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.
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Big cup winners
The last fixture at Murrayfield saw a sun drenched Murrayfield area ,awash tith the Hoops from mid day onwards.
It is my view that it will be awash with Legia fans on Wednesday.
Celtic fans should be careful.
There were reports of Celtic fans being attacked in Warsaw.
Maybe Zybseck can enlighten us.
TT
Can people stop saying we’ve had one competitive game please. We’ve had 3, two of which weren’t very competitive.
South Of Tunis
14:12 on 4 August, 2014
Stubbs,Samaras, Ledley ,Stokes
Would you like to review one of your answers before this goes out live?
South of tunis
“Ledley”… Really?
:-)
IcantthinkofanyCSC
IGC
14:05 on
4 August, 2014
***LUNCHTIME QUIZ***
Rieper
Reiper
TT
Ignore Ledley
He belongs somewhere else !
Thejohnatron
Great minds(:-)
TT
The curious case of the Celtic glamour friendly.
Whether you’re a super Celtic supporter that darns the hair or not, as soon as ‘youthful Celtic ‘, went two goals behind in minutes to a Tottenham side alarm bells were ringing, and the final result , red-faced,the Celtic planners more than it did the side, sprinkled with developing, and Celtic limbo men.
This game crammed between two CL qualifiers where Celtic even now face query from the organisers, was from the date of it’s inception, quite frankly another bad idea. Even if Celtic’s first team hadn’t bodged the job in Poland most of them wouldn’t have been in Finland, so we have to assume that Celtic think the development side can handle the EPL, or at least escape with credibility.
Like the global Celtic market brand Dylan McGeouch Philip Twardzik et al, as well as others in their twenties gained nothing, but minor damage. A collective of all players at Lennoxtown would have been much more appropriate, for the up coming mountain at Murrayfield, and ditch the show (up) games.
Very low on optimism. Downsizing season on season has left us without one player who quickens the pulse (Lubo, Henrik, Naka, Di Canio etc.). As has been written elsewhere it is a spiral. Average players, poor performance, smaller gates and so less spend on players again. The new manager may turn out to be good but he was a cheap option and his selection last week was in all honesty awful.
HH
McAdam
TT
TT – I was just about to type McAdam but refreshed first. Great minds indeed……
Mark McGhee
Mark McNally
Gary Gillespie
Darius Dziekanowski
Jiri Jarosik
Stuart Slater
*goes back to read the question again *
That’s a different question Bada!
For Wednesday, on the plus side:
We can never at that badly again
Efe, in his current form, won’t play
Chas will play in his best position, centre back
Izzy will return
Biton will return to the midfield
We will win the game but lose the tie, and then face a tricky qualifying match for the Europa League group stages. The real question for me is How quickly can Celtic learn from mistakes and setbacks? One of the frustrating things about the last few seasons has been watching the manager and individuals players make the same mistakes again and again
One thing that we risk overlooking with any new appointment is that we probably know far more about the players than the new manager or , worse still, management team if there have been wholesale changes, as there have been with us this season.
Even JC will have watched far fewer Celtic games than the average supporter who goes to games / watches avidly on TV.
For that reason , if no other , RD needs to be given time. Calls for his head now are , with respect , ludicrously premature.
TBB @ 14.08
If we start to spend money after any potential failure in the CL then history is repeating itself as farce and we really donhave “zoomers n’ rockets” running the club.
One of many issues that led to the AMD disaster was not an obvious lack of money but the timing of the spend.
AB was bought just before the game — could have played but WGS decided it was too soon.
SN was announced as a target on R5L on the Saturday after the away debacle.
We had the money just a case we were hopeless at handling the MON / WGS transition.
Surely we cannot make this basic mistake again?
For the record I think we will come close but ultimately fail.
An away goal or goals will scupper our chances.
Beram Kayak?
Its no worse than some of the other answers…
:-)
Comfortable for 40 minutes and bossed the game for 25?
And I see dead people….honestly!
sixthsenseCSC
We need the first goal and early on
TinyTim,
thanks for the reply!
That we are down sizing, there is no doubt.
