Aberdeen are back at Celtic Park tomorrow, 10 days after their previous visit, having arrested their record breaking run of six league games without a goal by beating Kilmarnock 1-0 last time out. Derek McInnes will be relieved to take part in someone else’s soap opera.
Prior to losing to Ross County, Celtic were on one of their best runs of the season: five wins in February since going down at home to the mighty St Mirren. The performance and result in Dingwall surprised no one, though, even after five wins, there is a fragility about this team.
When the man running the US has a codename ‘Celtic’, there is a bit of symmetry that we appoint ‘The President’ as interim manager. Having worked as a coach at Celtic for a decade, John Kennedy will relish getting his hands on the levers tomorrow, but he is no miracle worker. Knocking this team into shape will take more than a few tactical or selection changes.
There are some indicators I am looking for. Will he retain Scott Bain ahead of Vasilis Barkas? Almost certainly. Will Scott Brown retain his place ahead of Ismaila Soro? Not so sure about this one. Scott is a voice of authority among the players and will be a key ally to John. You and I are always looking to the horizon, so we would probably opt for Ismaila, but corralling a couple of dozen egos is a tactical job in itself. What we notice on the pitch is not everything.
If we do not have unanimous agreement on the unsuitability of Tom Rogic for the energetic, up and down the park, right side of midfield role, I would be amazed. We have too many No. 10s and not enough wide right options. A less-effective Ryan Christie is always preferable to Tom on the right.
Albian Ajeti, Leigh Griffiths and Patryk Klimala will all hope to make more of an impact under the new regime. None has had the kind of run in the team required to reach peak performance. All three will hope that changes between now and May. John should pick Albian or Patryk and stick with him, we need to find out what resources we have in these two before we go shopping again. No harm to Leigh, but we know all about him – and he’s a keeper (not that kind of keeper) for a while yet.
I doubt we will see a change from the midfield diamond, which apart from a haunting January provided a significant improvement in performances and results on formations from earlier this season.
Good luck, John.
331 Comments- Pages:
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David66
The microchip must be incredibly small to get through that thin needle.
Funnily enough, the Sparta coach Jindřich Trpišovský is 14/1 for the Celtic job.
DAVID66
Im my mums carer now so i very fortunately went up the q i think.
Who you fancying for manager then?
Fancy Martinez and Maloney myself..we should be aiming that high.
GENE:
Your a bad man.🤣Don’t forget medication and bag of peas.
DanDan great points….we are midgets in the modern game…….I remember MON..getting in big and strong because he knew the huns had out muscled us ….sutton hartson Balde Valgeron Vega Varga even lennon and Thompson were hard as nails……it aint rocket science
GENE:
You’re…..
TIMHORTON @ 3.40
I remember well the original club leeched their way to a final, and the new club seem to have
tuped over the ability to despatch some competent sides.
Neither of them have beaten a top European club over two legs.
OOR ALEX asking about missing evidence.
It’s in same fire as evidence about CATHOLICS being 6 times more likely to attack than any other religious group.
Lots of things have gone wrong this season from a celtic perspective. sevco will never win an easier title. That is not to take away from the fact sevco have easily been the best team in scotland this season and when things have looked shaky they have always managed to dig out a questionable penalty or 20, managed to avoid conceding a stonewall penalty or 10 and have managed to avoid an obvious red cards or 10.
Big problem for celtic is we have not looked like scoring enough, we prefer to pass the ball sideways, try to go through the middle all the time have had no real width and our whole defence has been as poor as I can remember.
We need a good manager who can install a strong work ethic and structure, a reliable goalkeeper and an out and out centreback or 2, a rightback, leftback and width from our wide players. A striker will also likely be needed.
HH
FAVOURITE UNCLE
42% of religion based hate crimes in Scotland are against Catholics 👍
BSR – interesting, but unsurprising, stat.
May I ask where does the data come from?
