Celtic are well behind the position they should be at this stage of the football cycle which started in the summer of 2014. This week’s two defeats are a symptom of that. A year ago, then-new signings Armstrong and Mackay-Stevens contributed to two highly credible performances against Inter Milan, which indicated we were on a positive trajectory, but pretty much every available indication since has pointed south.
Aberdeen were poor in the first half last night, but shortly before their opening goal om 31 minutes I noted that they were defending comfortably, despite our dominance. We had not made a chance which tested them. We often need a lot of possession before the goals flow.
There is a flip side to that ratio. We often lose a lot of goals compared to the possession we allow opponents. All teams take a direct approach to attacking Celtic – get it forward and shoot. Better still, win a corner. Football games are about two things: scoring goals and not conceding goals. Some work is being done on the former but I’m concerned our shape does not accommodate the achievement of the latter.
We’ve kept 4 clean sheets (Kilmarnock, St Johnstone, Partick, Stranraer ) in the 18 games since beating Dundee United 5-0 in October. Only Thistle (1-0), Dundee (6-0) and Dundee United (5-0) have lost at Celtic Park without scoring since…………… Ross County on 1 August.
Records will show that yet again we lost a crucial goal at a corner kick. What will be lost in time is the sheer panic caused by the Aberdeen corners which didn’t result in a goal. I’ve never seen a team defend set pieces so poorly over such an extended period.
There could be many reasons why we’re not in the Champions League knock out stages right now, but I’m sure the reasons we’re not comfortably ahead in the league is that defensively, our shape and organisation is not good enough. We concede too much space in dangerous areas. This is why we’re not miles ahead of a team with vastly weaker resources.
On the way forward:
It’s of the upmost importance we win the league. As it stands, we will achieve this. Colin Kazim-Richards, despite being of journeyman-pro stock, gave us a dimension we’ve not had in 18 months. He, Kris Commons, Ryan Christie, Patrick Roberts and Erik Sviatchenko will all have a positive impact on the remainder of the season.
Ronny has got a lot wrong, but he was right about one thing after the game last night, “The players need the fans’ support”. Those who suggest that anytime is a good time for recriminations probably don’t have a good grasp on the complexities of any given situation. There will be plenty of time for recrimination in June, right now, we need to keep our eye on the prize.
Win the league, then we’ll talk.
734 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- ...
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- ...
- 20
- »
Good Evening Timland.
I work next to a couple of bhoys who go home
and away,they tock a holiday today so haven’t
spoken to them.
One bhoy will always back RD or anyone else who
manages us,the other is wavering,if anyone who
was at the game is lurking could you please give
us a indication of the mood of the hardcore fans.
BMCUWP….
My bhoy is limited holiday wise and me by then financialy :((
tock=took.eff me!!
Stairheedrammie
Just watched the video of the copper on Twitter.lost the plot
Nine games till the table splits.
NineinarowCSC
SIPSINI
Fair points. And your second will apply to my Dad and me too.
But what the hell,once-in-a-lifetime chance,so wur gaun.
Evening Celts
RD refusing to quit.
Thats good eh.
Just like the rest of the PLC…take no responsibility for failure.
HH
p8ddy on 4th February 2016 5:26 pm
Paul67… And I’ve not even began with the justification of Tories on the board. You’ll excoriate the SNP but justify Tories being part of our club.
===============================
Ah. And here was me thinking Celtic were a club open to all forms of belief, creed, ideology, as long as you liked the Celtic football ethos.
Obviously I was wrong and there are polarising criteria to be met, set by those of authority…
BMCUW, the sheep will have injuries and suspensions but they have bought well and have replacements in most positions. They have a settled team who know their roles and reserves that mean they are still better than the other SPL teams. I watched their 10 men rip RC apart in a way we couldn’t manage, I’m concerned.
MON THE 2-2-5- Griffiths Offside
Cheers Blantyre, I will try to find it
glasstwothirdsfull…
We have a good enough team to win the league. Let’s go and do it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Agreed but do we have a manager and coaching staff to do it…that is my concern. HH
Good Evening.
