Presume Celtic will play 4-1-2-3 as they’ve been doing for the last good while. There’s a bit of a misconception that they’re playing with 2 holding midfielders and Armstrong as #10 with Rogic out but Bitton’s been holding with Brown (narrow right) playing alongside Armstrong (narrow left) in front of him.
As I see it, there are four selection questions for the manager:
Lustig or Gamboa;
Sviatchenko or Simunovic to partner Boyata;
Roberts or the fit again Forrest;
Retain Bitton as the holder/controller or move Brown into that role and bring in McGregor to play in the “two ahead” with Armstrong (second option was our set up at Ibrox).
I’m discounting the possibility of Eboue starting based on his limited game time so far. I’m not sure what I’d go with myself.
Sevco are reported to be on the verge of announcing Pedro Caixinha (Peter Little Box?) as their new coach. He’s currently managing in Qatar and did a stint with Santos Laguna in Mexico before that. The latter have a link up with Celtic and there’s a tweet clip from 2015 doing the rounds where he’s congratulating his Celtic brothers for winning the league. Sevco have Kiernan and Garner suspended for Sunday.
Gordon
Lustig Simunovic Boyata Tierney
Bitton
Brown Armstrong
Roberts Dembele Sinclair
I’m more comfortable with Simunovic than Sviatchenko. And Lustig is still much better than Gamboa, though the latter is improving.
One thing worth remembering is that Rodgers is big on finishing the game strongly and likes to keep a game changer on the bench. Maybe Griffiths is that guy but he could be persuaded to start Forrest and bring Roberts on.
There’s always the possibility of a freak result in football and Brendan needs to guard against complacency or lack of intensity given the point gap, but Celtic should be trampling all over that team.
I think it’s a case of whatever way they want to take their poison. Murty thinks it’s their best team but playing a two-man centre midfield away from home against Celtic’s three seems to be asking for trouble, especially with a weak centre back pairing behind them. I think you’ll see Armstrong breaking through behind their midfield and exposing their defence. Same with Sinclair coming inside from the left wing to take the ball infield and get running at their centre backs.
They’ve selected two right backs as they’re shit scared of Tierney and Sinclair rampaging down the left but then seem to be showing attacking ambition elsewhere by shoehorning a few attacking players into a system that doesn’t suit. That should leave plenty of space for Celtic to exploit. I say picking their poison because I don’t think they’re good enough defensively to camp out in their own third for the entire game without conceding a few.
I’d love to see Halliday get a run out. I imagine they’ll ask Waghorn to run around barging into Bitton or whoever to try and make it a 2v2 in midfield but with out full backs and centre backs stepping forward I don’t think that will work well for them anyway.
I also think the two right back things will kill them. As you say, the Tierney and Sinclair combination is a big threat but it’s more about Sinclair coming infield and Armstrong making runs etc. They’ll need to get one of those guys tracking inside if they want to try and cut out that threat and they’d have been better off doing that with a more traditional holding player you’d think.
Exactly. They’re not good enough to go man for man in certain parts of the pitch and zonal in others. I think the Celtic players’ movement will drag them around and ultimately make them look very ragged. Celtic have a decent set piece threat too with 4 or 5 bhoys capable of attacking the ball well in the air. I have a sneaky feeling that Boyata will score for us today.
