Five at the back is an orthodox defensive shape, it’s not a headcount of defenders, which is the crux of where we went wrong last night: we chose the wrong system.
Consider the space between (debutant) Gamboa and Lustig at the first goal. No one was sure who should have been picking up Messi (reveal: it was Bitton, who didn’t track the run). There was uncertainty – presumably because we tried a new defensive system out at the Camp Nou.
Another consequence of five at the back is that your fullbacks don’t get midfield cover. Instead, Sinclair and Roberts were asked to work 40 yards out. This plan came at the cost of protecting Gamboa and Tierney.
The overwhelming tactical memory I have of our win against Barca four years ago was Neil Lennon doubling up in the fullback area.
Then we had two central defenders with Wanyama (a defensive mid, which Bitton is not) in front. Our two full backs were partnered with a wide midfield player. Diagrammatically that was four at the back, but whenever Barcelona were in possession (80% of the time), seven players were protecting the Celtic penalty area.
The abiding defensive memory from that night it the thicket of legs confronting Messi every time he got the ball. There was no space for him to pass and move into. Last night, he had more space inside the box to run into that he’ll see all season. It was simply the wrong system.
During the game I was pretty annoyed at Bitton, who I blamed for the first three goals, but he’s a deep-lying playmaker, not a defensive mid, and looked clueless in the position. Although even I know you need to track Messi’s forward runs, and my 11-yr-old knew they were about to score the third the minute we conceded a free kick 23 yards out in front of goal. Reveal: barging players 23 yards out is a mistake that gets you spoken to when playing 2004s football.
We had numbers but not a coherent defensive strategy. The lessons from The Beating of Barca in 2012 were lost. Four years ago we twice played them with these back fours:
Lustig, Wilson, Ambrose, Izaguirre
Lustig, Wilson, Ambrose, Matthews (out of position)
None of Wilson, Ambrose, Izaguirre or Matthews (at left back) would get in this Celtic team. They were all pretty standard-grade defenders, but with protection on the wings and in front, it worked.
After we lost the third concentration levels dipped, tired legs after Saturday would have been energised legs if we were still in touch. I’d also tell Scott Brown not to worry too much about giving the ball away. We’re not good enough to plan to regularly retain possession at the Camp Nou.
We’re a ‘two pass then lob it into the box or win a foul’ team at this level. Accept this and concentrate on what’s deliverable – “We are Celtic, try running through this thicket of legs”.
Scotts Brown and Sinclair played well. Moussa will beat himself up about the penalty but it was inconsequential. Gamboa and de Vries looked lost, as all Camp Nou opposition debutants (there can’t be many) and exposed keepers do.
It may have been the biggest loss in Europe but it doesn’t even come close to being our worst performance. It’s not even our worst performance in Europe of the season, so we’ll get over it quickly.
You and I both remember seven goal victories being overturned a week later. This is football. The leap required to deliver a tighter defensive system is not the magnitude it may appear.
669 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- ...
- 18
- »
Q1. If we continue to qualify for The Champions League over the next 5 years and earn in the region of £150 million or upwards from it, Sevco keep on keeping on zombying, we dominate the league with Saturday type results and we get football lessons like last night every year in the CL, will we be happy to accept that?
Q2. In you opinion will the PLC back Brendan by giving him the money earned from The Champions League qualification, money they do not budget for, spare funding so to speak, to strengthen the team, or not?
MWD
Meant to add – for Melbourne Mick
183 days until St Patrick’s day, does that count as halfway there :-)))))
So you can still enjoy yourself in celebration
Hail Hail bhud
Yesterday The Times compared the value of the team + subs used by us and Barca at the weekend.
Our squad £16.6m.
Barcelona £339.3m and that’s with Messi, Busquets and Iniesta classed as free.
I would love to know the system that evens that out on the park!
Good analysis paul67
I will NEVER forget this
The man city game cannot be written off
If they take 7 off us at home
Well I’ll let you all decide
PHILBHOY
Ach yer jist a big Jenny:))
Triple expresso cafe au lait for me in the morning…
Oh, and sharing some other insightful taxi driver knowledge…
He dropped an agent off at Celtic Park who told him that when we signed Ronny Deila is was due to how good he was at developing young players AND that there was a potential he could bring Odegard with him.