BIGBHOY on 26TH FEBRUARY 2021 3:25 PM
JHB
I so hope that we are wrong and we see a thrilling Old school Celtic performances, Wide players bombing forward, crosses fired in
Taylor on the bench then?😵
“BHOYJOEBELFAST on 26TH FEBRUARY 2021 3:37 PM
Re the jab:
Got the jab three weeks ago,told by practice nurse,once I got home to take 2 paracetamol and apply a frozen bag of peas etc to arm that was ‘jabbed.”
That seems really strange to me. Anyone else given the same instructions as BJB ?
Back to Basics
HH
Sorry coz its a PDF
https://www.gov.scot/binaries/conten…e-scotland.pdf
Fat Salmond essentially saying Scoddland is a tin pot dictatorship.
Who knew?
.
Was told Waitrose peas work best…
Third Time Lucky
https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/research-and-analysis/2021/02/study-characteristics-police-recorded-hate-crime-scotland/documents/study-characteristics-police-recorded-hate-crime-scotland/study-characteristics-police-recorded-hate-crime-scotland/govscot%3Adocument/study-characteristics-police-recorded-hate-crime-scotland.pdf
INIQUITOUSIV
That you in?
DANDAN from earlier,
Two on the posts and man marking always the best option, even with the vertically challenged, don’t let the opposition get goal side make them work to get to the ball. Too much ball watching in the zonal setup
GSU
BSR
It has worked this time.
Drew1967 – Drew please tell your mum I was asking for her.
I want Benitez but Martinez and Maloney would do but you are right we should think big.
Gene – Cannot compute💉 Cannot compute, what chip.
D :)
“THEBHOYFROMU.N.C.L.E on 26TH FEBRUARY 2021 4:28 PM
Was told Waitrose peas work best…”
i was looking for the Buy one Get One free option so that I had one for my second jag as well.
I’d take Martinez but he’s already in a job and may fancy one more crack at the World Cup.
Whether or not he’s attainable after the Euros may depend heavily on Belgium’s performance.
are EH and his coaching staff still unemployed.
we require a massive player clear out.
HOT SMOKED on 26TH FEBRUARY 2021 4:36 PM
Counts as part of your 5 a day….
THEBHOYFROMU.N.C.L.E on 26TH FEBRUARY 2021 4:47 PM
HOT SMOKED on 26TH FEBRUARY 2021 4:36 PM
Counts as part of your 5 a day….
Excellent ! That will be twice this year I will meet the suggested target .
Lennybhoy
Can you give me a clue about the third party we may know ?
GEEBEE1978 on 26TH FEBRUARY 2021 3:49 PM
Funnily enough, the Sparta coach Jindřich Trpišovský is 14/1 for the Celtic job.
————–
The alleged Desmond son twitter a/c was dropping hints on this guy last night & today. The a/c that Liam O’Hare outed. Think it is somebody close to DD, that Morales picture last month was just to throw people off the scent, IMO of course.
Sad news – a great player in his day
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/56214764
Cheers Davie..will do
The best manager on the planet would be facing the sack with events of this season;-
Things Lennon, nor the best coach in the world had no control over
* Pre season signings – Quality and late cheap arrivals
* Pre season decisions to hold onto “players who don’t want to be there” (Lennon highlighted as an issue)
* Bolingoli
* Losing El Hamed, Bitton , Christie , AND our main striker due to COVID at crucial stages in the season
* International commitments – heavy team commitment playing 3 games in 10 days
* Injuries to key players when we needed depth the most
* Dubai – One guy affecting most of the 1st team squad
* Scottish referees
I don’t care if you’re Rodgers, Martinez, Klopp or Jock Stein – None of them would have coped with this. You could argue they wouldn’t tolerate PL decisions but only one winner there!!
I would liked to have seen Lennon with a director of football to support him – PL LET HIM DOWN and COVID weighed heavily. Not enough to get sacked for.
Stebhoy @ 5.29
Things Lennon, nor the best coach in the world had no control over
Indeed
HH
https://news.stv.tv/entertainment/mogwai-mark-25-years-together-with-first-number-one
Mogwai…☝️
HOT SMOKED@ 4.19
This is advice from my practice nurse,on no account would I relay false information ( not that anyone has implied ) to readers.
Best of luck to gaffer John, may the force be with you.