International breaks are a chance for most Scottish Premiership players to recuperate from niggles and return energy to tired limbs. National team burdens weigh most heavily on the successful, so Neil Lennon will have little company at Lennoxtown this week – he anticipated no more than four of the first team squad will remain behind, not even enough to practice a corner kick formation.
We travel to Easter Road in 11 days, between now and then, many of the squad will have played three games and traversed the globe. The Salt ‘n’ Sauce Greens will not be so troubled.
Neil will focus on what can be achieved in the days ahead: Christopher Jullien’s return to fitness being top priority. Chris was a titanic figure in our Europa League campaign last season and his League Cup Final intervention was one of the highlights of the season. If we get through this break with no additional injuries, illness and with Chris back in the squad for Easter Road, we would all be happy.
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Happy Wednesday eve from an unusually mild Kentucky.
HH!
That Celt from Kentucky has done it again
well done Aipple
:-)
hh
AN TEARMANN
Sipping my morning coffee at 7:18am Louisville time and saw the open goal. I couldn’t miss.
The cynical voice inside me asks if it’s merely a coincidence we’re away to Easter Road on the Saturday after a two week international break ?
Far from ideal but 3 points is a must then we can look at putting a run together.
Neil may not have the players but I’d like to think himself and John are watching and studying our recent games over this two week break.
Julian has been conspicuous by his abscece . I cant wait till he is back
I really miss football uring the International break 😋
Football player lambasted against Killie for being a chickenheart now the new messiah.
Slight tongue in cheek but does highlight how bloody fickle we are.
I’m a big Julien fan. Our french spine contain our 3 best players. Thought the heavily biased scottish need for ‘blood and snotters’ was nostalgic nonsense.
And it give us Shane Duffy as well. Whoopeee :)
HH
I think the break has come at a good time, notwithstanding what happened last time !
We rock up to Easter Road in two weeks and put in a commanding display and we’ll have the chance to press reset and get down to the job at hand.
I’m personally glad of the break because it was getting tough there for a while.
AN DÚN on 10TH NOVEMBER 2020 12:20 PM
Neil may not have the players but I’d like to think himself and John are watching and studying our recent games over this two week break.
You, me, Jack Ross and everyone else know how we will line up and what the game plan will be.
An Dun,
Sadly, rocking up won’t automatically give us a commanding display.
Stop doing dumb things will produce a commanding display. That involves selection, tactics, fitness and in-game moves. We need a fully functioning coaching focus we won’t get during the international break.
HH
The longer a player is out the better he gets 😉
BIG WAVY on 10TH NOVEMBER 2020 12:30 PM
Yes and no. I’m a fan of his too but I think it also shows how thin on the ground we are for quality centre-backs.
BIG WAVY on 10TH NOVEMBER 2020 12:34 PM
Stop doing dumb things will produce a commanding display. That involves selection, tactics, fitness and in-game moves. We need a fully functioning coaching focus we won’t get during the international break.
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100%. Unfortunately that seems beyond us this season. Most fans have lost faith and are fully expecting our next mini-crises with each upcoming game.
Geebee1978
We have Julien, Ajer, Duffy, Bitton, El Hamed and Welsh….
How many more do we need?
Quality? – That’s the club’s fault. Spent poorly on Duffy. That investment could have been more wisely spent.
HH
BIG WAVY on 10TH NOVEMBER 2020 12:45 PM
That’s quantity, not quality.
I agree the recruitment has been poor but quite often in football, decent organisation and coaching can make a defence better than the sum of its parts.
DOWNFORSAM
I think we could do with a consistent starting team for a few weeks.
Part of our problem is the inability to get the same team a run of game.
Assuming everyone is fit. I know Lennon will start Ajer, Laxalt, Brown, CalMac, Christie and Moi.
I don’t know if he starts Jullien ahead of Duffy because Jullien is only back and he’ll be up against Doidge.
I don’t know if he’ll go El Hamed or Frimpong. Ntcham or Rogic ? Ajeti or Eddy ?
Bain or Barkas ?
We’re far from a settled team.
We all could fairly accurately predict the hun team to face Aberdeen and how they’ll play though.
We need to start doing the basics of defending as a team and the rest will fall into place if we can some consistency into our line ups.
How long to get Christopher Julliene match fit – would be a very pertinent question
Been missing for 2 months
Has he been training ?
How long is it taking to get Griffiths and Ajeti match fit ?
Will Julliene be the same concern and length of time
Plus how long to get him up to speed,
Remember at start of season, Lenny stated it takes a few games to get him up to match speed
More questions than answers there I’m afraid
One other question, will he be as easily bullied as last season by numerous players
SETTING FREE THE BEARS FOR RES. 12 & OSCAR KNOX on 10TH NOVEMBER 2020 11:53 AM
“Christie and AJer want away
Another conspiracy theory
NORRIEM on 10TH NOVEMBER 2020 1:06 PM
It’ll probably take a while to get up to full fitness because of injury but once he’s there, he can help transform our defence.