Ronny Deila has come across as an intelligent person. I hope he is a very quick learner and turns the team around, makes good of his promise to use the youths and play attractive winning football. I’m not inspired by plan B, which seems to be….do we have a plan B???
IGC – Peter Lawwell and Dermot Desmond – they must be players given the amount of column inches they take up on here?
Woody lee
Efe is banned
It a hell of a lot easier with letters that arent the same
Efe Ambrosia.
Auld … / Paulo … @ Death Spiral
I fear you are giving the game away —
Have PL and DD given up any pretence of a growth agenda and are preparing the ground for a future based on £30mill T/O’s and 30K home crowds?
That is where the club are heading for if we continue our slide towards poor performances and more fan disenchantment.
No Euro football this season — any news on the odds? — and it will be carnage both on and off the park.
Are PL and DD deliberately trying to provide encouragement to the TFOD2 / tribute act now staggering their way towards the SPL and potential salvation?
If they are drowning then we should be stuffing a hose into their gub.
Not offering them solace through our shambolic attempts to improve the squad.
If McAdam is right then celtic’s first ever scorer is right too:- Neil McCallum
**************Note for the Efe bashers**************
He’s suspended
MadMitch
I think in the circumstances it was impossible for us to prime a new squad ahead of this tie.
Deila was appointed with due haste – 15 days after Lenny left – at which point the players were on holiday.
The time available to assess the quality of the players he has, decide which targets to pursue, get them in and get them playing was hopelessly short.
I take your point on the poor transition between one management team and another, but this applies more to WGS/MON/BTM than more recently.
My sense is that Lenny’s leaving was quite abrupt. In the circumstances, I don’t know what else could have been done without having seeded Lenny’s replacement the year before.
In terms of buying players, it’s only a zoomer approach if you are concerned solely with the next game. If you are looking a little further ahead, it’s the natural thing to do.
We have the next 4 weeks to assemble the squad for next season’s UCL qualifiers.
Same as it’s been since Scotland lost automatic qualifying 4 years ago.
David Hannah
HH
SFTB
14:43 on 4 August, 2014
If McAdam is right then celtic’s first ever scorer is right too:- Neil McCallum
“since the 1980s”
Not 1880s
“In today’s Evening Times we inadvertently published an image of a Celtic league medal instead of a CWG medal. We apologise for any confusion caused ”
not to mention more Sevconian rage
WorldSpeedRecordApologies CSC
There is just one more from my list to get.
It’s those green tints again. Emphasise the positive and ignore the negative.
We have lost the captain, the midfield lynchpin and driving force to injury.
We have lost our most dangerous wide player to injury.
We have lost a Centre Back to a red card. The CEO’s spectacular success with a balance sheet has ensured that there is no obvious replacement.
The manager is a rookie at this level (but I have long term faith).
The team’s confidence is shaken and hesitancy is evident on the park.
We are lightweight up front. I first noticed the new guy as he was being subbed.
Legia WILL park the bus. They don’t need to score and will do what Celtic failed to do after grabbing an away goal, they will be compact, and hard to break down. When given the chance they will break out quickly and expose the gaps Celtic leave at the back. They look an effective counter attacking team and the situation plays into their hands. Our defending has looked poor so far this summer.
I expect to lose the tie and the match. Ronnie’s main objective is to somehow ensure that the Europa League Play Off game does not go the same way, otherwise, it will be a long winter.
The Battered Bunnet
Lenny has made it clear that there was a lack of investment. Players for this qualifying phase could have been signed over the past year. Recent signings have been average at best with some real dross (the prices quoted can’t be true for some of them).
big wavy
13:29 on
4 August, 2014
We can only hope that RD has had them working on defending as a unit properly this past week. We completely broke down in midfield & defence so here is hoping his pragmatism has concentrated on those aspects specifically and gets us doing the basics correctly this time around.
If Berget gets a start I would be highly surprised. To be fair to the lhad he should not have been selected in the first game. Even though he played poorly, I would absolve him of any blame considering he had only met his teammates 48hrs prior.
As for Henderson & McGregor, this is a big season for them both. I wouldn’t think they would play in every game but it is good to see 2 young prospects with a realistic chance of becoming first team regulars. If both keep up their performances so far it is only a matter of time.
HH
Peter Somers