It was Brugge who showed the way in our Champions League game in November last year. They pressed Celtic in the middle third which was enough to inhibit our ability to progress the ball into advanced areas. Other managers watched.
Five weeks later, Phillippe Clement copied these tactics in a 3-0 win over Celtic at Ibrox. Barry Ferguson followed this up in March, winning at Celtic Park, then again in a draw at Ibrox. Already-eliminated Young Boys came to Celtic Park, went man-for-man in the middle and lost to a late own-goal.
We watched the same show in the Scottish Cup Final in May: 120 minutes of midfield suffocation before a penalty loss to weaker opposition. It was no different over 210 painful minutes against Kairat. Yesterday’s failure to land a glove on the most nervous defenders in Scottish football follows a well-established pattern. Russell Martin changed every tactic he has used in Glasgow and reverted to the play we all know succeeds against Celtic.
Games with against lesser sides and without Kyogo, Jota and Kuhn have floundered in the middle of the park. We seem to be focussed on adding attacking options today. This is necessary but attacking players are blunt if you cannot break a soft press in the middle of the park.
We got draws at Ibrox, against Kairat and in the Cup Final because we can defend well – Liam Scales was well worth his Man of the Match accolade. That will probably be enough to win the league while Newco beat themselves and the Hearts project is too new. But we are at a tactical cul-de-sac. Chris Davies did more than put the cones out.
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The fans don’t need to turn on Idah, it’s up to him with his performances, he’s been playing crap so up to him to get his playing act together he would get support if they see effort, Rodgers looks finished here but the board won’t sack him and he won’t walk. That’s the main problem
Seems Dolberg fancies going back to one off his old club Ajax,Bowie could be a good acquisition, and at £5 million he is cheaper than Dolberg
Celtic40me @ 1:11 pm,
Guess by my man you mean Brendan Rodgers…
We still sticking with Burnley78’s myth that Brendan controls every aspect of player recruitment?
Won’t wash will it!?
We’ve brought in players that the Manager knew nothing about, we are selling players the Manager needs.
BURNLEY78 makes things up to discredit the Manager, you have to be some sort of sucker to believe his guff these days.
Hail Hail
Hearts and Hibs are getting praised to the hilt let’s see how the genius coach that is mcinnes plays against Martins shambolic team likewise hibs in the cup time for them to live up to the hype they’re getting.
GlassTwoThirdsFull @ 1:13 pm,
Yes, not too many HVPs left in da’ house.
Our manager has a great reputation as a development coach – we will need to see him work a few minor miracles if we are going to have a Celtic squad worth the name.
Hail Hail
Paul67,
Distraction tactics.
The board appointed Rodgers, so their failure.
When you going to post about the Boards performance in terms of sealing transfers the past 10-15 transfer windows?
Dolberg away to Ajax. Scrambling about for loans. Beyond pathetic. Board apologists are more harmful to Celtic than any outside influence ever could be.
Pathetic.
AN DÚN on 1ST SEPTEMBER 2025 1:24 PM
It’s all been agreed, hes done his medical the fee and his terms are all done.
Brendan himself said he won’t be allowed to leave until a replacement is signed
Hopefully it will work out but at the minute it looks very much like Idahs going to be collateral damage, but we’ll all suffer
It’s Brendan’s last two years in one sorry episode unfortunately.
CELTIC40ME on 1ST SEPTEMBER 2025 1:33 PM
Would you honestly sell Idah without a replacement?
Go with Yamada, Kenny and Osmond ?
To extend Paul’s analogy, I mentioned the Patricians earlier. Google describes them thus
“Patricians were the wealthy aristocratic families in ancient Rome who historically held significant political and social power.
Many patricians acted as patrons to plebeian clients, providing services and support in exchange for loyalty and political backing”
Recognise them? What about the Plebeians.? Look out for unusual levels of backing and support in posts on here.
‘Mon the plebs
Same
Problems
Persist
No
Matter
Who
Our
Manager
Is
Prevention is better than cure.