Here is some light relief. Dave King is being tough with Mike Ashley. Apparently.
https://theclumpany.wordpress.com/2016/02/04/olympic-standard-guff/
GlassTwoThirdsFull,
Shame on you! Who said you could bring realism, perspective or clarity to the blog ;)
HH
gsu
King Billy
On another note…the Clumpany’s latest is on the satirical ball again…no fool like a hun fool as Confucius said :)
Sispini/BMCUWPs,
Did you see me post a couple of hours ago about ROI v Switzerland on Good Friday? Seats in the same area and access to the bars if interested drop me a mail dublin2016@mail.com.
I don’t know the costs yet but I have to let a contact at the FAI know, numbers interested as soon as I can.
Anyone interested in a night at the Aviva in Dublin on the eve of our Hootenanny on March 26th.
Please get in touch.
Off to Clogher Junior’s GAA training.
Tell you what…wish i could get a job that pays 20,000 a week.
A job where you dont need to take responsibility when you feck up.
A job where you are never questioned.
Easy, Easy money if you can get it.
This deference to these chancers is outrageous.
Its not the Nineteenth-Century FFS.
Please cease and desist.
Thank You.
HH
p8ddy on 4th February 2016 5:26 pm
Paul67… And I’ve not even began with the justification of Tories on the board. You’ll excoriate the SNP but justify Tories being part of our club.
####
The nats are excoriated because of their Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012.
The Tories voted against the legislation.
In fact everyone voted against the legislation, except the nats.
Change of subject here but after the game yesterday I logged off took the dug for a walk and came back in and watched a show called Madoff, which as you all my know is about the charlatan who managed the largest accounting fraud in American history.
Good show with Richard Dreyfuss in the lead role, the 2nd part is tonight followed by an update on the family since then.
What became evident during the show was that he was a Glibby, he had the ability to separate people from their own money, hmmmm as someone on here is fond of saying.
However, it all came to an end when the securities commission investigators, one of whom eventually married his niece whose own da did 10 years for his role in the fraud, went after him, even when he was the non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ stock market.
The media didnae hold back either similar to the Boston MSM when investigating the RC Church over the “Spotlight” scandal. Say what you want about the press over here, as the Washington Post proved nobody is too big to be brought to task.
As you are all aware he was sentenced to 150 years, most of those involved have also done time, some with lengthy sentences, and others are no longer with us, in the case of his older son he took his own life.
Now over in the best wee bigoted country in the world there is an individual who is walking (nae pun intended) away fae a huge fraud in which you, and I do mean you as I no longer live there, are paying for his shell game through your taxes.
Meanwhile another of his ilk is carrying on his work after escaping from incarceration in a former commonwealth country.
The question often asked on here and other Celtic sites is ‘they’re going tae get away with it aren’t they”. And the answer is “Aye”.
The craft has a lot to answer for.
Always conduct yourself in a manner befitting of Celtic.
Its quiet tonight, where’s all the outrage.
No arguments?
This blog is going down hill:)
Cmon who’s for some controversy.
HH
Stivs says sack the board, where are you when you’re needed:)
Its like a ghost town in here.
Ronny has bluffed them all again.
HH
Has he still not left yet?
The Green Man says SACK THE Board
Sack the players… ;)
HH
After Molde , my mind was made up. Personally, I felt Ronny should have been sacked after Motherwell ripped us apart recently
It was like watching a good European team well outplaying us, not relegation strugglers that Mark McGhee had taken charge of a few weeks before.
If Ronny stays , i really fear us blowing the league.
I also hear, its not a definite that the final sheep game will be a home game for us.
I just don’t see the point in letting this continue.
At what stage are we allowed to panic.
Ok Ronnie will clearly not go of his own volition …
He will need to be punted. Will it take a league loss to prompt this? If not at what point would the board act.. 3 points behind? 4 points behind? 6 points behind..?
Ernie Lynch,
It’s true that only the SNP voted for the OBAF bill, however the issue is how many parties say they are going to repeal it if they get into power.
If the answers none then I don’t think you’ll be getting much mileage out of your statement t above.
