Lewandowski has been some cunt for the last 30 mins. Delighted to see him lose.
Thanks for explaining the offside rule there John :rolleyes:
Far too many poor performers there tonight.
Forster was good. Centre backs week decent, Lustig put in a decent shift but hit a couple of poor crosses. Izzy looked like a red card from the start but made some good tackles in fairness.
Holding pair looked slow and uncertain - both should have stopped the move for the goal at source. Forrest had a couple of flashes near the end but way too quiet. Sammy was poor. Didn’t track his man, couple of lazy fouls and missed some simple passes. Commons had one or two moments but was generally really wasteful. Stokes was ok, some decent touches and couldn’t understand him being replaced.
Pukki looked decent when he came on, not much of a consolation but he looked comfortable. Neither of the other 2 subs had any impact.
Some of the goals WE score are outstanding says Liam about Arsenal
@Rudi[/USER] typically, and even @[USER=1]Rocko too surprisingly, called it all wrong at half time. Their lead goal was absolutely waiting to happen on the balance of play. Our keeper and back four were really, really good tonight. And the problems were from that point on. In fairness Van Dijk is a top, top player and a significant upgrade on Wilson. Beside him, Ambrose was our best player yet again in a European encounter.
But, as I say, we suffered outside of that. In fairness, we’re not as good a side as last year. Granted Brown is suspended but we’ve a Wanyama shaped hole in midfield and Kayal-Mulgrew is quite a downgrade. And then there’s Hooper - what a miss he’s been. I don’t have any issue with Stokes being taken off - he was excellent at stages this season but his displays have tailed off lately - and, correct me if I’m wrong, he hasn’t scored in any of the 10 European games so far this season.
We couldn’t leave all attackers on so naturally someone has to go off if we’re bringing on Boerrigter and Pukki. I thought our effort couldn’t be questioned tonight. We battled like fuck but we weren’t good enough.
Ledley for Stokes at half time was the sub and that’s my quibble with Lennon. He didn’t shore it up and go 4-3-3 when we we’d been shedding water throughout the first half.
I’ve never noticed his bias so much before. Tonight he said ‘we’ every time
Bill trying to clamp the shit out of Dunphy on the Keane issue at the moment. Dunphy put him back in his box.
Is he not involved with the academy? As well as playing and coaching with them for years?
No longer head of academy, but I dont see any issue with him saying “we”, the man is steeped in Arsenal, has bias, but overall doesn’t let it cloud him too much. Given the two fellas beside him, its not the biggest issue you’d have.
We had Commons blowing out of his arse after 60 minutes in a game he was contributing nothing in and we had Samaras having a really poor game, both these players should have been subbed before Stokes. Mulgrew is not a central midfielder as was shown tonight.
Lennon putting Samaras up front when we have two perfectly able strikers on the bench just sums up what a cowardly and negative coach Lennon is. His need to fit players in the side, anywhere - as long as he can fit them in - is getting sickening at this stage. Mulgrew should play in defence and Samaras should play on the wide left or at the a comprise give him a free role. Playing a guy who likes to play anywhere but through the middle up front on his own is nonsensical stuff.
Oh I don’t mind it at all. Just never heard him like that before
Oh lets ask John what its like to be Irish manager again as he’s so familiar with it, 30 fooking years ago.
I’d rather watch this than comedy its so ridiculous.
[quote=“Mac, post: 857104, member: 109”]Oh lets ask John what its like to be Irish manager again as he’s so familiar with it, 30 fooking years ago.
I’d rather watch this than comedy its so ridiculous.[/quote]
It’s actually funnier than Après match ever was. The only way to parody the lads at this stage would be to do a skit of them doing some actual analysis
[quote=“Rudi, post: 857102, member: 1052”]We had Commons blowing out of his arse after 60 minutes in a game he was contributing nothing in and we had Samaras having a really poor game, both these players should have been subbed before Stokes. Mulgrew is not a central midfielder as was shown tonight.
