I don’t think individual mistakes occur in isolation for the most part. It’s a cheap cop out for Lennon (if he has) or whoever to attribute the defeat to that.
As I’ve said repeatedly, the team is loose and lacks cohesion. We no longer place an emphasis on possession as Lennon wants to get the ball forward quicker. We’re not moving in unison with and without the ball. The ball is being sent up the park and coming back down again. There’s a disconnect between defence and attack and we lack a solid shape and structure. It’s often when players are isolated and out of position that these “individual mistakes” occur. It’s also exposing the likes of Brown who’s starting to look past it.
It’s fine scoring 5 at Motherwell when they score 2 and waste lots of promising positions when the midfield has been dragged all over the place. In Scotland the talent Celtic have on the pitch will largely overcome any tactical or structural deficiencies. But even a modest enough but well drilled side like Cluj exposed us last night.
He had 3/4 chances to sort it out. Before the game, at half time, at 2-1 up and at 3-2 up.
What are they doing with all the money being generated from selling likes of Tierney dembele and van dijk?? I thought rangers were fcuked for cash too? They’ll go all in to stop the 10 either way and deal with consequences after… Can’t believe celtic haven’t gone all out to achieve this…
I agree completely. I do think Ajer for example needs more coaching and developing, because he has good attributes but makes plenty of the same mistakes repeatedly. But it’s not just about individuals, it’s about the shape as much as anything.
They played the same way in both legs - they know we let the full backs run on and so they shifted their attackers out wide behind the full backs and they had long passes nearly always on to those attackers in both games. Brown is supposed to drop back when the full backs go forward with the centre backs pushing wider but that doesn’t look anywhere near as organised as it used to.
McGregor hasn’t started the season particularly well but he’s an intelligent footballer and is probably better at ensuring we have a good midfield discipline than Ntcham. Of course Ntcham wasn’t awful and probably deserved his place, but instead of Brown being phased out of the team, it was decided to drop the left back and move everyone around.
For the last goal Brown is very slack again. He’s right beside the chap who takes the shot when the ball is first played forward and just doesn’t track his run properly.
Elhamed then has the striker outside of him as he has been all game but he lets him 3 or 4 yards further forward. And Elhamed doesn’t really react at all to the shot whereas the striker gambles on Bain fucking up. Bain obliges of course.
He has been surprisingly one of our better players so far. Think he should have done better for the third goal but was the best of our defence last night.
