I expected Kairat to be fitter, which they were, but I didn’t expect them to be better organised, which they also were. Celtic’s first half performance was a passive throwback to the Horseshoe of Death we hoped to have moved on from. Nothing was reaching Adam Idah, who was as much a spectator as you and I were. James Forrest seemed to have the wrong boots on, while Daizen continued an unproductive run on the wing which reiterated his poor crossing.
One of my pet dislikes in managers is their refusal to drop expensive signings, so Brendan Rodgers deserves credit for his response at halftime. The team returned with his entire £32m of talent recruited last summer watching from the bench; Daizen in his favoured central position, with Yang and Forrest wide.
Yang (who knew!) made an instant impact which led to Celtic’s best chance of the game, when a Forrest shot hit the post, but Kairat soon settled. As the visitors tired, Celtic dominated more of possession, but this game had 0-0 written all over it.
Kairat are not a good team, it would be humiliating to exit the Champions League to them. Brendan is right, we can and should win the away leg. However, I do not encourage you to bet on that suggestion.
The decision to swap (it was) Kyogo for Jota was not everyone’s choice but had merit. Jota’s subsequent injury could have happened to either player. Selling Kuhn so early in this window, though, that’s an odd one which, contributed to the lack of creativity last night. The manager is the only source of information on squad development and he says little on the subject. He could shed some light on why Kuhn was allowed to leave so soon. Hmmm.
More needs to be spent and quickly, that’s for sure. Maybe if we had £64m of last summer’s signings on the bench everything would fine this morning! Surely that would be enough to overcome the newbie managing Kairat?
When the draw was made I wrote, “No excuses”. I didn’t want to hear them on the radio going home last night. It’s not a good look.
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don’t know who else
The reason the fans wanted Idah signed was simply because we were in the last days of the window, we needed a back up striker who could offer something different to Kyogo, and he was the ONLY one identified by our scouting department…..had there been alternatives to Idah identified it’s likely the fans could have been shouting for them.
With no alternative offered the fans could only shout for Idah….we were desperate…..
there is no way on this earth that we would pay £9m for a back up striker
what would you give for a couple of early goals tomorrow
A ‘last kick of the game’ 1-0 would do me (but not my nerves)
31003
Idah was not identified by any scouting department.
An agent offered him to BR at end of the window after several options had been offered to him by our scouting department. He rejected those.
Personally I thought the loan deal was inspired by BR in the end but wee had time then to evaluate his long term potential and decide over the summer what our next steps weee to be.
By the time summer window came BR had complete control of recruitment and obviously felt Idah was a serious Long term contender.
Sometimes negotiations don’t just go the way you want them to. Norwich saw we were desperate by the end and we were.
Personally I don’t blame BR for the Idah thing and still hope he does show up once he gets service and confidence. I am not sure he is worth the £10m but the story shows how hard it is to recruit and secure even when spending big.
It’s the same problem BR is now intimating the board are responsible for which is of course crap.
We have not been pro active in recruiting and are not resourced to do it either. There are many factors in this clusterfuck. Some ownership some leadership and some BR and management. Some actually media led too, both Celtic panic blogosphere clickbait and MSM. Ultimately show me a club who recruit well in a similar position to ourselves with our limitations ? I would love to see one. Copenhagen maybe ? Brugge maybe ? The latter has many less employment restrictions so it is not like for like. I am struggling with it personally.
He’s quite some saboteur is that Brendan Rodgers .
He caused the wall street crash , sunk the Titanic , the extinction of the dinosaurs , started two world wars and is working on the third.
And he still finds time to cripple Celtic !
What a guy .
new article posted.