Good teams can score anywhere. Great teams can defend anywhere. Celtic have set a modern time record for lowest goals conceded in a league campaign of 17, beating the record jointly held by Martin O’Neill’s Celtic 13 years ago, and by Alex Ferguson’s Aberdeen in the 80s, by a single goal.
This is a remarkable achievement but the bald fact hides another story. We conceded 12 times in their first 17 league games of the campaign, but conceded only five in the remaining 21 games:
St Johnstone scored with a rebound after Gordon saved.
St Johnstone scored when Danny Swanson fired unstoppable shot.
Inverness scored with a rebound after Johansen blocked on line.
Kilmarnock scored a deflection from shot from outside box.
Dundee scored from a move which opened Celtic defence.
Unstoppable shots, or deflections, from outside the box are, from a defensive organisation perspective, irrelevant. If someone ‘buys a lottery ticket’ with a low percentage shot and it ends up in the net, you’ve no remedial action to worry about.
Two rebounds ended up in the net. We don’t make many goal-line clearances, by keeper or defender, so reacting to the second ball is worth doing when opponents get inside the Celtic box. Dundee scored an 87th minute consolation in a game they were completely out-thought. Perhaps a momentary lapse from a Celtic team who thought their work was done for the day.
That 17 goal tally, a record which stretches back 96 years, is largely a story of the last six months, but it’s been a different story in cup games over the same period, where we’ve conceded eight in eight games.
The roof fell in over in the first half against Inter Milan at Celtic Park. While the three goals could be put down to bizarre mistakes I suspect the real story is that we didn’t have the game-plan right for an opponent of that standard. The remaining game and a half against Inter was different, where we conceded only a single ‘lottery ticket’ goal.
Dundee United scored with a disputed penalty (let’s not get started) and Inverness scored three against 10 man Celtic. Those three Inverness goals contrast so sharply with the rest of the season that you could conclude that we don’t have a robust game-plan for playing with 10 men against domestic opposition. The earlier 10-man performance at the San Siro was a different (much better) story, but tactics for Inter Milan and for Inverness will always be so different they are not worth comparing.
The loss of Jason Denayer and potential loss of Virgil van Dijk provides Ronny with a real challenge to maintain or improve the defence next season, but as you will know if you’ve been paying attention for the last 10 months, it’s all about systems, not players, so there’s a lot to be hopeful about going forward…….. apart from the fact that the only goals we’ve conceded since the middle of December in all competitions were to players wearing blue or orange!
Happy Lisbon Lions Day!
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Haha! There’s a pointless zombie who better shave off his beard, dye his hair and buy contacts.
Disguises R Us
I wonder when the first “Real Want Ally” headline will appear.
cliftonvillecelt
Thanks buddy, read up on him and his comments re lizzies song and the use of the Irish bigotdome
PFayr
I agree.
Sometimes players take a bit of time to settle, and I doubt he really wanted to be here in the first place.
I think RD will get the best out of him, his movement is superb.
HH
……………………..
DD
Magic :-)
Mind them illegal smokes now !!!
HH
Huns moaning bout Fir Park allocation, Motherwell only giving them lower half of one stand with upper level lying empty lol, why give your opposition an advantage?? It’s a no brainer!! Fuckers only had 41,000 at ipox v Hibs so they gave Hibs only 950 tickets and couldn’t sell out their own allocation, whits the difference?
Dallas Dallas, the el kadoori fella scored the first goal in a game v the huns. Pretty sure we went on to lose the game though:-(
pfayr-Vale Bhoy-Brendan Rodgers won’t be sleeping well,knowing Ancelotti and Klopp are available for free.
ACGR –
They beat us 4-2 that day.
Ancelotti sacked ……
Bt
I think Totti has a contract until 2016.
He turns 39 in September.
HH!!
Mrhenrik67
Ahem ;-)
Bada
Steve mclaren is also available. 8))
Murray still exerts his malign influence over media.
As I have rather cynically observed in the past.
Despite the millions of words of explanation churned out about them over the last four years there is something that is never mentioned or questioned by Scotland’s media.
That is the question of, how could the shrewdest, sharpest individual to enter a football club boardroom in the whole galaxy, have been taken to the cleaners by a wee shitebag from Motherwell.
Of course nothing at all to do with SDM previously having spent four years trying without success to offload his toxic organisation whilst repeatedly asserting that he would sell to the right person.
Plenty of Tims will agree that in the end he got it right.
Bada,
Sky saying Rodgers has no chance of getting the bullet.
Carlo Ancelotti gone gardening.
After checking how his multi-million euro investments are doing.
…and they are doing very well I believe.
Lovely name Carlo, so it is.