Apparently the youngsters were not coached by RD, Odegard wasn’t created by RD, but in fact it was Odegard’s father who coached the young guys. And is now coaching at Real Madrid.
We got the wrong man. So that clears that up then. Although not sure clearing up was required.
Real Madrid told to repay millions in illegal state support – FT.com
http://www.ft.com › World › Europe
This is what we are up against.
Am I actually READING posts which appear to have written off Gamboa utterly, on the basis of a single game, his first with a new team, against the best forward ever to play the game?
Jesus wept. Some people need to lie down .
STARRY PLOUGH
You obviously don’t suffer from IBS!
SHEIK YERBOUTI
NO TEAM will take us for 7 at HOME.
PHILBHOY
Irritable Barsteward Syndrome, oh I don’t know I have my moments:)))
Its intrinsic to be embarrassed after a worst ever result but you would have to be of unforgiving mind to be embarrassed by that worst ever result. Sometimes your opponents turn the grass into glitter and the ball into gold.
Last night was one of those nights that clubs of our ilk, big in name only, left behind as TV has throttled money from the smaller leagues, ensuring an elite that to catch would be like hiking Everest without an oxygen tank, will see more of before we are shut out, doffing our caps on the outside in a 2nd division European league.
Another POT 4 club got a roasting in Munich last night and I fully expect all pot 4 teams to have a total of points no more than 30 when the group stages are finished. The Champions League route delivers cannon fodder and that’s where we are.
We can dare to dream. That’s what fans do. But dealing with reality is healthier. Our hope is to give the other teams a damn good game but that is hope it shouldn’t be an expectation.
STARRY PLOUGH
:-)
Brussels will blow the whistle on Spanish football foul play on Monday with a decision that will force Real Madrid and FC Barcelona to repay illegal state subsidies enjoyed for a quarter century.
Margrethe Vestager, EU competition commissioner, will tell Spain to recoup tens of millions of euros of unlawful aid to seven clubs that came in the form of soft loans, tax breaks and sweetheart property deals.
The European Commission decision will require Real Madrid to pay back €18.4m of state support from a complex land deal with the Madrid local authority, according to people familiar with the case. Real Madrid, who won the Uefa Champions League in May, and three other clubs — Barcelona, Athletic Bilbao and CA Osasuna — will also be forced to forgo a non-profit style tax privilege they have enjoyed since 1990.
Investigators are seeking to end an era of club football in which lucrative commercial enterprises attracted the world’s top talent while riding on the coat-tails of taxpayers. Real Madrid and Barcelona are ranked as the two richest clubs in the world in Deloitte’s annual ranking of football clubs by revenue.
The Commission decision regarding Real Madrid’s land deal brings to an end a long-running saga that has shed a stark light on the nexus of sport, politics and business in the Spanish capital.
It goes back to a series of controversial land deals between the club and the city government in the late 1990s, which saw Real Madrid transfer part of its old training ground to the city for redevelopment.
The site has since been developed into the Cuatro Torres business hub, dominated by the four tallest skyscrapers in the city. In return, Real Madrid was handed other plots of land throughout the city, including next to its iconic Bernabéu stadium. Some of the plots were subsequently revalued — apparently to the financial advantage of Real Madrid.
The land deal has been held up ever since as a symbol of the close relationship between local politicians and the powerful businessmen who run Spain’s largest football clubs.
But the sheer number of clubs caught up in the Commission investigation highlights how politicians at both state and regional level have been keen to support their local teams.
Valencia, a city that has been rocked by political corruption scandals and whose local team was almost sunk by its towering debt load in 2013, stands out as another prominent example.
A third leg of the Brussels investigation focused on illegal loan guarantees from the Valencia Institute of Finance that benefited three of the region’s teams: Valencia CF, Hércules CF and Elche.
