Yesterday I wrote that you and I were conditioned to what lay ahead in Dortmund. If you expected any different, that’s on you. My point was, “We are in no way the finished article, but Celtic will gather important information tonight”. In this respect, the game could not have gone better. The message was writ large, Celtic cannot play Tier 1 teams in the Champions League as though they were playing Ross County.
The danger signs were there in the opening 150 seconds. For that entire period, Celtic took the game to Dortmund, attacking with the gusto only someone with no memory of the consequences of such bravado. Thereafter, Borussia Dortmund got the ball and scored. At will.
Out of possession, I repeatedly counted six Celtic players in the Dortmund half, with yellow jerseys flying past them. Post-match, we learned that Celtic had modified their press into a more conservative model. This would perhaps explain why Nicolas Kuhn would press a second before anyone else joined in.
Teams press together. This takes practice to get right, we looked unrehearsed, embarrassingly so. Daizen Maeda was exceptional, I had scarcely said, he “could play at Tier 1 level” before he caused a goal. Kasper Schmeichel had his best game for Celtic (let that sink in), while Cameron Carter-Vickers was clearly missed.
There is such a scarcity of left footed central defenders that I doubt Auston Trusty has played on the right a dozen times in his life. His body shape was as unrehearsed as Celtic’s press throughout the night.
The record books will not show that Dortmund took the foot of the gas in the second half. Celtic calmed a little during that period and continued to make chances, some of which would have been rewarded on another day. Valle and Hatate both looked comfortable in possession.
Co-commentators seldom illuminate our thinking but Neil Lennon was exceptional in his analysis. He twice played for Martin O’Neill sides who returned from Barcelona with a draw, and beat them at Celtic Park with 21% possession. He was also there when Gordon Strachan’s side faced Milan at the San Siro in the last 16 of this competition and held the line until extra time.
As Celtic manager, Neil defended home and away to Lazio, winning on both occasions. Martin, Gordon and Neil were all capable of learning lessons. What Brendan Rodgers does with the information he learned last night is open to conjecture.
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A boy sat in front of the fire, sobbing quietly.
“Why are you crying?” his mother asked.
“Because I’m too hot.” he replied.
TBB
Genius.
It’s the Brendan way or the highway, high press often unfolds when the other team are better than you, the pragmatists of Parkhead call for a format that history shows Celtic, don’t
really do. Many super defenders have played for Celtic, great Celtic defences, however are a rare as shit* from a rocking horse.
Ange Postecoglu our previous Tier One manager bought the same type of player, and played an almost identical system, like the one that flopped in Dortmund last night. Circuitous decades of debate have looped from Prague in 1967 where a more defensive variant, once got us an away draw, we’ve now been rinsed through Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, Dortmund, it could be anywhere. Engels, CalMac, and Bernardo were torn a new one, from the kick off Hatate escaped temporarily only because he was on the left on the bench. Inverts Taylor and Johnston suffered the same fate, and didn’t load never mind create an overload, both like supporters, might still traumatised by the weekend. Celtic without CCV went a bit under the radar, but only for a few minutes because Trusty and Scales were left so exposed, by the missed out midfield.
Talk is cheap, and Neil Lennon has some brass now that his analysis is expert and comes with a Cluj and a tattered CV, Brendan Rodgers ‘sees it’ better than anyone writing on the internet, he earns the big money, the Pep Guardiola’s have better players, we could have played my way, or your way and lost differently, ultimately the food chain doesn’t lie. Some supporters won’t give a flying Dingwall, sore scorelines happen all over the world. Football be alls and end alls, would be dead, if we only signed Row Z defenders, leeching our way across Europe for penalties, and we wouldn’t have Celtic stardust either. Throw away your philosophy, lob in Ralston and Welsh as extra men, it might or might not create a different set of problems all still easily overcome by European elite like Dortmund.
Meantime we sampled more Dijon Vu, where we’ve tasted this mustard before, that’s before, we even get to a ‘well known’ place, like Bergamo.
M.O.M
Calum MacGregor
Jobo three
MacGregor
AJ
Scales
So, after months of success and fewer mentions than a former chairman of another club, something goes wrong and all of a sudden the word Brendan appears! No one could have predicted that…..
Under Lennon we got two CL group stages in six years. I would have hoped we would be aiming for a bit more than that!
In Strachan’s time we were a pot two team and were in Europe’s top 20 rich list. A million miles from where we are now.
You would be as well asking why Strachan didn’t just copy Jock Stein’s tactics and go and win the thing.