DAVIDOPOULOUS
Sack everything that moves…and then tag them:)
HH
Pre-split, Aberdeen have to play St. Johnstone, home and away, Hamilton and Kilmarnock at home and play away to Inverness, Thistle, Dundee United, Motherwell and Hearts.
Celtic play home games against Ross County (we owe them), Inverness, Dundee and Hearts. Remaining away games are Hamilton, Thistle, Kilmarnock and Motherwell. The Dundee home game is mid-week, all other games are spaced out.
Keep The Faith
Either no one reads my post’s or no one
who was at the game is on,any ways me
and my hurt feelings need to log off.
Goodnight Timland
sobsobsobCSC.
Can’t believe what I’m reading on here!
Corporal Jones and private Fraser CSC perhaps……
Don’t panic, we’re all doomed…..
Get a f in grip.
In the heat of Lisbon
SACK THE BOARD.
I am away to find my drunken rant from last night.
SAINT STIVS SAYS SACK THE BOARD
You were like a man possessed last night.
Inspired me:)
Didnt take much though, did it.
HH
Lots of good and well thought out comments on “where we are and the way forward”, some though are quite depressing, Auldheid, master of reality, does the numbers and UCL qualification is a risk too far… those pinning for another League in England the Atlantic, is it even possible if so how long must we wait?
For me this all seems far removed from “The Plan”, what is the Plan, I don’t know, but I thought I knew where we were going.
Now when Peter Lawwell came in we were on three year plan reviewed every year. Now I’ll talk in layman’s terms as when it comes to business that’s all I know…
I thought it meant that we do some medium term planning for the next three years, after the first year we review, then set out a new three year plan.
Now I kinda liked this, it means we don’t have to rely on short term planning on a Season by Season basis, but as the Turnover fluctuates and Performance and circumstances change you can review where you are at the end of a Season and plan again.
Now then, surely if we were still doing this you could say over the medium term a Club of our size and stature, with a solid financial management and performing Football Operation we should get UCL qualification two years out of three.
Then we can plan for that and resource accordingly.
Now then that’s good because what does UCL qualification mean to us?
Well we Qualify we perform in the most prestigious League in the world with the associated riches.
We can attract and afford a better standard of player, so we have more chance of qualifing for the UCL, then we do better in the UCL, we get more money and our co-efficient increases, making it easier to do better in the UCL and attract and afford better players.
So what does that mean…
A better standard of Football, so more Season tickets sold, a domination of the domestic game, more trophies. More great Celtic Park European nights.
All good.
But for me one thing that was very important about this and we have to go back to “The Plan”, but again I have no idea what the plan is but I understand part of the plan and an important one at that is to get Celtic playing in a more lucrative League.
Well that’s fine, we think it will happen one day, thing is, if you look at WGS’s time and Lenny’s time when things were sort of going to plan, then our squad was not too bad, say an invite came then.
Well as someone stated earlier you can significantly improve a team with three or four good signings. So take those squads, throw some money at them – we are going into a much more lucrative League so we can afford it – get four proven performers and we have a Competitive team at that level, we build from there.
That I thought was the plan, it was a good plan, it keeps us Competitive in all Compitions and potential Compitions.
Yet where are we now? Even if they expanded the EPL to two Leagues we would be bottom half of the League two, what’s the point of inviting us?
What about an Elite European League, without performing in Europe and staying in the limelight with a poor co-efficient why would we get invited to that, some one may know their history and invite us as a favour or curtesy, but why should we be there before Basle and a host of other minor league Clubs. Things have changed since the “Old Firm” were a shoe in.
At the moment what would be worse, getting invited and humiliated or not getting invited and being the finest team in Scotland?
Things need to change we need to get back on a real plan or our future and no disrespect will be permanently competing with Aberdeen and the like.
Just-a-thot
Hail Hail
NYE BEVANS’ REBEL SOLDIER?..
Don’t be disillusioned, some first posters can be ignored when the blog is busy…anyways. Welcome :))
Fan ownership.
How do we go about it?
I’m not anti board. I’m anti capitalist. I want rid of Desmond and lawwell and the,rest of them because they represent what’s wrong with the world and sport not because of the perceived failures on the fitba side of things.
Celtic, the people’s club?
It should be. It could be.