P.S. 212 days since Kyogo left. Hours remain in window. Our board, putting the ass in world class.
CHAIRBHOY on 1ST SEPTEMBER 2025 1:32 PM
Words from your own good self:
“BR certainly seems to have responsibility for the signings up to the financials.
Even then, the bat phone to Dublin might come into it.”
Section111 @ 1:33 pm,
Nail on the head.
I disagree with the idea that our Manager is tactically inept.
I disagree with the idea our manager controls recruitment.
Yet playing devil’s advocate – if this was the case who is responsible for that situation?
Even the Board’s supporters best argument for keeping them is they do nothing.
Hail Hail
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-4-q3AiTcw
Celtic should not have opened talks on Idah until his replacement was secured.
Our execs participated in talks with Swansea, agreed a fee and set in motion his transfer.
Now apparently that BR’s fault as well.
He’ll be getting blamed for the WiFi soon !
AN DÚN on 1ST SEPTEMBER 2025 1:35 PM
CELTIC40ME on 1ST SEPTEMBER 2025 1:33 PM
Would you honestly sell Idah without a replacement?
I wouldn’t have let him go to Swansea and agree everything until I had a replacement signed because of the position we find ourselves in
Brendan has tried to force the boards hand and they’ll be left taking the blame for a player he signed and then burned
Brendan Rodgers managed Celtic as well as anyone could have in the second half of last season especially taking into account the fact we played sixteen games (SPL/SC/CL) in the first two months of the year. Won the league well in the end and if I am not mistaken lost his one and only domestic Cup tie in the SC Final against Aberdeen.
We also scored a barrowload of goals right to the end of the season, (which some on here seem to take for granted), despite losing Kyogo and Jota over the course. Tactics for the most part seemed to have worked.
Oh and another thing, FC Bruges did not beat us. Improve the team improve the players our form will improve and we will get the results.
celtic40me on 1st September 2025 1:33 pm
AN DÚN on 1ST SEPTEMBER 2025 1:24 PM
It’s all been agreed, hes done his medical the fee and his terms are all done.
Brendan himself said he won’t be allowed to leave until a replacement is signed
Hopefully it will work out but at the minute it looks very much like Idahs going to be collateral damage, but we’ll all suffer
It’s Brendan’s last two years in one sorry episode unfortunately.
___________________________________________________________
Jeezo – does Brendan get the blame when the wifi goes down too?
Suspect that replacement was close so club agreed Idah could go talk – club then baulks at something but would happily sell anyway and Brendan says NO – and its Brendans fault……..FFS
As well to sell idah.
Fairly useless last 6 months.
So what’s point keeping him.
Slow physically and mentally.
(He and Yang may fare better not playing against a weekly very low block)
CELTIC40ME on 1ST SEPTEMBER 2025 1:42 PM
AN DÚN on 1ST SEPTEMBER 2025 1:35 PM
CELTIC40ME on 1ST SEPTEMBER 2025 1:33 PM
Would you honestly sell Idah without a replacement?
I wouldn’t have let him go to Swansea and agree everything until I had a replacement signed because of the position we find ourselves in
Brendan has tried to force the boards hand and they’ll be left taking the blame for a player he signed and then burned
—-
BR didn’t participate in those talks ! The board agreed the fee ! Do you agree a fee then block access to the player ?
Celtic40me @ 1:39 pm,
Yes indeed, that was last summer and what a much better transfer window it was compared to 2023 or 2025.
We had a superb season in 2024/25 many of you GoD acolytes forget that.
That season’s success was largely down to our 2024 recruitment.
Of course we didn’t have the strength in depth necessary for such a rigorous campaign.
By December the team were out on their feet, we needed a refresh in January and instead we sold our key striker.
Hail Hail
Dolberg to Ajax, Hammarby refusing to sell us the winger, this Club is a shambles, and that incompetent clown Nicholson needs sacked
Are we seriously suggesting Brendan was the lead, negotiating with Swansea re Idah?
Seriously?
Wow, he’s a busy man.
