That was the latest instalment in a long running series of Behind the Couch Celtic away performances in Europe, with the wonderful exception that after Hapoel Be’er Shiva had us on the rack in the opening period of the second half, Celtic put five at the back and closed the game out without any stressful incidents in the final 15 minutes.
There are a few moments worthy of comment:
Hapoel’s penalty came as a consequence of Celtic pressing high up the field for the first time in the game. The home team dropped deep as they were temporarily reduced to 10 men, but when Celtic pressed high to take advantage of an opponent receiving treatment, they easily passed through us, switched the ball left and gave Saidy Janko his first difficult moment of the night.
More on Saidy in a moment, but we cannot allow teams to pass through us so easily. We should never have been caught so high up field. Our alertness, interceptions and tackling were not good enough. Craig Gordon’s block at the penalty was priceless (or at a price of circa £26m, if you’re being picky).
There’s a reason teams who mark zonally at corner kicks don’t mark the penalty spot. It’s because headers from the penalty spot need to be exceptional in order to beat the keeper. Sahar’s goal wasn’t an exceptional header. It bounced before passing Craig Gordon three feet inside the post. It should never have been a goal, and although Craig’s mistake for the second was more evident, the first was as worrying a goal to concede.
We’re fond of talking about “schoolboy errors” in football but Saidy’s lack of awareness of his direct opponent and goalkeeper at the second goal was a classic error from the 9-year-old’s game. I’ll be generous and say he’s not ready for a game at this level. Craig Gordon doesn’t have a let off for this one, either. While his fullback made a mistake, an alert keeper would have prevented the goal and knocked Saidy into next week. Awareness concerns exist for him too.
Whether it’s Craig’s self-confidence, or that the defence don’t have confidence in him, goalkeeping mistakes came perilously close to seeing us drop out of the Champions League last night.
Not that Craig shoulders all responsibility for what was a weak performance. The middle of the park was experimental and looked it. On the back of one of his best games for Celtic a week ago, Scott Brown’s passing, control and influence was miles off the pace.
Scott, Callum McGregor and Nir Bitton were swamped in midfield. Too few Celtic players were showing for the ball, which was thrown forward aimlessly whenever a Hapoel player closed us down. If central midfield is right, your defensive and goalkeeping frailties are less evident, but we were exposed too often at the back last night. There was a period in the second half when watching on TV made it impossible to know where we were going wrong. After a Hapoel chance, we would see a replay, and before it cut back to live pictures, Celtic had lost possession and were again under pressure. This happened repeatedly. Central midfield was the major problem with the performance, if not the result.
Don’t let any of this dampen your spirits. We’re into the Champions League group stage, a fact which will see us break through the £80m turnover mark for the first time. By comparison, turnover was £51m for 2014-15, the most recent season accounts are available for.
Despite the increase in expenditure this season, we’ll pay our bills without increasing borrowing or selling players. We’re on the circuit again, which means we’ll find it easier to attract talent going forward, it means we’ll find it easier to attract commercial deals and pretty much every KPI at the club will become that bit more attainable.
Last night was a transformational day in the life of your football club. We’re back, enjoy it!
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Gordon is pointing at everyone else but this article is correct.
The first goal is an easy save, I was amazed it went in.
I run a girls team and even there the keeper is told to clear everyone out even your own players in a situation like the second goal.
I’m not even speaking about Janko.
£25m – get it sorted
Love, light and Peace
YORKBHOY on 24TH AUGUST 2016 3:17 PM
Fergus McCann “I only payed off the bank, I didn’t have control of the shares or the company”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/football/37173239
If you scroll down to 11:28 there is a clip that will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up
***************
Wow….and don’t you just love that cheeky wee smile on Fergus’ face.
forevergratefulcsc
Bhoylo
Even MON’s team, with all those leaders, delivered stinkers in European away games. Rosenburg comes to mind immediately, as does Basel the following season, games where the players’ ability to cohere as a team seemed to evaporate.
Indeed, last night (as a viewing experience) ranked up there with the 2nd leg of the Boavista game for angst, and the 2nd leg qualifier at home to Ajax.
The Shakhtar away match was perhaps the worst of it, leaders or not.
It’s head scratching, all this team mentality thing.
TRADITIONALIST88 on 24TH AUGUST 2016 4:06 PM
I disagree that you’d get something for Armstrong. We’ve had to pay off players before. Nobody in Scotland can pay for transfer fees and I don’t see who’d be interested in him elsewhere.
