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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BHOYJOEBELFAST on 27TH FEBRUARY 2021 12:36 PM
HOT SMOKED @12.30
‘I make it 11 in Scotland and 5 in Europe.’
###
Is this down to bias, luck, or effective coaching?
BAIN
WELSH
BITON
AJER
KENNY
SORO
McGREGOR
TURNBULL
TAYLOR
AYETI
KLIMALA
kieran devlin of the athletic(people subscribe to such nonsense)-
‘worst season this century’
utter utter utter shhhhiiii…..you know the rest.
hh
Greg Taylor is taller than Philipp Lahm who wasn’t a bad full-back at all.
Not saying he’s anywhere near as good a footballer but proves that size isn’t everything in that position.
I believe Ralston is a right back, who has not had a sustained run, so there is more than one. Welsh, also, prefers right back, although he has done little wrong at centre back so far. Play Elyounoussi up front with Ajeti, they had a good partnership at Basel. Eddie will be away in the summer, although more than likely will Elyounoussi too!!
ST TAMS on 27TH FEBRUARY 2021 1:13 PM
Re. Greg Taylor.
I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago with an ex pro right back.
He says , Taylor isn’t Tierney, but never wastes a pass
——
I’d love he young man to succeed. But sadly I don’t think he has the quality, height or pace to be anything more than an adequate league defender.
I feel he does waste too many passes. Too many backwards. Too many to the opposition. But he’s in good company with these faults. We have a whole doing much the same.
HH jg
Whole team
WIN LOSE OR DRAW
From what I hear Laxalt starts,Taylor sub
ERNIE:
Without doubt favouritism from so called match officials.
Taylor for me ahead of Laxalt. The former needs to get to the byline more, imo, and the latter should stop being so rash as to give away cheap free kicks in dangerous positions. Similarly, on the right, get to the byline and whip the ball in quickly – away from the goalkeeper – and have the front players and advanced midfielders running on. Stop trying to walk the ball into the net and create the ‘perfect’ goal.
https://twitter.com/BhoysAnalytics/status/1365271062628495363?s=19
good thread on a candidatè
hh
==========
Should have stated favouritism in Scotland….jammy $$$$$$$$$$ in Europe.
a the lesser spotted white dog hunch
good to see you on B.best wishes my friend
hh
Taylor had to go off with a calf injury last week not surprised if he isnt recovered.
Greg Taylor is 1.75M
Good luck to John Kennedy today, Gavin and Mick too.
Celtic lost focus under Neil Lennon this season, that was obvious to all but the most blinkered early doors. As noted a couple of days back difficult to judge the input from either Kennedy or Strachan given the apparent absence of communication with Lennon. Not a lot to go on I know, but was quite impressed with both John and Gavin in training the other day, Kennedy’s got a bit of stature about him, and not just physically. Would like to see Duffy partner Ajer today with Welsh in front of both as a defensive midfielder, and if the betting shop was open I would go for the classic 5-0 victory with Eddie getting the first goal. Once again come on the Bhoys!
hasn’t
An Tearmann
how kind, will try and get on today
btw did a gaff I had said you lot should try, get the citys first star in 20 years ?
And forget not they have contributed to either kano or Mary’s meals
Good people.
Bain; Brown, Klimala, Turnbull, Kenny, Christie, Edouard, Ajer, McGregor, Welsh, Laxalt
Subs: Hazard, Duffy, Griffiths, Ajeti, Soro, Elyounoussi, Henderson, Montgomery, Ralston
@CelticFC v Aberdeen line up …
Bain, Kenny, Ajer, Welsh, Laxalt, Brown, McGregor, Turnbull, Christie, Klimala, Edouard
Subs: Hazard, Ralston, Soro, Duffy, Elyounoussi, Henderson, Montgomery, Griffiths, Ajeti
Young Montgomery is a centre forward is he not? – we have 3 of them on the bench now
Hi all
Come on Celtic.lets lift it and do the dons.
Def Taylor over Laxalt..Taylor cares no sure about Laxalt.
What price Kennedy, McManus and Broony as new coaching team?..hope not
new article posted.
So- what kind of slippers do you think Michael Collins wore?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56212487
SETTING FREE THE BEARS FOR RES. 12 & OSCAR KNOX on 27TH FEBRUARY 2021 11:46 AM
TOSB @ 12:46 am
“I am reluctant to get into this on a match day but, out of courtesy to the effort you made in posting, I will reply”
OK that’s fair enough. I’m happy to leave it at that. It does irk me when people have a go at Celtic supporters for something that has yet to occur.
One last thing though:
You said
“Even if this occured, he would still get criticised. You read this blog- every managerr’s selections, subs and signings have been criticised. We all read the criticism Lenny got for playing Calmac at LB. What gets forgotten in the narrative to have BR’s time retrospectively rosied and Neil’s retropsectively diminished is that BR did the exact same thing.”
I think you miss the point here. Everybody remembers Brendan disastrously playing Calum at left back at Ibrox. He got absolutely slaughtered for doing so. It was talked about at length by the TV pundits and covered in the press and on every blog. Even the Huns’ blogs. No one could forget it.
The massive reaction to Lenny doing it against Cluj was the disbelief that he could have even pondered doing so given the massive failure at Ibrox and the coverage of playing Calum at left back. We wondered if Lenny had been in a coma at the time and somehow missed it. That was one of the reasons why I thought that he should have been sacked next morning and nothing he did since convinced me that I was wrong.
Anyhow COYBIG. I’m behind John Kennedy until we see how things unfold. Ultimately I’ll want what’s best for Celtic.
An orange walk on bikes …
We are all going to suffer but the Huns on Coatbrig are planning on “flegs” everywhere …
I suppose we have destroyed them forever…. it’s still going to be difficult
Dundyvan RSC
Gartsherrie RSC ( that’s. ma bit)
Shawhead RSC
Kirkwood RSC
Coatdyke RSC
Bargeddie RSC
Do you know what am fed up typing rsc …. we have gave these cnuts a league title …..