Spanish officials argued before the commission decision that the tax treatment of Spanish football clubs reflected the fact that they were not profit-seeking enterprises, and were, among other things, banned from paying out dividends in the manner of an ordinary listed company. Since the start of this year, clubs in any case have to pay the same rate of tax as companies, at 25 per cent.
Real Madrid and Barcelona, along with Athletic Bilbao and Osasuna, were the only clubs in Spain allowed to remain member-owned after a 1990 law that obliged all other clubs to become limited companies.
There is no official estimate of the overall financial damage that will be inflicted on Spanish football clubs as a result of the commission decision. Spain will be asked to make calculations on how much to recoup in back taxes and loan guarantee fees.
There was more positive news for Dutch football as the commission closed its investigation into five Netherlands clubs without finding evidence of illegal state support. The probe had examined dealings between local authorities and clubs including PSV Eindhoven and MVV Maastricht.
sorry link didn`t work this is the piece from July 2016
Sheik Yerbouti on 14th September 2016 1:57 pm
Good analysis paul67
I will NEVER forget this
The man city game cannot be written off
If they take 7 off us at home
Well I’ll let you all decide
__________________________________
Sheik, I assume you are regularly in the company of the 3 Billy Goats Gruff.
FAC the Act
KTF
SHEIK YERBOUTI
Get on to the boys at Boca 10 and they’ll make you a t-shirt with 7-1 on it, you can wear it to bed to make sure you never forget that score:)))
I just read the article about the New Years Eve game where it states that Celtic will invoice the new club for damage to seats and toilets at Celtic Park on Saturday, if this is not paid by the time of the game the cost of repairs will be deducted from the revenue of tickets sold.
If they do not pay and decide to charge £100 a ticket, Celtic fans will be paying for repairs to their own stadium which was caused by sevco fans , how is this a wise course of action for an unpaid invoice?
SOUKOUS
I wonder if they would turn their gaze to the billion pound fraud perpetrated in Scottish Football???
SHEIK YERBUOTI
If Citeh take 7 aff us on the 28th does that mean your no gawn tae the Hoot?
We don’t have enough players with arrogance and swagger in the team . Wanyama even at 19 had it , Sutton , lambert, Lennon. Mjalby .hay auld . All had it in abundance . Guys who would have said ,who the hell are Barcelona ,get into them . Every fan and his granny know we need steel , muscle in the team . Losing wanyama was a huge loss for us . This boy bossed the midfield for us .
We earnestly need guys with those attributes .we now have players who will win games for us ,Sinclair .griff ,dembele.pat Roberts . Unfortunately the group we have been placed in has given us a hard task ,without burying my head in the sand ,we are not in the class of these teams ,with the buying power they have over us and teams of our like . We need to continue to look for the talent we require to improve us every season . I believe we have the manager to take us to another level . Barca will murder other better equipped teams , from better leagues than ours . They are a machine . Please let’s move on from last night .we have much to be pleased about on our other fronts .
HH
Watched the replay last night. As before, the middle of the park is our achilles heel …. too many barca runs not picked up, and with the number and variety of barca players coming forward at any one time, the backs simply cant pick them all up…. the midfielders need to track runs in a game like that.
To me, the solution is not necessarily a true DM (although, I wouldn’t say no to one). The answer to stopping teams like Barca play is learning to play better ourselves. l
As I see it, one of the problems is that, we are big fish in Scotland, but minnows in Europe…. too good for Scotland, and no teams play like (or at the level of)Barca, so when we meet a team that good, or even that plays that style, it is like we are seeing it for the first time, and dont know how to respond.
What is the solution? Not sure there is A solution. But, there are a few things that could help ….
Our forward passing and forward moving (except for humping it long and letting the wingers bomb forward) is mostly non-existent. This needs to be improved, or we will continue to be embarassed, and not just by the likes of Barca.
Most Celtic (and, indeed, Scottish) players seem to have little confidence in taking and making passes, particularly when moving… in Scottish football, and certainly with Celtic, we bomb forward, stop, and then pass to stationary players … we dont use passing to break down defences (unlike Barca, who use forward runs and passing to do so) ….the speed of thought and foot seems lacking. But, this is how the modern game is played now, and we need to adapt or we will suffer ….
