Before this Europa League group got underway the trips to Istanbul and Amsterdam looked daunting. Those games produced two credible draws, but things went wildly wrong elsewhere.
Our goal last night was a peach. Dedryck Boyata split the Fenerbahce defence to open up space for Mikael Lustig to cross for Kris Commons, who peeled off his marker to create the space to head home. Unfortunately only one point was collected as we lost another Keystone Cops goal.
Craig Gordon seems to be struck by a lack of conviction this season. His was not the only failing at our repeated corner kick fiascos but letting a ball trickle through his legs as he appeared caught in two minds is indicative of a player who is doubting himself.
You know Kris Commons scores and creates huge goals for Celtic, we’ve discussed it often enough here. Despite his veteran status and apparent ill-fitting to our system he remains by far our most effective player.
For Ronny, it didn’t go wrong in Europe this season against Fenerbahce or Ajax (I’m absolving him of blame for Efe’s error or a last minute breakaway goal at Celtic Park), it went wrong home and away to Molde and Malmo. We appeared to underestimate both. Did the manager have something to prove against fellow Norwegian managers?
Celtic dominated possession stats in all four games against Molde and Malmo but the Scandinavians exploited the acres of space which simply didn’t exist in our games against Ajax, Fenerbahce or Qarabag, for that matter. Ajax, Fenerbahce and Qarabag got the respect they deserved, not so Molde and Malmo.
The failure is, of course, more complicated than that. Jozo missed the bulk of the campaign, while Dedryck is only just beginning to look like a footballer (lovely pass for the goal last night). Scott Allan looks promising, but we’ve not seen enough of him either due to injury.
Curiously, Ronny’s big 2015 No. 1 striker target, Nadir, looks less like a Ronny Deila player than anyone we’ve bought in years. Knowing we were interested in him, I watched his performances against Celtic last season, and made the same observation at the time.
What happens if your keeper’s form falls off a cliff, one of your new defenders doesn’t settle quickly, two other new players miss months through injury, and your new striker doesn’t morph into a different player? You finish bottom of the Europa League group.
Celtic must now consider their strategy for January. Successive transfer windows have left us weaker, not stronger. Identify the reasons, remediate and we can build on the away performances which bookended this Europa League campaign.
Check out the CQNBookstore. There’s 15 great Celtic books and 10 DVDs, you’ll love them.
1,280 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- ...
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- ...
- 34
- »
Canaman
You are right, he is pish, get rid :-)
And I would if I thought we would get someone better, but we won’t.
I actually like what he is tryin to do re the structure, but not allowing him his own assistants is a joke.
HH
Sipsini
It won’t go back to a 442 for sure.
HH
On media influence.
For concise insight as to how the media influence the support as a whole, have a look at Newsnow Celtic’s most read articles.
Articles screaming hysteria, rumour, gossip and downright lies tend to receive the highest number of hits.
Would it be safe to say that 50% of the support are swayed, and form opinions around the Daily Retard’s articles?
BMCUWP IGNORES THE BORES,SCROLLS THE TROLLS on 12TH DECEMBER 2015 12:52 PM
AULDHEID 1207
Auldheid,I’m totally flummoxed on where we go from here. Many of us are. I don’t see much optimism for the future on the field. And that will-eventually-filter down through the accounts.
===%==
Me too BMCUWP. Me too.
Until there is a more equitable sharing of TV revenue, which is where the funds that enable CL qualification come from, not the CL prize money itself, then the best we can do is tread water at a level where the gap betwern expectations and economic reality is more realistic.
73minutes gone in Pittodrie, Still no goals and 22 players on pitch. Surprising on both counts.
FLORIDA BHOY
I would doubt that 50% of Celtic fans are taken in by the DR.
Don’t know how you would quantify it….although id say Celtic fans are very switched on, and not just on CQN.
The Beano has more credibility than the DR.
HH
Good game at the sheep pen
Melbourne Mick
That’s the upside of the Internet.
HH
Unfair that Deila gets all the criticism. Collins seems immature and Kennedy is presumably defence coach – where most of our problems are.
_______
Declining Celtic must re-evaluate ambitions
By Tom EnglishBBC Scotland
Writing post-mortems on Celtic in Europe gets ever more challenging because the cause of death remains the same no matter how often you look at it.
Vulnerability in defence, lack of steel in midfield, little accuracy in possession, a tendency to lose the plot and to lose goals as a consequence, too many players doing too little for too long.
All of those ailments have been with them pretty much every step of their European journey.
In Istanbul, the deficiencies weren’t punished to the max, but the point gained, while breaking the losing narrative, was like a plaster on a gaping wound. The 1-1 draw against Fenerbahce was commendable, but it did little to take the dirty look off the group table now that the wheat has been separated from the chaff.
