Continuity from the weekend. I didn’t think McCowan was great against St Mirren. Did well for the first and third goals but he was too advanced for much of the game and wasn’t helping build the attacks from deeper. Engels was much more productive and has shown some sustained decent form now recently.
I expect some of those (Idah, McCowan) would drop out for a bigger game but maybe this is the new first choice team after the capitulation at Ibrox.
Kuhn hasn’t started. Yang is out there instead.
Engels has been pretty good so far.
Mmmmmmaaaaaaeeeeddddaaaaa
Maaaaeeeedddddaaaaaa
Complete control in that half.
Could have maybe created more chances but feel they’ll come with the way we’ve moved them around. Engels has been really bright. He’s a terrific crosser of the ball and his off the ball runs have been excellent.
Any word on Kuhn?
Just saw him holding his thigh there. Didn’t look too serious.
Clancy has taken up some great defensive positions for them. He has been man marking McGregor when we’re building up at the back and then when we get forward he’s always there at the edge of the D disrupting our passing.
Hhhaaaatttaasaattttteeeeee
Haaaaaattttttaaaatttteeeee
Kinda lost their way for a large part of that second half. Lost the rhythm & didn’t create much. It wasn’t that United caused many problems but they came into the game & had a few set pieces. I think it showed how reliant Celtic are on Kuhn. Again I was hoping Yang produced something tangible for his own confidence & he was lively in the first half. But he didn’t really look like he would create or score a goal & he dropped off quite a bit in the third quarter before going off. I thought the centre backs were strong & dependable & Engels was impressive. The second goal was nicely worked & it prevented a nervous ending to the game.
Even in the first half Yang was going by players well but he never really seems to strike the ball properly. He plays really slow and soft passes and then his crosses are invariably just played along the ground. Most of the time though he just dribbles and flicks the ball away to someone.
Definitely lacking at least one wide player. McCowan looked lost out there and Palma is a few levels off what’s needed.
But we were good in the first half today and battled well when we needed to before the second goal finished it off.
Yeah he’s accumulated a lot of appearances (mainly off the bench in fairness) but he’s barely had any goal involvements. He’s not improving as much as you’d like from these appearances & we were short in the wide areas with Kuhn & Forest missing. What did you make of Idah? There wasn’t a lot of space for him to operate with Celtic forcing them back for the entire first half & two banks of five essentially in place. But he’s just not ruthless & instinctive enough for me.
He just seems too often to be unluckily in the wrong place for me. He’s often just not quite on the end of crosses. In fairness Kyogo has been like that too recently but I think he just doesn’t have that instinctive movement that gets him chances and he’s often flat footed in the box.
Maybe that can improve. If I recall correctly @Monkey_Allen wasnt much of a striker when we signed him for TFK AFC. He was almost @Fran esque in his sluggishness but there was a player in there once we worked on his technique and his work ethic and now he has the trophies to show for it.
That’s exactly what I’m getting at. The amount of balls drilled/fizzed across the six yard box in recent games where he hasn’t managed to force his way in front of the defender…I mentioned before his game awareness is lacking &, although they will improve with coaching & games, I fear he just doesn’t have enough instinctive ability to read situations, see things developing & move into position quickly to get on the end of things.
I would say his link up play was a bit better today.
He has had games like Kilmarnock and Motherwell away (as a sub) last season where he’s been good at all aspects of his game including getting across the defender in the box but not this season. One thing he does have in his favour is he seems fairly nerveless when he does get a clear chance. But that’s not much use when he’s not getting (m)any in the first place.
He looks like a player who has all the requirements to be great, but is a bit, well, lazy. He lacks the desperation of a great player.
You insensitive prick