If Brendan adopts the Ange philosophy of,Plan B is to make Plan A better,we will not get any better in Europe, been posting the same for years,we can’t play 3 forwards away from home against 90% of European teams, 4 4 2 ,or even 4 5 1, the notion of playing football The Glasgow Celtic Way is for the birds, when playing opposition this good
Arsenal set up defensively v Atalanta a couple of weeks ago, and got away with a draw,let that sink in.
Can we just say that “we never learn” and move on as things will not change for the next away tie…
BSR @ 12:11 PM,
Spot on post, lots of analysis of what we shouldn’t have done, very little in the way of how you go to Dortmund and get a result in the UCL.
WGS had his European embaressments and never got a single UCL point away from home.
Agree on Lenny, luckily the noise on the pub meant that I couldn’t always hear him, but what a brass neck.
Him and Tony Watts gets to dine out for life on one game, it doesn’t make either of them a class act…
Hail Hail
That was madness last night.
If we get the chance to reset the acid test Brendan talked about I hope we’ve done a bit more preparation for it.
Chairbhoy on 2nd October 2024 12:28 pm
Agree re Lennon, brass neck is an understatement.
Iwata was the closest we had to a defensive midfielder, and he got punted….
!!BADA BING!!
I watched the Atalanta v Arsenal game .
That is the best press I’ve seen from a team.
Atalanta suffocated Arsenal with their press .
It looked like they had 5 or 6 Maedas all chasing/closing down , oh,they are not short of skill too …….we have our work cut out .
What an embarrassment. He has learned nothing and refuses to learn. “The players got spooked” was his conclusion.
He should look at Sparta Prague’s performance last night but he doesn’t think anyone else can teach him anything.
That awkward moment when – after just two CL games – our pretty doable group is damned as really daunting.
As that great poet David Essex once warbled….
“Where do we go from here?
Which is the way that’s clear?”
We’re clearly not going to change our approach. I don’t like that, I think it’s stupid. We can expect more nights like this – probably in a few weeks.
Can we gain enough points against Bruges, Young boys and Zagreb to qualify? I think that’s a realistic aim but another big defeat could await us in the knock outs.
It’s notable that Paul has remembered the name of the gaffer today – he hasn’t mentioned him for a few weeks now…
There is some sort of cruel logic to the idea that in order to improve, the players need to find out the hard way. Unfortunately, the players seem to be slow learners despite some harsh lessons in umpteen recent tutorials.
It’s also not immediately clear to me that any given group of players can be drilled relentlessly in one system of football, and once or twice every season switch to an entirely different system and expect them to succeed at it.
In the round, there is little to recommend continuing with the current approach. Our defenders aren’t good enough to play 3 versus 3 every time we lose the ball or our press fails. They never will be. We can’t afford that quality.
The logic seems to point at changing the system we use against the top teams such that a 5,6,7 goal pumping becomes a narrow or narrower loss, with a puncher’s chance at a point now and again.
We’re not overwhelmed with choices, are we.
Lenny drew on aggregate against Barcelona that year, we nearly got a result in Catalunya when we got beat 2-1 by an injury time goal with a back 4 of lustig, Wilson, Ambrose and Izaguirre.
We also qualified in second with an away win and the most points we’ve ever got in the CL
More qualified than anyone to talk about Celtic in Europe I’d say
QuadBhoy on 2nd October 2024 10:17 am
Well that was an elite level cock up last night. For all my dislike of BR as an individual, last years CL games gave me some hope that the boring football I watched for most of last season might suit European games/CL better than Ange ball.
————————-
i was never bored watching celtic last season. the football was mostly good.
we lost one game since december.
we scored 3 or more on 14 occasions.
what was boring about it ?
god bless neil francis lennon.
CHAIRBHOY
Yeah Brendan should have listened and learned from PSG in his first spell, we might have kept the score down.
Better still, we should still just have kept Neil ( chased down London Rd ) Lennon and Tony ( effing ) Watt
Sheesh CSC
It’s very valid to question how realistic it is to completely change how a team plays for 3 or 4 games per season.
Lennon brought us Lazio and Barca.
His football also brought us Cluj, Ferencvárosi, a get of jail card against Sion, and multiple cup defeats to poor sides.
We needed an injury time winner to see of Karagandy months after Barca !
‘Daizen Maeda was exceptional’.
Apart from the 2 goals he caused trying to dribble outside his own area of course….
