions we dribbled out of a defensive position leading to a goal. Nir Bitton had ample opportunity to clear forward, but with opponents closing space all around him, he hesitated until he could play-in James Forrest, who surge forward to cross for Commons to score.
Scott Brown as immense all night, but having held-off a challenge 20 yards from his own goal on the wing, he should have cleared deep inside Fenerbahce territory instead of trying to make a pass. We didn’t get the ball back until the score was 2-2. Johansen and Lustig were both caught similarly in the second half but neither was punished. Being brave in possession isn’t always wise.
Some of the passing football we played was a treat to watch. Bitton and Brown played their best game as a partnership, if not as individuals in a Celtic shirt; Brown was certainly that good. James Forrest, now fit, is drinking-in responsibility. He was effective last night, but not because he used his unparalleled pace, instead he delivered link play.
You’ll have noticed Craig Gordon likes a leg save. Few keepers do, they seem to try to get their hands or torso to a ball, but I like that Craig likes getting any hard part of his body in the way.
Don’t let it bounce.
“Don’t let it bounce.” There’s not a central defender in the world who doesn’t hear that phrase every week. When a ball is coming towards the danger zone in the air, get your head on it. If you let it bounce, anything can happen.
This was Efe Ambrose first mistake last night. He failed to read the flight of the ball. The moment it bounced, he was in trouble. With Fernandao waiting to feed on the scraps, Efe should then have concentrated on winning the physical challenge as the ball dropped a second time, but instead he found his ‘don’t let the ball bounce’ instinct too late and committed a second inexcusable error.
Think back almost three years to the opening minutes of the Champions League game against Juventus, Efe committed pretty much the same mistake. He lost the flight of the ball and we were a goal down and out before we warmed up.
Although Efe is taking a large slice of the blame in some places for the second Fenerbahce goal, I’m not convinced this is a fair assessment. To give due credit, it was an excellent corner and header – from a zone in front near post it’s difficult to score from. The point about zonal marking is you defend areas it’s easy to score from, at the cost of leaving less-risky areas unattended. Fernandao’s header didn’t come from a high-risk zone.
For some reason, wispy Leigh Griffiths was delegated to man-mark bulky target-man Fernandao. Wee guys can block big guys, but they need to be standing ball-side of the attacker, preferably facing his chest with arms out, so that when movement happens, he’s at least the right side of the attacker. Leigh was on his heels, completely unprepared.
Before the kick was struck, Fernandao was on the move, gambling on a near-post run. Should Efe have also gambled similarly? On first glance it looked like it, but that’s only because the ball went to that area and ended up in the net. Fernandao could afford to gamble by running into a space the ball may or may not arrive at. This is not the case for a defender. He has to wait until the ball is in the air. If he leaves his zone before the ball’s kicked to follow an attacker who has move early, he’s not doing his job.
It’s all about the block.
Great corner aside, we lost the second goal because we didn’t get a block on Fenerbahce’s target man. Before the kick was taken, Leigh Griffiths was adjacent to and looking at Fernandao, having been delegated the task by the impressive Kieran Tierney, but Leigh was also looking all around him and made no attempt to block.
Griffiths (5’ 8”), the smallest man in the Celtic team, should never have been near Fernandao (6’ 4”), the tallest man in the Fenerbahce team. That’s 8 inches of disadvantage and double figures of kilos weight.
There are two big questions to be asked about this goal:
Why didn’t we have a physical equal on Fernandao, capable of withstanding a shove, or better still, getting his own shove in first? Fenerbahce had one target man striker, we didn’t notice him. It doesn’t matter if you play zonal or man-to-man, if we are conceding 8 inches to the opponent’s main physical threat, we’ll continue to lose goals at corner kicks.
But the real curious question is why was it left to 18-year-old Kieran Tierney to instruct who picks up whom at a corner kick? Action moves so quickly at corners that everyone needs to understand they have a responsibility to take control, not just the central defenders, captain, or keeper. Or 18-year-old novice.
This is not happening at Celtic right now, which is why we’re playing our European football on Thursdays this season. If you put your smallest player on an opponent’s tallest, and it’s left to an 18-year-old to delegate responsibility, you deserve to lose a goal.
Last Man Standing 5
Last call for all those wanting to take part in Last Man Standing 5, in aid of Wee Shay McGinlay who is 2 and suffers from cerebral palsy. To date CQNers and friends have raised an incredible £5400 towards the fund raising campaign, to finance treatment for Shay not available on the NHS, which will hopefully improve his quality of life.