The positives are not plentiful. Kieran Tierney is undoubtedly the biggest one. The young full-back is a find, a player to gladden Celtic’s heart in a time when so few do. Jozo Simunovic was an expensive acquisition and looks to have promise. Leigh Griffiths, his Ajax mishap apart, has been excellent. Others have played decently in pockets of games. Too few pockets, too little impact.
If you’re trawling for positives, Kris Commons is one. Evergreen, in every sense. Commons scored his 90th goal for Celtic on Thursday night. The calculation of his number of assists is still being worked on but it’s somewhere north of 60.
He has scored four goals and has two assists in his five Europa League games in the group. As a scorer and provider he is prodigious. The wonder is that he hasn’t always been appreciated at Celtic Park, not least by his manager, who has stuck him on the bench far too often while others, who have underperformed, have taken on the status of a protected species.
Celtic need Commons not just on the field, but off it. Some saw his uprising in Molde as unprofessional, his railing at his manager and his assistant manager, John Collins, as a lack of respect. Maybe. But what’s to respect when you’re getting annihilated by Norway’s sixth best team?
Anger and frustration tumbled out of him. It’s as it should be. Commons has the psyche of a winner. Too many around him don’t have the same hunger or, you suspect, the same hurt when it goes wrong.
Celtic lack a lot of things. Characters is one of them. They need more doughty individuals, more leaders. They are callow. A soft touch. There is a sameness about their midfield; honest tryers who huff and puff and don’t get much done.
There needs to be a reappraisal of Stefan Johansen, whose use of the ball is oftentimes calamitous in Europe. There needs to be a serious piece of self-examination higher up in the club as to how they have come to a situation whereby they have one realistic option up front, namely, Griffiths.
Nadir Ciftci is second in line. He had played 96 minutes of football since mid-October before his elevation to the first team in Istanbul. And he looked it. Celtic need more firepower, more creativity, more solidity. Standards have slipped a long way in the last few seasons.
There was a time when the uplifting music of George Frideric Handel rang around Celtic Park on Champions League nights. Alas, those tumultuous evenings have gone and they might be a while in coming back.
The signature tune of late has been that of Yohann Zveig, composer of the Europa League anthem, but even Zveig is not going to be heard in the east end for Glasgow for quite some time now that Celtic’s winless, and largely joyless, campaign has come to an end.
Six games, three draws and no victories. Rock bottom of their pool with only three clubs from the other 47 involved in the group stages with a worse record in terms of number of goals conceded. In the business of daft goals shipped, Celtic could lay a serious claim to being the pre-eminent soft-touch.
It was fitting, in a grim way, that the last one they conceded was more slapstick than any of the ones that preceded it.
Celtic’s players have issued as many apologies for their performances as they have won points in this group. An apology from Virgil van Dijk after the failure in Malmo, an apology from Griffiths after the loss to Ajax and another apology from Johansen on Thursday for his team’s all-round deficiencies and, presumably, for their inability to stop self-harming on the football pitch.
Ronny Deila has been in charge of Celtic for 14 Europa League games. His win ratio is 14%. He has been in charge for 26 European matches in total, including qualifiers against some cannon fodder. His win ratio is 31%.
These numbers are an illustration of what Celtic have become. They reflect a lot of things: downsizing in budgets, downsizing in ability, inexperience, a lack of resilience, a lack of concentration, an existence of fear, as Johansen said in the wake of Thursday night.
All of that and more. Deila says his team is rebuilding and that next season will see an improvement. That’s what he said last season.
Celtic have much to ponder. They need to ask themselves what are they about now? What is the scale of their ambition? They will not accept that they are an irrelevance in Europe these days, but that is what they have been allowed to become. There are some strange messages coming out of the place.
Collins claimed, surreally, that Celtic were a better side than Molde despite the evidence pointing emphatically in the opposite direction. Deila disagreed and was very critical of his team’s performances against Molde, but then on Thursday night he seemed to do a U-turn when saying that Celtic “did well” in those ties.
They didn’t. Some of the things being said by Deila and Collins are odds. At times, they seem blind to the reality of their situation. Deila saying that Celtic will be ready for the Champions League next season doesn’t have a single fact to back it up. Collins saying that Celtic “could do without” the Fenerbahce match was peculiar. Surely it was an opportunity to start the repair work on a damaged reputation?
This has been Celtic’s worst-ever performance in the group stages of European competition. The message from on high is that the management team are under no pressure. Maybe that’s reflective of their wider European malaise. Shouldn’t they be?
Aye, see that Fred Quimby punter, he kens whit the score is.
The rest of you Tims are just bumping your gums about pure mince, so yous are.
I’ll need to buy him a pint next time I see him doon at the Maybole Arms.
Billy King coming on for Hertz.
Stupid handball – silly cnut
TinGreen-
First order of business.