As for Griff and Ajeti….not sure what their excuse is. They should be fully fit by now.
Meanwhile we have Jack Hendry finally getting some fitness and some game time In Belgium on loan from Celtic. Not a big favourite on here I know, but I’ve always thought he had or has a lot going for him. No luck over in Australia, injured before even Melbourne Mick got to run the rule book over him, and now at eighth place KV Oostende in a more than decent league. Probably benefitting from decent coaching too, and though he wont thank me for saying probably better off missing out on the Scotland squad this time around. Could probably do a job for us at right back outside El Hamed, but for now in a good place. Good luck to the Bhoy.
GENE on 10TH NOVEMBER 2020 12:38 PM
The longer a player is out the better he gets 😉
agree , some have short memories
Only one match of any real importance for Scotland, and that is the play off final against Serbia, on Thursday. No easy task I know but with a prize of being in next years Euro finals well worth the trip. As for the Nations League games at this time, supposed to replace friendlies, funny thing there seems to be a whole lot of friendlies going on.
TV money for FAs I suppose, cannot be any other reason for them.
No game on Sky again. Will ALL Celtic fans call and cancel Sky now. They hate Celtic. And disrespect Scottish Football in general.
CELTIC MAC
good shout re Jack Henry , had a very iffy start , but it was a big step up and its well worth a revisit, just hope we as a club have been keeping tabs on his progress and actually physically been watching his performances while on loan as we should with all our loanee players and not just relying on someone else’s verdict.
Only one match of any real importance for Scotland, and that is the play off final against Serbia, on Thursday
following this and depending on the result , can we not recall our players.
We still are not right. Players are not performing. We must get disgruntled players back on message. We should also consider selling them in January. What good are Eduoard and N’tcham doing on the Bench. They are good enough players and should be starting but their application is such that they are dropped. Far better to sell them in January. They have both dropped in Value due to poor performances
as a priority we must select a back 4 and goalie and stick with it, we have messed about with our selection due to injuries and lose of form for long enough.
RC
Dont think we can. We even have players playing, Norway versus Israel, in what I’m sure is a friendly. Big Kris won’t be playing though.
I’d have Jack Hendry before Bitton at centre half any day.
What we needed was a left sided centre half brought I’m.
But decided to bring in a guy who was told he didn’t fit into Brightons plans , as he couldn’t play out from the back. He is one of us though
ST TAMS on 10TH NOVEMBER 2020 1:55 PM
agree re duffy and Hendry
ST TAMS
YAWN!!!!!!!!!
Odsonne Edouard is still recovering from Covid 19.?
Percentage wise, the odds are that he never even knew he had it when he tested positive.
I think we really need to focus on alternative reasons for his loss of form.
HH.
Duffy has been scrutinised to the nth degree but Bitton has imo got away with some pretty slack defensive displays himself recently.
He made a mistake identical to Duffy’s against Aberdeen in the semi final. Instead of clearing he tried to control and lost possession, resulting in a chance for Aberdeen. Lucky for us they missed it, whereas the week before , it goes in.
Bitton’s defending for Prague’s second goal was every bit as bad as Duffy’s for the third.
Finally against Motherwell, Bitton doesn’t think to jump when competing for a back post header.
Lots to work on at the back and that’s before we talk about the total lack of protection CalMac and Brown are offering their CBs.
Paul67
Badly missed the big Frenchman at centre back, easily our best CB buy, since VVD.
Shane Duffy was signed to play with Jullien not instead of, and sadly we’ve seen how that worked out.
Not expecting to see Chris restored to the sieve till sometime after the international nonsense, but don’t think it’ll be verse Hibs.
ST TAMS
I don’t think Jack Hendry was given much of a chance , played out of position.
We seem to play players out of position all the time Duffy as a poster pointed out is used to playing in a back four with prenty good midfielders who can defend .They had some structure to them.
We seem to pick players for a position and say on you go son.Cal Mac is wasted in the holding position,Christie is not a winger and the lad Turnbull would be good in the same position as Cal MAC and Christie a #10.
Of course this is my opinion.
Dearie me, Jack Hendry is no vaccine for our defence, he might make a decent junior.
BIGBHOY on 10TH NOVEMBER 2020 1:42 PM
We still are not right. Players are not performing. We must get disgruntled players back on message. We should also consider selling them in January. What good are Eduoard and N’tcham doing on the Bench. They are good enough players and should be starting but their application is such that they are dropped. Far better to sell them in January. They have both dropped in Value due to poor performances
hope is a good thing big bhoy.
when will Celtic be alright?
i wonder where the narrative for players being poor comes from.i feel its the permanent state of flux Celtic have been in thro form/injury or covid i would say edd and shane are not on form.
disgruntled players-whit having a moan.i hope they pull together.
i wouldnt sell in jan bb.maybe add tho
i am looking to value to team not the added value to the balance sheet
hh