HH!!
cliftonville celt,
Any word of possible Reds targets?
They need about 5 players.
Maybe we should give SDM and the media a bit of peace.
After all not one of them blinked an eye when he said that he did not go to CP because he could not stand the bigotry displayed there.
hoopslegend Edson van der Braafheid generator is the worsest Cellick player to appear in a World Cup final.
Tom, Murray and the first club to play at Ibrox were made for each other.
Murray is more non-stick than a million teflon products.
I hope your dad is keeping well.
Quonno –
Correct.
Murray was always at pains to tell the world he would only sell the club to a buyer who had the long term interests of the club at heart and that he was once close to selling until he discovered that the buyer was not right for the club and promptly withdrew from the sale.
The truth is, the buyer was very keen until he carried out due diligence and discovered that the club was a financial basket case and reduced his offer substantially and walked away when Murray refused to budge.
The proof if all this is in the fact that he eventually gave the club away to a veritable basket case.
A last word, at least for tonight on SDM.
We should not forget that with his win at any price he not only wrecked Scottish Football along with Campbell Ogilvie he was a prime mover in having the format of the European Cup changed from knockout to sections.
This was to protect big clubs such as THEM.
So successful has he been that only one of half a dozen teams has a realistic chance of winning the
Champions League and THEY are certainly not one of them.
Dallas Dallas –
My dad is doing ok, thanks for asking. My nephew took him to the pub yesterday to watch the game and he was apparently in good spirits.
Quonno, a former member of the press I know told me Murray would talk of us, off the record in media speak, in less than complimentary terms.
Murray’s ego was out of control.
From what I gather, Joe Lewis & ENIC, who invested forty million, were not enamoured with Murray at all.
Mrhenrik67
100%, had the radio on for a very short time driving home, switched off as soon as that Balloon started moaning about the injustice :-)
Absolutely no mention of them only giving the opposition 950 tickets, with 9000 spare seats
Stan and Stefan
Can you tell me who you are comparing Celtic 11men in the box at corners with ? Playing in the Scottish premier league ?
Not a dig, just asking
And compare us with others in Europe, as someone else pointed out
Ps- your stats were very very good and revealing
To others who wished my Auld Da a very happy Lisbon Day, thanks
He is not fit enough to get to see the Celtic now, but he had his son, a granddaughter, a grandson and 2 great grandkids at the game yesterday, he will be a very happy Auld Bhoy knowing that
Hail Hail
Murray is a grade one chanty rastler ….
Tom McLaughlin
19:34 on
25 May, 2015
Quonno –
Correct.
Not so sure that WEE CRAIGIE was a basket case.
Have you seen the deeds yet.
tricoloured ribbon
19:26 on 25 May, 2015
Don’t believe everything Sky say, they still think Sevco are Rang**s
Quonno,
SDM could have avoided the bigotry at Celtic Park if he went when his Rangers weren’t playing.
Whyte was Murrays man….the party isn’t over
quonno
It was at his insistance that the reserve league got binned.
HH
tricoloured ribbon
19:26 on 25 May, 2015
Bada,
Sky saying Rodgers has no chance of getting the bullet.
Ancelotti being available now could be a game changer, I hope they stick by Rodgers btw
Tom, that’s pleasing to hear. Sometimes men of your dad’s generation find it hard to deal with their wife going into care or passing away as they ran the house.
Hopefully, he’ll be here a good while to celebrate with you when Celtic win.
I dont think we will be looking for another striker during this window we will have next season Scepovic, Pukki and Griffiths and a we only play with the one striker so it looks well covered.However,I honestly feel we need to sort out the defence for European games neither Mathews or Izzi is good enough defensively and of course we dont know who our centre backs will be.I hope Ronnie is right that we already have the players who will qualify for the champions league proper but im not so sure.The other thing we have to do is reduce the size of our playing squad so Ronnie has a busy summer ahead of him.H.H.
SSN and the huns have the same sponsor, 32 Red
HH
Craig White, according to the fearless seekers after truth who work for our noble fourth estate, is far from being a ‘veritable basket case’
Au contraire, he is a billionaire with ‘wealth off the radar’.
Rodgers is a football idealist …zero pragmatism
One can only hope for his sake that he isn’t buying the players at LFC
gerryfaethebrig
19:41 on 25 May, 2015
tricoloured ribbon
19:26 on 25 May, 2015
Don’t believe everything Sky say, they still think Sevco are Rang**s
…………..
And the myth is swallowed by all and sundry.
Very, very few people are aware that they were liquidated.
Sky have done a superb job in keeping the same club scenario alive.
pfayr-you could be right, Balotelli dearie me, most overrated player to have played the game, doesn’t seem to fit BR style of play