The current entrants stand at 72, so if you want to take join the LMS5 clique, then simply drop a line to Jobo and CRC at cqnlastmanstanding@gmail.com before 12pm Saturday and they will send you more details.
Thanks for indulging me bringing the work of the Foundation to your attention all this week. The Great Scottish Run is less than 48 hours away and dozens of Celtic fans have put thousands of hours into preparing for the event. Those doing the ‘half’ are going to miss the Hamilton game, another consequence of playing Thursday night European football.
If you can support any of the runners, please do:
Click here for my linked donation page.
Thank you.
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Snecker
http://www.heilenmitpilzen.de/cancer.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZXGH6mYr3Y
hebcelt on 3rd October 2015 4:51 pm
The Huddle no way on earth did the Beeb pay £400,000 to televise that game. Please provide proof/evidence and I’ll apologise.
——————
It was more of a question? As far as I was aware BBC budget for football was small, £400k per game seems huge, do they pay even more for later round games?
RC @ 4.34
Top of the class csc
St. Johnstone must be some team because the soccer experts on BBC Scotland have been claiming all season that Aberdeen don’t have a weakness.
HA HA
Jmmcormick
Tenner is yours if you are there next Saturday, if not I will get it too you some way or another
Hearts draw 1-1 i think we have a good chance at 2nd place this season.
I blame ole Hugh Keevins csc
LMS
Dundee
Get in there :))))
I thought the BBC only paid c£100k for a match?
HH!!
St Johnstone showing that the Sevco game was just a one-off poor performance.
Canamalar on 3rd October 2015 1:06 pm
So the good ole US of A target a hospital for air strikes then label the victims as colleral damage, anothe war crime that will go unpunished
Canamalar, Thanks for the update on the US strikes, sadly you did not update us on the Russian strikes..??
I hope you are not another one of the hypocrites on here that hate the US but can’t wait to get on a plane and come here.
Stick to the good work that you do in the name of Celtic.
https://www.rt.com/news/317170-russia-accused-civilians-syria/
Wonder what McInnes will have to say about budgets. Always having sly digs about Ronny having a higher one than him. Interesting to see what St Johnstone’s would be compared to Aberdeen….
ITSCALLEDTHEMALVINAS on 3RD OCTOBER 2015 4:37 PM
YOGIHUGHES
Think you commented on Johnny LIttle a couple of months ago ?
I had to go out and never got back to you.
John was my PE teacher at Sacred Heart. Great guy.
Yes, I knew him professionally – an absolute gentleman.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CQZ5UcFWUAEVRTA.jpg
They’re not taking it well…
HH
BSR
Thank you sir.
HH
Denis Healey RIP.
With the Aberdeen result from today and their recent run of poor form, I hope we will see an end to the complacency jibes aimed at those of us who predicted that, at some point this season, the Dons would run out of steam. This season was, at least, one year too early for Aberdeen to step up to fill the void left by the Dead Fraud Govan IX. We have been predicting that with each year passing, without an Ibrox club in the premiership, gaps would be closed. That is a natural state in any competitive environment. No matter what your economic advantage over competitors, they remain competitive up to a point. That point is determined by the confidence they gain as they establish themselves as more realistic challengers. If, instead of last year’s 17 point gap, there was a 9 or 10 point gap and Aberdeen retain the runners-up position with this, as they should, then they will fancy their chances of making it an even tighter race in 2016/17.
I would not bet on them winning this year’s or next year’s title race but I would, equally, not be prepared to risk a bet now on who will win the title in 3 years time.
We were never complacent about Aberdeen, we were realistic.
They made a tremendously good start to this season, the best in their 112 year history. They will help to make this year a tight-ish race (I still feel it could be a single figure gap of points) but they will not win, barring an unforeseen disaster.
Today’s result has not made the league a certainty but it does confirm that it is a highly probable and predictable occurrence. As I said, there was never any complacency on my side of that prediction- far from it- as I acknowledged they will become increasingly realistic competitors. But I still feel there was a fair bit of, if not panicking, then unrealistic hyperbole about the challenge. Celtic could do nothing about Aberdeen’s winning run, except for the one match, where we blew what should have been an easy away draw.
Aberdeen will remain in our vicinity for a good bit of this season but they will not be within striking distance by the final 3 or 4 matches, I feel.
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS.
I will hopefully be there on the 10th, I’ll visit the Blane Valley first, I have to stop for oil and the BV is always a good choice, i’ll ask my advisors what would be a good time to head for the High street coral, hope Ernie Lynch makes an appearance.