Celtic’s training (and ultimately games) in Scotland should be all one-touch-and-move stuff. ( Two touchs in practice, and you get fined. Three touches, and you get your arse booted! Eventually, the players will get the message) In Europe, this will buy some time, instead of just humping the ball long, and waiting for it to be returned. It will also give the bhoys the advantage of learning a system that they will be up against in Europe. I am not saying that we will beat Barca doing it, but it should help guard against the sorts of humpings we got last night.
This pass and movement/ball control game is not what we are used to in Scotland, or England, and is going to take some time to learn (probably a few seasons to let the youngsters learn it and play it in Scotland). It will also mean a lot more running (short sprints) so will require a better/different type of fitness). But, I think, in time, it is achievable.
Sure, this is going to take some time to learn, but, if we are ever to be a reasonable force in Europe again, I believe that is a necessity. Pass and move. Work like demons, but let the ball do even more work. That is the way forward. We need to start doing it in practice, and in SPL games (sure, we will make mistakes, give up goals, and even lose a few games) … but that is a small price to pay to ensure that Scotland and Celtic do not become obsolete in Europe.
What do the following clubs have in common:
Basel
Ludogrets
Dinamo Kiev
Celtic
FC Rostov
PSV
Legia Warsaw
Club Brugge
FC Copenhagen
?
They are all there to be beaten by the bigger clubs, so that the bigger clubs can play each other in the knockout stages and there is a vague sense of a competition taking place…
If Celtic want to get out of the above list, the it will take a few consecutive seasons in the group stages and a really talented manager. Even then it will be very difficult.
I hope we have the talented manager, but we need to start planning on how we make next season’s group stages now. This season’s participation is just about money for reinvestment and getting the name back on the radar, anything else is a bonus.
If I wasn’t a Celtic supporter I would have been raving about that Barca display last night. I know all the focus and attention goes on Messi, Naymar & Saurez but I thought Sergio Busquets was outstanding. If I was Nir Bitton I would watch the game over again and try to emulate half of what he achieves.
Put it behind us and move on, only hope Man City think we’ll be walkovers now…
Yeah
And there was me thinking when we were 2 down against Be er Sheeva I wish they would score a third and not put us through the trauma of the Champions League….
Away and give yer heads a shake.
Up the hoooops.
Still handsome (vp and big Gordy can vouch) with the face painters paid
Onwards and upwards
Watched the Manchester Derby last week and if City play the way they did in the first half they’ll beat us 8-0.
10-0 if Dorus and Nir play.
Davidopouos … agree. I expected that we would get humped in Europe this season. But, for 20 million quid, we can live with that …. as long as we take the money and the opportunity and invest it in the future. We wasted a few seasons when we should have been building for the future …. we need to seize the chance now, or other smaller teams will pass us by, and the diminishing CL spots will be snapped up by other clubs.
This season, under BR, could be a watershed year for Celtic … he did remarkably well to take basically the same band of players that looked lost by the end of last season, and get them into the CL in only a few short months…. hopefully, BR is the guy to lead us forward to the next level, where we are competitive at that level
Oh and as for the balloon who said Kieran Tierny has been pish all season that must have been his doppelgänger at Celtic Pk last Saturday.
Mike
Scotland and Celtic are already obsolete in Europe. It is our support home and away that is the sponsors attraction. Red imps and Hapoel were only recently. 98% of the time we get beat on the road. Top of the Agenda next year will be the ,,,,50 year anniversary and how we can milk it to maximum financial benefit rather than trying to build a team capable of reducing it as MON, WGS. NL, RD found out Brendan next I reckon.
HH
West End … if I was the Celtic manager (and I know most are now choking up their coffee!) , the last thing I would want is for the players to forget last night and move on ….
I want them to look at Barca, and their players, and say ‘that is how good I want to be, and how good I want Celtic to be ‘…. they may never make it, but we need to start thinking bigger and outside the box …
and I never want them to forget how it felt when they walked off last night … so they do their damnedest to make sure they never feel that way again.
dont beat them with the loss (I’m sure a lot of them are feeling down already, and dont need to be kicked) … but I would hope they would have it inside themselves to look at that game, and use it to get better.
