Turning under-performance into awesomeness

I’m reliably informed Legia will not ‘park the bus’ on Wednesday.  Instead, with a three goal lead, they have enough legroom to play their normal game, attempt to compete in the middle of the park, and expose holes at the back, as they did last week.  What’s more, they’re unsure they would be able to park the bus successfully for an extended period.

Set aside the debacle what was our defensive performance for a moment.  The period of last week’s match Ronny Deila should initially concern himself with is the opening 25 minutes, when Celtic largely bossed the game.  We then have to consider the 40 minutes we looked comfortable with 10 men; not an insignificant achievement away from home in Europe.

In short, Legia are a team which for large periods of the game we looked to have the measure of, despite the anomalies of playing a debutant, an inexperienced youth and with a left back who was left out.  We should do far better at Murrayfield.

Legia believe they are going through.  They unquestionably have the upper hand but the Celtic collapse in the final minutes, when we appeared to be too busy picking fights than sticking to plan, distorted the perceived difference between the teams.  Celtic didn’t just underachieve, they did so on an epic scale.  What Legia don’t know, is what a highly-functional Celtic team looks like.

We need to transform that epic failure into the kind of performance we are capable of in Europe.  The defence needs to find the form which broke so many records last season.  Ronny needs to find some of his awesomeness.

The reality is, despite last week’s debacle, we’re still in this tie – and should plan to go through.

[calameo code=000390171ae033f39a0c4 lang=en page=120 hidelinks=1 width=100% height=500] Click Here for Comments >