So far he’s a lad who’s played well at Dundee United and can’t cut it at Celtic. I doubt we’d get a penny for him, GMS or Ciftci.
I’d argue that we would have sold them already if we could get something back for them. They will either remain squad players or we will loan them out.
As for Joe Hansen, coming off a poor season and with a year left on his deal, I’d say £2.5 million is generous. Galatasaray seem the only interested party and simply look like they’ll refuse to pay that.
I’d say you’d get around 2 million for those two players.
By the way, I don’t believe United will get a penny more than the set development fee for Blackett
200k or so
TBB
If you look at Yorkbhoy`s link re-posted ( by Scaniel) at 4:15, you will see that the bunnet is hardly battered at all.
JJ
Has anyone seen Dorus De Vreis in action?
Has he made an appearance for anyone this season?
Is he even fit enough to play a full 90 minutes between the sticks?
So why would we play him in a game against our biggest challengers for the title?
Let him have a couple of games with the development squad?
Let him have a few games on the bench to appreciate the demands on a Celtic keeper.
In the meantime Craig Gordon is number 1.
Unless of course he isn’t. ;-)
2500 milesish away in high humidity. Did playing the first team on Saturday have a bearing on last nights lack of zip?
****Last Man Standing 8 update****
Good afternoon posters and lurkers, hope this finds you in a celebratory mood!
The entries continue to flood in for the latest competition and we’re now well over the 100 mark, a fantastic achievement so thank you. Not only is the prize money over £2,000 but with every entrant it’s another £5 to Wee Shay.
The prize pot is so high this time due to the last 3 competitions ending in a rollover situation. But that will not happen this time. There will be a winner (or winners) and the full prizepot will be paid out. So might be worth thinking about spending to accumulate here and putting in that second or third entry or asking your friends and family to join. We are a competition Open To All and the prizepot is unlikely to ever be this high again!
There’s still 11 more sleeps until the competition starts so there’s plenty of time to encourage those family and friends to join in, as they will make your winning prizepot even bigger :-)
Simple to join – just send a ‘can I play’ email to cqnpredictor@gmail.com and we’ll get back to you with full details.
Hail Hail
CRC and Jobo
JJ
I’ll catch it later, but I understand the bunnet’s more dapper than battered these days.
For many reasons,it takes a special kind of mentality to remain confident when playing for Celtic.
JJ
ThoughtforthedayCSC
Scaniel,
Good link to the BBC series. This looks like it will be a proper review of what has happened in Scottish football over the last 30 years. It will be interesting to see what they conclude about the Murray revolution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S_-EIMDGew
This is a much fuller link to Fergus, his vision and what he had to do to save Celtic. 41 minutes long but not to be missed.
My team for the weekend would be:
Gordon
Lustig, Toure, Sviatchenko, Tierney
Roberts, Rogic, Brown, Sinclair
Griffiths, Dembele
i think we need a couple of quality midfielders, if not quality then at least a bit savvy, thats the area that lets us down the most.
think we’ll persevere with Lustig at RB, once Erik and Potentially Jozo are back (giving us the option of 5 at the back away from home).
We have options on the wings, Sinclair and Roberts (first picks) backed up by Forrest, Grif and / or Dembele, so think we’re covered there
GK, BR needs to decide to stick or twist and he needs to decide soon. CG is a good shotstopper but i think he’s not too keen on the physical contact aspects of being a goalkeeper (maybe thats related to his long time out)
Roll on the next week
think we’ll spank Aberdeen
£139,801. Wow !!
No interest in nitpicking today. After the 94 minutes of torture just basking and enjoying the feeling.
You know, that trousered money sort of sensation.
‘GG
I believe Brendan said that De Vries is the best keeper he has seen with the ball
at his feet. That says something.
Gordon saves all his best howlers for big nights.
We have examined everyone else in defence but Gordon has avoided removal ( in real games )
I thought the young Italian was better in the goal v Inter
I would give De Vries a chance.
Just sayin’
Hot Smoked on 24th August 2016 4:28 pm
For many reasons,it takes a special kind of mentality to remain confident when playing for Celtic.
JJ
ThoughtforthedayCSC
————————————————————————————————————-
The Celtic anxiety does not shrink to fit inferior opponents… ;)
Barrybhoy
I think I would go along with that.
We need the real Mikael Lustig , though, as Jonny Hayes is a handful.
vfr800a8
I’ve been one who has mentioned cowardice. You said fear. It’s the same thing. Perhaps one sounds more harsh to you than the other, one sounds more like an excuse to me.