Lennon putting Samaras up front when we have two perfectly able strikers on the bench just sums up what a cowardly and negative coach Lennon is. His need to fit players in the side, anywhere - as long as he can fit them in - is getting sickening at this stage. Mulgrew should play in defence and Samaras should play on the wide left or at the a comprise give him a free role. Playing a guy who likes to play anywhere but through the middle up front on his own is nonsensical stuff.[/quote]
Samaras is our talisman away from home and has delivered playing upfront and out wide, you bluffing cretin. We actually replaced Commons too. You’re a smelly, repeat shirt wearing, Games of Thrones loving, cunt. You know nothing about football. Shut the fuck up. Cunt.
@The Wild Colonial Bhoy - you’re a cunt too.
[quote=“Bandage, post: 857173, member: 9”]Samaras is our talisman away from home and has delivered playing upfront and out wide, you bluffing cretin. We actually replaced Commons too. You’re a smelly, repeat shirt wearing, Games of Thrones loving, cunt. You know nothing about football. Shut the fuck up. Cunt.
@The Wild Colonial Bhoy - you’re a cunt too.[/quote]
I love Samaras but he is not a striker and should not be played there. He was also poor last night and deserved to be taken off before Stokes as did Commons. Lennon made some horrible decisions on the bench last night, I think Celtic could do with a more progressive manager who is tactically aware and is accountable for his actions and decisions.
Your words of hateful revere don’t really need any rebuttal from me. We all know that I will always be a Romanista and you never were or never will be.
I’m torn between my two buddies @Rudi[/USER] and @[USER=9]Bandage here.
I think that was our worst performance in the group stages so far this year - probably equivalent to Benfica away last season, though at least we had more attacking threat then. However, I don’t think we were completely outplayed or anything. Ajax had more of the ball but that’s therir gameplan. As learned readers of analytics blogs like 11Tegen11 will know, Ajax have had real difficulty in converting possession into shots with a high scoring likelihood, and the same was true last night.
There were a mixture of short-term and long-term problems last night.
Short-term:
[LIST]
[*]Samaras was awful. That was a dreadful performance, it wasn’t just poor execution, he made no effort and indulged himself. I’m a big admirer of Sammy but he should have been taken off last night.
[*]Substitution decisions were poor. Commons was both rusty and lacking fitness. He did improve his game in the second half of the first half but he was done by the hour. We responded well initially to conceding but then seemed to surrender around 70 minutes and that wasn’t helped by having tired legs out there.
[*]Taking Stokes off was another poor decision. We lack a natural goalscorer so we can’t afford to take off the most natural one we have. He may not have scored in Europe this season but he won the penalty against Ajax at Celtic Park as well as his decisive late contribution against Karagandy. He deserved to stay on and have an opportunity to win the game. Samaras and Commons were certainly worse.
[]Not starting Ledley was also a poor choice. He’s better than both Mulgrew and Kayal in midfield. They were both ponderous and uncertain in pressing their midfield, and neither used the ball particularly well.
[/LIST]
Longer term problems:
[LIST]
[]Stokes and Samaras are not a good partnership. This was evident last season too when Stokes & Hooper worked well as did Samaras & Hooper but never Stokes & Samaras. Irrespective of whether you think Hooper was great or shit, he was able to forge a partnership with both those players and they’ve been consistently poorer when played together. It doesn’t help that they both want to hang left, that neither wants to spend much time in the box and that Stokes wants to play 1-2s all the time while Sammy wants to keep the ball himself and run at defenders.
[*]We have replaced Ki and Wanyama in our midfield with Rogic and Biton. In other words they haven’t been replaced. Biton should hopefully show enough in time to come into the team but we are left with a gaping hole in midfield at the moment that’s even more acute when Brown can’t play. If our strategy is to buy low and sell high then we need to have replacements brought in before they are needed. Wanyama took a year to grow into an indispensable starter, we can’t replace him with a youngster who is asked to step into the team straight away. Just because we’ve had successes in some purchases of young players doesn’t mean that will always be the case. We need to accept that not every player we buy will be a stud, if we have a pressing gap now we either need to buy an established replacement, or 2 prospects.
[/LIST]
Celtic were nothing short of atrocious last night
That is all
Commons put Stokes through for a strike on goal in the second half and also played the brilliant first time pass that put Forrest away for our main chance to level. He was later taken off but I’d no issue with him remaining on ahead of Stokes. The manager’s mistake was not shoring up the midfield earlier.
The manager’s mistake was going out and playing for a draw