European football is simply doing to us what we do to others in Scotland.
We are structurally too big for the league in Scotland and we are not allowed to fulfil our potential or compete at a higher level because of the constraints of being part of it.
That’s the macro picture and that’s what really matters. The money we make will ensure dominance at home but will not be enough to compete at that level or at the sharp end of the tournament. That’s the real challenge to Celtic’s future.
In the micro picture there are margins to squeeze and we may have walked away with a 3-1 defeat instead with the resources we have, on a perfect night. Neil Lennon’s achievements were fabulous in Europe, after a calamitous start. 7-0 in the Nou Camp is less damning than 4-0 in Utrecht. 4 of the top 5 players on the planet scoring the goals compares favourably to Ricky can Wolfswinkle running amok. The difference of course is that Neil’s learning curve was steeper, he was a rookie. Brendan is not, but if he can build a team that he can call his own and make similar progress we’ll squeeze that margin and have some great memories.
Man City are actually more direct in attack than Barca, that’s frightening. But they do not have the 90 minute relentlessness, far from it. First step is regroup from last night. Build some momentum in our coming games and approach it like a cup final. Killie at home prior to a Wednesday home game will be far better preparation than a local derby prior to a Tuesday away game.
Mixedemotions CSC
mike in toronto
Qualification this year was huge, the prize money for being involved in the group stages had escalated since the last time we were involved, and two years in the doldrums meant that Celtic were in real danger of being left behind by clubs that we would viewed as equals in quality (e.g. Basel).
We achieved qualification, and the money we earned should be invested in making sure we do that again, the following year maybe we would be in a position to consider ourselves dark horses. It’s a slow burner but we have made a start. A 7-0 drubbing, in the grand scheme of things, isn’t an ideal way to start, but it’s just the start…
Awe Naw …
How you doing pal? I usually agree with 99% of what you say, and I will admit that it is hard to argue against what you posted. But, there is still a part of me that remains hopeful that someone can turn the ship around …. BR cant change the whole system on his own … but I am hopeful that he can do his part, and maybe once we get the stuff on the field sorted, someone else can step up to do it off the park ….
I am in an unusually optimistic mood this morning ….. and, no my account hasn’t been hacked by a happyclapper.
Defensively I’d rather a midfielder chasing back with a player than a defender having to continuously break the line to meet him. Defenders being pulled out cause confusion and allow pockets of space for strikers in the few seconds it takes to regain shape.
Biton is poor in this regard, not just last night but in Europe in general and often in the SPL, he’s lazy at tracking back and it costs us against even decent teams.
At times last night I thought we’re playing better here than we have against them in the past, and that was half the problem, we were trying to play. Some may say it’s to be applauded but it’s extremely naive. We aren’t good enough to press them all over (although I’d have probably rathered an all out approach) but we were somewhere between letting them come forward then making the space extremely compact and playing our normal game. Half measures don’t work in Europe.
Gamboa it would be unfair to judge (where was the pace though) but De Vries I’m sorry to say isn’t good enough. Gordon is not perfect but he’s a good shot stopper. Goals 1, 3 and 6 I reckon Gordon would have saved, or at the very least come close to. Goals 1 and 6 it looked like we were back to the Rab Douglas days of ducking under the ball.
At least 2 of the goals I believe were a result of having too many bodies in defence to the extent that nobody was sure who was going to pick up Messi when he moved to the channel.
Rodgers has to take responsibility for it but there’s a few players who really have to have a look at themselves.
AWE_NAW_NO_ANNONI_OAN_ANAW_NOO
You don’t believe Brendan is here to build a team???
And as I’m sure has been said dozens of times by others. We’ve needed a DM since Wanyama left – 7 windows ago I’m sure I ready – what possible excuse is there for not having one???
Hogmany derby at Ibrox. That’ll end well…
Incidentally I am not sure if Ricky can Wolfswinkle, and I don’t event want to see him try.
BlantyreKev
I always thought he had the potential to. Don’t think he ever did though….
;)