When extreme dislike of an individual overtakes all sense of logic.
Bizarre
Well, the host has spoken.
Must have felt good to write that.
Does it address a single one of the club’s serious problems?
Of course not. But it blames the manager for everything but the Glasgow weather.
I have no problem blaming Rodgers for his screw-ups and his tactical inflexibility is driving me up the wall.
But the lack of balance in this piece, the narrowing of everything to one problem with one person, that’s not even an attempt to do a proper analysis.
So yeah, must have felt good.
CHAIRBHOY on 1ST SEPTEMBER 2025 1:45 PM
Yes indeed, indeed :)
PeterLatchfordsBelly on 1st September 2025 1:09 pm
“God knows what Bernardo has done to deserve this treatment.”
…………….
Bernardo was brought on in the SCF a couple of seasons ago, and instead of playing tippy-tappy-backwards, Bernardo grabbed the ball in middle of the pitch and ran up to the Hun penalty box and shot at goals.
His shot rebounded from the Hun goalie and Idah netted the rebound.
Since then, both these players seem to be out of favour and certainly were never celebrated as cup final winning heroes.
So what did Bernardo do wrong? Fail to read the [we’re throwing this cup final to save the Huns script] ????
Who knows? In a club run by freemasons how will we ever know?
What if Joe Hart was on message to dive to the same side for every Hun penalty in the looking likely penalty shoot out, and Bernardo screwed up by burning the script?
What we need to factor into this suspicion is: Celtic engaged in the cover up of the same club lie by making Sevco tickets the same price as dead Rangers tickets, in 2016 after Sevco’s promotion.
That most fans aere probably unaware of this fact is because huge sums of their own fans are prepared to say nothing as their fellow fans were cheated, and used to cover up the greatest sporting crime in the history of Scottish football.
No Celtic board will think much of a supporter base like that, so why not throw the odd cup final to give of the impression of a close competition?
Indeed, most of today’s Celtic board sat and watched 3 seasons of honest mistakes and said heehaw about it, getting John Reid and his dossier bs to string you all along so that you wouldn’t think that the PLC were secretly trying to help to save the EBT Huns from sinking, and throwing 60,000 Celtic supporters under the bus to achieve that??????????
The same board who were “susprised” after the LNS whitewashing of trophy stripping, Res12, same price old firm tickets, etc, etc, etc.
Now pretty bhoy Brendan is trying to reverse Celtic all of the way back down the motorway and make it look as if we are neck and neck with the Huns??????
No doubt the PLC will have secret dialogues to “kettle” the Green Brigade, turning Parkhead into a boring library, whenever the PLC see the Huns needing us to ship some points, like what happened when wee Barry visited us last season, and the season before when the GB were banned for Palestine protests, and Brendan and CalMac couldn’t get a tune out of the players in the Parkhead library and we shipped 7 points, before the GB were sneakily brought back in again.
Or, how about the PLC watched on as Rangers FC and their fans totally ignored the Snp covis protocols, whilst Celtic and our obedient sheep fans fell for every word from Snp and Media about covid, and snitched on those who refused to fall for media lies on blogs etc?????
The board saw a Celtic supporter base full of obedient, compliant, sheep, incapable of thinking for themselves.
In other words, a PLC’s dream version of Celtic supporters.
PS, for those wondering, and asking me were KevJungle’s name is, he sent me a text saying that you have to ask Favourite Uncle and An Tearmann about it. Hopefully Kevin will come on and explain this to you, as I don’t know what he meant. Sorry about that.
The board are blameless.
Rodgers is the villain.
Wee Sean and big John would be great replacements.
He’s some man that Brendan
Not satisfied with coming up with tactics that don’t work, apart from all the the trophies and CL last season obvs, he is currently burning players (?) and negotiating players leaving, arranging medicals etc. Don’t forget all that other cunning stuff he does like answering questions so the supporters have some kind of idea what their club as doing……..
Idah and Yang will be like new signings….