Don’t read, comment, or copy and paste shoite from a bam souptaker, by a bam souptaker.
Craziest penalty you are ever likely to see conceded.
Any celtic fan that respects the words of tom english is a fool.
*TimGreen.
‘How very dare you forget to wade into John Collins’
Tom English
Sheep score from penalty spot 86 minutes. Unbelieveable stupidity. A harmless cross punched away by Hertz defender. Keystone Cops stuff.
The Hearts full back obviously studying the Celtic DVD of unforced errors.
Unbelievable hand ball.
Watching Aberdeen v Hearts
Just witnessed the CRAZIEST hand ball I’ve ever seen in my whole football watching life ???!!!???
Corky
If you watch the replay – mcghee is back tracking towards his Own goal and sees the Aberdeen player on his shoulder. As the ball is crossed in the aberdeen player had dropped off but mcghee doesn’t realise and thinks with the ball going over his head it’s a free header behind him so he lifts his hand to knock it away. Immediately realises the sheep isn’t there and looks like a celtic defender in Europe
Aberdeen “pile the pressure” on Celtic. If it was an old R*ngers game, I’d say the full back was bought.
A pity the draw would have seen us on easy street. Ah well we’ve just got to keep winning.
Jinky whether the defender was there or not you don’t just paw the ball away .
We often decry the SMSM for criticising our club. An example is when they incorporate references to Celtic failures when we are not involved in a match or event.
Thing is CQN is full of the same type of negative commentary
THE GREEN MAN on 12TH DECEMBER 2015 2:09 PM
FLORIDA BHOY
I would doubt that 50% of Celtic fans are taken in by the DR.
=========
Actual percentage, I know not.
When I hear/read some who decry the media and then dance to their tune, I think of Fergus on flag day.
BCW Hope you ain’t referring to my post. Note the inverted commas, I was taking the piss out of the MSM.
Corky
Agreed – but we all know that most players ain’t the smartest tools
Florida Bhoy
I think if you extended it beyond the Daily Record to include the Sun, it would be much higher.
THE GREEN MAN on 12TH DECEMBER 2015 2:09 PM
FLORIDA BHOY
I would doubt that 50% of Celtic fans are taken in by the DR.
=========
Actual percentage, I know not.
When I hear/read some who decry the media and then dance to their tune, I think of Fergus on flag day.
——————————–
Yep, like the media campaign to judge Ronny purely on his success in Europe – never been the criteria for any Celtic (or other team’s) manager in the history of Scottish football yet a lot of celtic fans have fallen for it. Shame.
–
IKI
Again….I don’t think Fergus got stick solely as a consequence of the DR hunguffery.
There were many other factors at work there.
HH
Tom English is as far as the msm goes, a fair minded sports fan. His views generally speaking are pretty sensible based by and large on factual evidence.
His interview with Jackie Stewart on BBC North Brit a few months ago is a must listen. Inspiring stuff!
Just read that Tom English piece. Whether you agree with it or not is not my point. Can anyone, even the most pessimistic of Celtic supporters, imagine any `journalist` ever writing such an article about Sevco or their predecessors?
Before writing an article, any article, the author must have a reason for so doing. He has a point he wishes to make and he has a reason for making the point. His point is that Celtic are a very poor side and his reason is that he wants Celtic to sack Ronny and his assistants. Why would an impartial journalist want that to happen?
JJ
“That’s a penalty every day of the week”.
It’s a penalty because it’s a foul, not because it’s Saturday
Football Cliches csc
THE GREEN MAN
IMO,Fergus got stick because of bad decisions based on good intent.
The road to hell is paved with them…
He knew he had to take a step back from his ‘confrontational’ style,TM SMSM,and appointed Jock Brown. As someone who knew how Scottish football ‘worked’
Worst move he made. Brown was a disaster.
Never mind losing the dressing room,that prick lost the fans and the manager as well.
He was fired on a Friday. We won 6-1 on the Saturday.
That’s what happens when players are fired up wi a point to prove.
Here’s a thought-don’t demolarise them in the first place.
Trust them and give them some decent team-mates.
Jungle Jim
The fact that none of the msm wrote about what they really felt about what was happening over at Ibrox is a large part of the reason the 1st version of Rangers history ended in 2012.
Maybe that was an externality but it was still a huge factor.
Like I say…I don’t think Celtic fans are in thrall to the stupidity of the Scottish Media….I think that has been overplayed a bit.
As JJHS has just said, they obviously have an agenda.
And we all know what it is.
Hunguffery.
Tom English would not last two minutes in any reasoned argument.
Its just the same old crap.
HH
JJHS
I’ll take a wild stab in the dark here and say, because he wants turmoil at Celtic instead of
the Ronny Roar?
BMCUWP
That’s far too sensible…it will never catch on:)
HH