Yes they’d be nervous, but they play for Celtic and they are the bigger team. They shouldn’t have had fear. Players might be nervous, but once the whistle blow the over-riding thought process should be “I’m going to give everything for the team here”. I didn’t see that from most.
Janko was awful. But he was probably one of the few that did show for the ball, his distribution was terrible but that also highlights that the players around him were fearful or cowardly. I believe when you put your teammates under pressure it verges into the cowardice category, because it’s hurting not only the club and your own performance but your mates.
A lot of this is down to the midfielders, we don’t have the right mix. We either need a lot of grit or a lot of technical ability so they’re all confident enough to play off each other, we don’t have either, or not enough of it.
Jonny Hayes is injured I believe. As is Ryan Jack.
Thought For The Day #2
How do you think the unthinkable ?
With an itheberg.
Davidopoulos
It`s the superior ones I am worried about !
Losing possession at throw-ins, one of my pet hates. We’ve being doing this for some time. Surely BR will sort, along with the less frequent losing possession at our corner kicks.
Best guy I’ve seen take the ball from a throw-in, the rubber man Frank McGarvey never afraid to launch himself into anything
a chaser of lost causes.
Utter chank last night, but won’t repeat any player criticism. Hope that BR learns and improves the team accordingly.
Jumping about after, the game did cost me a smashed iPhone unfortunately, however.
Turns oot they dinnae stand up too well to a one floor swan dive onto a marbled casino flair.
Hayes injured? By Jove,if true, that is a blow for the Dons.
JJ
Hot Smoked
:)
Just enjoy the ride this season. We have met the goal of group stages – everything else in Europe is a bonus.
Now, teaching some pretenders a lesson domestically, that’s a different story…
timaloy29 on 24th August 2016 4:18 pm
In the context of my original post, you are splitting hairs tbh.
Ok so we’d get £2m for Johansen and Armstrong. I said about £4m or best part of £4m.
In the context of what happened last night, the difference in what we bring in for those players is not going to radically alter our plans but it’ll not exactly hinder us.
Factor in the wages saved on those two as well.
HH
South Of Tunis
:D
Thuperb.
MARKIEBHOY on 24TH AUGUST 2016 4:12 PM
Gordon is pointing at everyone else but this article is correct.
The first goal is an easy save, I was amazed it went in.
I run a girls team and even there the keeper is told to clear everyone out even your own players in a situation like the second goal.
I’m not even speaking about Janko.
£25m – get it sorted
Love, light and Peace
==================
Agree,goalie should be willing to take anybody out to secure the ball.
Dig your ‘love,light and peace’ line.Maybe all us Mark’s are hippies?! ;)
!!Bada Bing!! on 24th August 2016 1:38 pm
Offer Man City £10mil for Roberts and Denayer..
——————-
Not a bad call. Denayer could certainly be a DM. Has the speed, mobility and control.
Don’t think Efe would do for DM. The mistakes he makes would just be slightly upfield.
Peter Pawlett Baby is also an injury doubt for Samedi.
SAOR ULADH on 24TH AUGUST 2016 3:42 PM
Fear is the bedfellow of cowardice.
Without fear – there would be no cowardice.
____________________________
With bravery you overcome fear! Ergo fear is the bedfellow of battery; without fear there would be no bravery.
I’m a kinda half-full guy.
KTF
I thought tierney put Gordon off for the first goal. Janko for the second. But regardless, when a keeper goes for a ball he needs to go, regardless of what’s in front of of beside him.
Craig has always had a mistake in him but so to most keepers. Big Fraser was exceptional and will be impossible to replace like for like.
D,
I enjoy EVERY season at least part of the time. I am one of those who really enjoys going to see my team. I love good performances that end in victory but I accept poor performances, defeats and draws as part of the game. Sleekit referees are more difficult to deal with.
SOUTH OF TUNIS on 24TH AUGUST 2016 4:37 PM
Thought For The Day #2
How do you think the unthinkable ?
With an itheberg.
===============
Thidethlitter. ;))
In retrospect the subpar performance last night could turn out to be very beneficial to the team.
Brendan can now say to the board: “look what I did with these players, but did you see the performance? You really want to see us embarrassed in the group stage?”
“Get your check book out and pay for some quality. “
Was Craig Gordon not standing still after catching the ball?
Why the need to take anybody out?