Nothing wrong with expressing opinion , never said there was…. Just don’t get the negativity …we are an SPL side with limited resources in regards to European teams, unfortunately we will take some results like this from time to time…… it will continue to happen until we get into a more profitable league..
Would BR listen to the captain, Callum McGregor? He has been on the wrong end of plenty of European doings.He has played at the highest level, BR hasn’t, he could tell him we can’t keep getting outnumbered, and outplayed in the middle of the park.
I cannot believe that fans think footballers at the highest level are incapable of following instructions/formations/tactics etc.
OF COURSE THEY CAN. They might individually choose not to or have an off night, but please don’t give me this (oh they players canny do this or that). Utter drivel.
Players should follow a manager/coach instructions if nit they should not be a professional football player.
We had players like Bernardo and Engels up joining Maeda, koyogo and Khun ffs BR must have instructed that, no intact he did.
It’s BR that has to learn then coach his team.
D. :)
Eratic- Sparta Prague with a fraction of our money,drew with Stuttgart last night, who put 5 past Dortmund a couple of weeks ago
Intact = infact
D. :)
Shit happens, but for me, Engels has failed to impress big time.
My midfield for the weekend, CalMac, Hatate and Bernardo and or McCowna
Eratic
Could not agree more
I think the most sobering thing about last night was just how quickly our tactical naivety was exposed, and by a not great CL team with a head coach who hadn’t been in charge of a first team for ten games yet.
As clear as you’ll ever see on a football pitch
CELTIC40ME on 2ND OCTOBER 2024 12:40 PM
Lenny drew on aggregate against Barcelona that year, we nearly got a result in Catalunya when we got beat 2-1 by an injury time goal with a back 4 of lustig, Wilson, Ambrose and Izaguirre.
We also qualified in second with an away win and the most points we’ve ever got in the CL
More qualified than anyone to talk about Celtic in Europe I’d say
———
How did Neil get on against Morton in the cup ?
Bada
Yes good result for Sparta.
Let’s see how it goes over the eight game league,….some games throw up unexpected results … maybe we can do something against Atalanta, not holding my breath but that’s football…..sort of thought we might have got a favourable result last night as no doubt you did…
Eratic- to be honest, I thought a few were getting ahead of theirselves last night,given our embarrassing record, and v a team who were in the CL Final a couple of months ago, my point re Sparta Prague is they were also playing a good team,in a league far better than what we both play in, they seemed to have a better game plan than us.HH
Don’t forget that “boring” Steve Clark lost 5-1 in Germany and Callum was anonymous – that’s the size of quality gap we have.
We don’t have the muscle memory to defend intuitively but I can’t see how a 5-4-1 in Bergamo won’t help avert disaster, giving us a chance to nick one.
Saint Stivs on 2nd October 2024 12:40 pm
“i was never bored watching celtic last season. the football was mostly good.
we lost one game since december.
we scored 3 or more on 14 occasions.
what was boring about it ?”
A lot of safety first approach and “taking care of the ball” = negative / don’t try forward passes. A lot of passing around a U shape from wing to wing via the CBs with CBs taking too many touches often.
It improved later in the season – but this season is a marked improvement which is to the manager and teams credit as a new player or two plus a pre-season working together has shown clear improvement imo.
Just my opinion; my son was always enthusiastic all season – he didn’t even boo Santa ;)
To paraphrase Kurt Cobain; I wish I was like him, easily amused.
QB
Losing 7 goals isn’t acceptable and is embarrassing.
We’ve fallen into a trap where we’ve had a good run in Scotland and had a good result against Bratislava. We thought we were better than we are. Within the game, when it’s went wrong the players have panicked and lost composure. This is top level sport, pressure forces mistakes and it was a night to forget.
As others have pointed out, playing weekly with such an expansive style and then having to make adjustments isn’t easy, particularly as most of the players were recruited to play a certain way. This was a massive learning for young players such as Bernardo and Engels in the middle of the park. Other more experienced players should be doing better.
Brendan needs to do better to stop these damaging heavy defeats from reoccurring. We are nowhere near as bad as we showed last night.
Well at least Brendan gets a mention today ,funny that .
I was once talking to a top manager about his team and tactics ,he said to me he coached all week about the way they should play in their next game .He said after five minutes what the hell is going on his instructions went out the window.
Some players find it difficult to stick to the game plan when the pressure is on
You know I have a nagging feeling that some people at Celtic or in cahoots with them are quiet pleased that Brendan is being slated HH
Night all.. 9.00pm here ☘️😴
Oh to be a Celtic supporter !! 👍
Are Quietly pleased HH