Paul 67
DANE BHOY on 1ST SEPTEMBER 2025 12:00 PM
TheOriginalSadiesBhoy on 1st September 2025 11:14 am
I’ve just been told that we’ve offered Hibs £2.5m for Bowie but they want £5m. Rumour mill
Rumours this morning that we’re due a £4.5Mill windfall when Oh’s sell-on clause activates with his impending move to Stuttgart, so why not just use that and add the half a million to make it up.. good deal in my books!
/ DB
………………
That seems to be a very simple and sensible strategy to follow. I hope someone from the Board has read your post. Though we would probably just offer the 4.5m and lose out as usual.
So…..
We were told that the board was unhappy because BR ‘spent’ so much money on Idah.
So, if we sign an over priced CF late today, is that going to be BR’s ‘fault’?
Just asking….
Weeron
Wake me up when September ends. 🙄
If we’re left with an Adam Idah as our first choice striker for the rest of the season it will be totally emblematic of the mess our transfer dealings have become over the last couple of years. Our record signing, a year on our first choice striker is finished
Very dangerous game weaponizing buying and selling expensive footballers
sometimes question why we support this football club. This transfer window has been a total disgrace and embarrassment. What we are doing right now is not a professionally run organisation – it’s an utter shambles that has cost us 40m in champs league money BUT now could cost us the league.
Dolberg hinted a few days ago that he wasn’t that keen on moving to Scotland – so move on immediately to other targets.
Our team strategy for this season now rides on LUCK! panic purchases, loans , over paying for potentials.
so so angry at cheap Celtic with zero ambition.
PS Engels should have been punted back to Belgium and replaced with a half decent midfielder – our current midfield is too mechanical
So Dolberg away to Ajax my mate informs me ….be interesting to see what they pay for him !!!
Meanwhile back at the best run club in Europe……IT’S ALL BRENDANS FAULT I TELL YA !!!😂😂😂😂
Money expected to be brought in this summer:
Kuhn – £16.5m
Lagerbielke -£2.2m
Tilio – £1.3m
Kwon – £200k
Idah – £6m
Yang – £3m
Frimpong sell on – £5.5m
Doak sell on – £1.5m
Oh sell on ? – £4.3m roughly
Total – £40.5m
Money spent this window so far:
£7.5m
THE RETURNOF WEERON on 1ST SEPTEMBER 2025 1:53 PM
For me, if we didn’t hear constant criticism from Brendan about transfers I’d be less inclined to do the same about players that are supposed to be “his”
idah start the season poorly so we sell him – remind me again what Rodgers has been looking for – wingers wingers wingers!! why, because they service strikers. Being a striker in this tippy tappy side is a joke! Maeda , Kyogo, Idah all fed up and frustrated at lack of over the top balls, first time crosses and a playing partner link with.
Rodgers should have been sacked after champs league failure – our board dont do it , bcoz it costs money!
So to some Brendan is not good enough (Paul67)
His crime £26m on Engles Trusty and Idah – you could argue guilty as charged
But he is not alone in the dock, Brendan did not buy Ajeti Barkass and a host of other misfits
In fact the people that bought those misfits are part of the same team that are selling Kyogo Kuhn Abada O’Riley and more
Well that cost us a place in the CL and an estimated £40m
What to do ?
The strategy at the moment seems to be sell our best (possibly to recover the £26m)
And let Brendan work with what we have – assuming what we have is not enough Brendan will struggle (yesterday is evidence)
But those who do not like Brendan will have the evidence they need to lay it at his door
In my view this is a hanging offence, be it DD PL or Nicholson, to deprive our Manager of the players he needs and then blame him for failure is cowardice
If DD or the Board are not happy with Brendan then sack him
But they won’t sack him – probably because they will need to pay the final year of his contract
So today we have some last minute shopping going on – panic buying no doubt
In the meantime we are much weaker than we were in January, we have a Manager in the last year of his contract and our Board do not support him
I think the Americans call it a Cluster F–k
Take your pick on who is responsible for our current predicament
But Brendan has won 11 domestic competitions
Be careful what you wish for
67ECW