I missed today’s disastrous result & performance, as I was enjoying a terrific spectacle in The Bord Gais Energy Theatre. This new adaptation of Charlie & The Chocolate Factory really brought the old Roald Dahl favourite to life in a magical way.
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Heart of Midlothian never feared Glasgow Celtic.
I thought the first half of said production was on a par with today’s Celtic performance. Insipid and bland.
Rodgers has come out fairly strongly criticising the mentality and passive attitudes in performance.
Our desire and the mentality right from the off was nowhere near the level of a Celtic team," Rodgers said. "Very passive, and lacked fluidity.
"The game started a little bit slow, but our ability to keep the ball in the final third and create wasn’t quite there.
"Then, we got outdone very naively from a corner. The second goal was a fantastic free-kick, but, when you look at the build-up and what led to the free-kick, it was so passive it was frightening.
"It is a real, real sore one. For the first time I have been here, over my two periods, I would have to apologise to the supporters - because that level is nowhere near the standard of performances required at Celtic. Nowhere near it.
“That lack of consistency and mentality and desire, it is way, way off what this club demands. You’re sat there in mid-December with 60,000 in and that’s how you perform. It is not acceptable.”
The Celtic manager absolved the “brilliant” Callum McGregor from blame along with Liam Scales and Matt O’Riley and added: "I can’t say I am surprised. I have seen performance level (dip) and (am) having to activate. When you are having to do that all the time then that is a worry.
"You can’t keep having to go into expletives, you need to find the solution and the ambition as a player to come into these games after a midweek game, after a good performance in the Champions League, you need to come into the game and produce the level.
"It always starts for me against the ball and when it’s so passive and you are not aggressive enough, that for me is always your desire and how much you want to win the game.
“Sadly for us that then goes on to the side when you have the ball and it just wasn’t good enough.”
Do you know what? I said the same to our group, I thought the first half was below par but I thought the second half was absolutely unreal to such an extent that it was an overwhelming triumph all told. I don’t read books or watch films so I wasn’t familiar with the story beforehand, but I thought it was outstanding fare.
That’s
His
Fcuking
Job
It is. Hence his apology I guess.
I have some sympathy for how the players performed for him today. I think it’s too easy to say things like he “broke” Kyogo. Kyogo missed an absolute sitter today. And didn’t look like confident at all.
There is a real lack of attacking talent in the team. There aren’t selection issues you’d point to which suggest we’re ignoring better players. But we are starting a winger we didn’t really want in the squad and a centre back we didn’t want in the squad either. A midfielder in Turnbull who Rodgers seemed to exclude completely after a poor 45 minutes recently but we don’t have another option there.
For a few years we’ve had a problem of having too much deadweight in the squad. Unfortunately some of them are now playing in the team. And some more talented players don’t seem to have the winning attitude required. And that’s not all on the manager either.
None of which is to say Rodgers is absolved of blame. I’d prefer he started Oh and Kyogo today because we know the limitations of Turnbull. I don’t think Bernabei is the answer to any problem and I can’t see him featuring again. But that can’t have been a surprise.
But I don’t know how to solve the wing problems with the players we have.
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He said the same last weekend pretty much word for word, and yet here we are.
There seems to be no joy around the club at present. Disinterested and disjointed. Most changes to the team appear to have been on his watch, and he should take responsibility.
Jota leaving wasn’t his call. Nor Starfelt leaving.
I think he’s more pissed off today. I’m hoping it’s the catalyst for proper investment to follow because he’s clearly identifying players who can’t hack it.
But you’re right on the general disharmony. There is unrest with the Lawwells and the GB situation and the lack of quality on the park. I don’t know how much of that is fixed by a couple of good signings.
What’s the short version of the GB exclusion?
They are a relatively recent phenomenon who have been sailing slightly close to the wind. They caused unease at board level because they caused unease with the broadcasters. They became a known unknown.
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Jota bit us true, but an awful lot of players are regressing under BR individually, and the team certainly is.
If the Celtic board had half the ambition of the sevco board we would not be in this position.
We are bound to go on a run at some point, but it seems joyless at present compared to last season.
It’s not the recent draws and defeats, or even wins, it’s the manner of them. You wouldn’t turn on the TV to watch the style of football (whatever it is).