By the Way I got three horses up on the one line, £2 singles on each @ 9/2, 6/4. 7/2. I took board price,but they may have gone out a bit,.25p ew yankee.10 ew dbs. .15p ew tr 4timer, can’t be arsed counting it as it could be more I asked the girl for best odds so if they’ve gone out a bit more then way heh.See you next Sat health permitting.
Just logged on to tinternet from train approaching Wolverhampton to find out what the colossal noise was. Apparently a major bottle crash has happened somewhere on the Northeast.
Boric had one of his howlers today
BFDJ reckons the Saints were underestimated going to game at the bigot dome, indicating sevco not as bad as made out. Har de fookin Ha
Who did Jony Little play for?
weeman67
I think that, yet again, you mistake criticism of the US right wing neo-con establishment with criticism of the American people. You and they do not own America- there are many opposed to your mindset and they have even won. The Democrats that you see as “The Enemy Within” have even won a 50% share of Presidential elections in the past 50 to 60 years, and that is with all the voting restrictions and incarceration policies that your establishment have placed on fair and equable democratic representation.
There are many fine American folk who are prepared to condemn the action that saw 12 brave MSF staff die and 7 patients, including 3 children, die in a reckless attack.
Many millions marched in America and in Europe to protest the handling and justification of the War on Terror. The vast majority of those who did so have no truck with IS, Al Qaeda or any other recently invented group. They were just protecting the principles of liberty and equality that were part of the aspirations of the US nation
OLDTIM67
Every winner is a bonus,mate. You’ve had a few today,and fair play to you.
Well chuffed.
My winner will be buying you a tiny wee gin next week. That,and basking in the past glories that we all discuss as the beer flows.
And I’m working on ‘ERNIE’ ,a lol moment if ever there was one.
SFTB. 5.29.
Don’t always agree with your posts but that one is, in my opinion, very fair and accurate.
Fishwives R Us. Com
LEFTCLICKTIC
Thanks,mate. It won’t last.
Just logged on to CQN Magazine to find there is an article that actually contains the phrase “blunder Bhoy Efe Ambrose”. And this was penned by a CQN correspondent, not a MSM journo.
It seems the integrity of the writing is being compromised for the exchange of website hits.
Well, I can assure you, my own mouse won’t be one of those clicking on those articles in the future.
Simple solution for me.
Weeman67,
Update on Russian air strikes, 20 assaults on terrorist bases, no civilian casualties independently verified, plenty of unconfirmed twitter claims but zero genuinely confirmed.
You know the Russians are doing the job when the Saudis and USA start screaming, after all their investment in Al Qaeda and ISIS going up in smoke.
Oh wait maybe some “good terrorists” USA backed Al Qaeda could be seen as civilian as they only seem to be selling the USA arms to ISIS, living the American dream eh.
Peter Houston giving it to the ref with both barrels about the official’s performance at Ibrokes…
finecomingisuspectCSC
Weeman67,
Oh and 30 minutes after the Americans were informed they were bombing a hospital the were still bombing it, Geneva convention kicked into touch again an indisputable war crime that will again be ignored by the empire.
Oldtim
Like you I need to pass the BV before heading for drinking den
Not out for too long next week as driving to Manchester the next day before heading out to Turkey (well MrsBT driving of course)
Who did the USA blame for 9/11, remind us all weeman67
Thought St. Johnstone might be good for a draw today but never expected anything like 1-5. It should be a salutary lesson to the guys on here who go over the top if Celtic drop a point. Football players are not machines, every team will have bad days, it doesn’t mean that Aberdeen are Sh*te either. They are a decent enough hard working team, who will probably come second in the League but what today tells us is any team can beat another on any given day.
It is important that we make them pay for their off day by collecting the points tomorrow but it won’t be easy. Accies are going well, we are coming off a big Euro game, the points are up for grabs.
To paraphrase K.C. & the Sunshine Band, That’s the Way I Like it, Viva le Armageddon.
Looks like a good turn out next Saturday…
magicCSC
FLORIDABHOY
CQN Magazine has been praising & then defending Efe Ambrose all week,including shortly after the final whistle on Thursday. Efe is a decent pro, he wasn’t unlucky he blundered. If he can cut out these mistakes he could be s decent replacement for VVD who if you remember got himself sent off in Milan last season after Gordon had not one but two blunders in the home match.
Scotland have lost their rugby brain
dr ramesh and the love potion
Cheers mate, I already knew about Rick Simpson. Bicarbonate is another one, Italian doctor was struck off for discovering it. Rick Simpson is still on the run.
SFTB @5-29
As one who his lived in the USA for twenty two years i wholeheartedly agree with your post.
Many Americans disagree with their countries actions abroad despite the medias constant propaganda and misinformation.