AP>>BR
Absolutely there has been a big drop off in individual and collective performances.
But I’d say of those who have regressed some are not entirely unexpected.
Taylor is just regressing to the actual player he is. He was much better under Ange but managed to avoid many defensive responsibilities and often played behind Taylor
AJ’s drop off is more concerning though he’s still defending quite well for the most part.
O’Riley has played better this year than under Postecoglou.
Kyogo has definitely disimproved. I don’t think it’s isolated to him individually. I think we struggle to get the ball to him in any space. In his first year defences left room behind and we could play the ball there but even last year teams had copped onto that a bit. And we were relying more on a Giakoumakis type for a while because teams defended deeper. I do think he might be better playing behind a striker sometimes because we need him coming from depth. His movement isn’t effective if he’s dodging between 3 big centre backs in a 5 yard radius.
I don’t think either manager ever wanted to play Mikey. Same with Scales who has coped well but you can see his limitations when teams play the ball over his head.
McGregor doesn’t look as good this season. Rodgers said yesterday he was covering for other players and there’s probably some truth in that. But he was helped last year by having the inverted full backs beside him which maybe meant he wasn’t playing defensive midfielder by himself. Now Taylor is still doing that a bit but he’s been hopeless there and leaving spaces at left back and inside. So that tactical shift hasn’t helped. But I think European teams brushed past Taylor in a holding role anyway. It just helped us look more solid domestically.
I think teams in Scotland were getting better at coping with Ange last season and I think teams in Europe found us easy to play against. If you wanted to be very harsh you’d say he was better at being a flat track bully than Rodgers. But even if that’s the case that’s a large part of what’s required to be successful in Scotland.
I wouldn’t be in any way jealous of the “ambition” of the Sevco board who are only ever a couple of steps away from disaster. I do think we need to spend more money. But to be honest an awful lot of it needs to be just spent better.
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Saw a tweet where it had all the summer signings and of the 10 of them only 1 started last night.
A shambles
Lawell will get a couple of shitty loan signings in and hope for the best
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On another forum I saw BRs tactics referred to as the horseshoe of boredom/doom and it’s not too far off the mark. Aimless stuff from one side of the pitch to the other and back again. I think a lot of issues will be solved by the return of Hatate but he’s brittle. A playmaker to spot Kyogos runs would help enormously. I’d push scales to left back if no one comes in. Taylor knows there’s no competition and is playing that way. A quality keeper, centre back, left back and playmaker are needed in January but I don’t have confidence in BR OR Lawell Sr and Jr to recruit competently. Hopefully Aberdeen do the business today and with the caveat that there’s half a season to go but Celtic seem intent on handing the Orcs a huge financial lifeline through cup and league success.
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I think that there is a staleness at the club, which was pushed to the corners by the effervescence of AP, but has settled back in. Nothing has changed apart from AP since the seismic shift brought in by Martin O Neill. O Neill was the recruitment of a top manager at the peak of his powers. I truly believe that he brought the club to the top of the hill, and it has essentially cruised downhill ever since. I pay absolutely no mind to any records broken whilst sevco were hobbled. They are meaningless. The only record that might have meant something was the ten in a row, simply because the huns were back to the mean, but lawell and co crumbled in the face of even that mediocre challenge. We’ve been poor in Europe, and were simply lucky that Ange Postecoglu turned out as he did.
I would caveat this with the fact that we lost out on Eddie Howe, who we’d never get now, and who may (just may) have hung around for more than a season because he wasn’t on the escalator that AP was.
Lawell strikes me as having zero interest in on field success. He cares about making a profit. I suspect he’d prefer to make money and lose to rangers, than make money and win, but most certainly he’d prefer to make money (and bonus) and lose, than lose a few quid and win.
Seville was the season before lawell came in
AP was when lawell was out of the scene
All the other seasons he has been here with no plan or vision
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Yep. Just inertia.
Lawell likes the directors box steak and chips, and the money.
Sin e.
The short of it is that Liewell banned them for leading the Palestinian flag protest
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Its mad how everything on and off the pitch including transfers was going so smoothly for two seasons, until Lawwell raised his ugly head again
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