Mulgrew better fucking knock this in.
[quote=āRocko, post: 492116ā]
Ah fuck that. Awful stuff.
Walked past Mulgrew. Good cross in fairness but they had one man there. No fault on Hooiveld who came over when Mulgrew was in trouble but what the fuck was Loovens at? And Cha. Miserable defending from a nothing situation.
[/quote]Are Celtic out of Europe completely now or do they drop into the Europa league?
1-0 Braga - looked poor positioning by Cha Du Ri but decent header
Into qualifiers for the Europa League.
Good chance there for Samaras again.
He was caught out but Loovens is playing right sided centre back and he copied Terryās World Cup positioning and stood way out on the right hand side where there was no danger. Now heās fixing his fucking hair on camera. Fucking prick.
[quote=āRocko, post: 492120ā]
Into qualifiers for the Europa League.
Good chance there for Samaras again.
[/quote]Better off in there anyway itās a realistic tournament to compete in,when Celtic qualified for the CL regulary in the past few seasons the 10 million odd quid for doing so each time was never used to purchase quality players.Ever since that loss to Porto and Henrik leaving itās all gone down hill.
A bit dismissive of Strachanās time there but certainly the investment wasnāt the same as it had been.
I woukdnāt be that optimistic of getting into the EL group stages to be honest. Thatās the problem. Had Celtic won this game weād be guaranteed group stages in one of the competitions.
Very disappointing at the moment. No ambition with the ball. Mulgrew and Cha du Ri do like to get forward but neither are comfortable on the ball. Hooiveld is poor enough with the ball at his feet, and nice and slow, and Loovens is shite at everything.
Ledley has looked after the ball well, Juarez is playing the wrong role - canāt get involved from there. All this to facilitate Brown who has worked his balls off in fairness but what fucking good is that? Maloney has been quietly ineffective and lacking ambition.
Front pair havenāt had much to show for. Hooper doesnāt look great in the air, himself and Sammy have tried to show for it but havenāt received a decent pass all night.
Bring on McCourt to fuck and at least have a go.
Fucking hellā¦ what an aimless āpassā from Loovens. Cunt.
First half analysis:
First of all the system is wrong and the players in it are wrong. The back four has no pace except for one full back who is the most advanced of them. We seem to line up defensively with Mulgrew deepest and Du Ri furthest forward and the two centre halves somewhere in between. The midfield is even more imbalanced. Juarez played excellently in London in a central role and got pass marks in Braga but has been shunted out wide. Inexplicable.
The players within those roles have been fairly poor across the board. Zaluska has made a number of minor errors that might have been disasters. Mulgrew has no idea what to do with the ball if he gets it in any position where a cross or shot isnāt on. Little touches all with his left foot just play him into trouble and he gets caught either with the ball or with a shite pass. Loovens has no concept of what passes to play and is the least natural looking defender Iāve ever seen. Heās afraid of tackling, he takes up terrible positions and never covers his man. A chicken shit cunt who never does the right thing for the team. A black mark on Lennon that he picked him. Cha Du Ri was poor on the goal at the end but Iād need to see a wider angle to see where he started from. It should never have been left to him to defend 60% of the width of the pitch (including the entire penalty area) but he needed to get there. At least heās bombed forward.
Scott Brown has played his best game in a while which means heās marginally our worst midfielder. Clueless on the ball, invariably picks out the wrong pass and then fucks up the execution. Ledley has held onto the ball and looks like he has an idea of how to play in the middle of the park. Could do with a partner though. Juarez is lost out wide. Itās pointless playing him there when weāre chasing the ball. He can protect the full back in a different game in that position but to make an impact tonight he needs to be central. Maloney looks like all his confidence has gone.
Would like to see Hooper a small bit sharper on knock-downs and flicks but he has worked a bit to win the ball back and has been a little unlucky not to get on the end of a few things. Sammy is coming wide and deep to get onto the ball. Need others to do that. Heās working but heās not effective in those areas and too careless with the ball. Should have scored.
I think this is time enough for Lennon to see whatās gone wrong. Thereās absolutely no point in persisting with players who have done nothing for him. He owes Loovens and Brown nothing. I wouldnāt have a huge problem with Brown staying on if McCourt comes on for Maloney or a defender but I think heās the obvious one to come off with Juarez going central. I do think he needs to axe Loovens for the next game though. Just drop him. Anything else is either avoiding the issue, or not seeing it. Both are hugley worrying.
Pretty concerning for a number of reasons really. A horrible goal to lose that should have been defended. Loovens is a terribly poor player and the full backs are very suspect positionally. The defence is simply not good enough and theyāre uncomfortable on the ball too. Theyāve resorted to aimlessly punting it forward, which is not going to work. Maloney isnāt ready to play at this level again yet after missing most of last season - heās not sharp at all and hasnāt looked fully fit in any of the warm up games. Juarez, after having a great game centrally against Arsenal, has been shunted wide right to accommodate Brown and has been largely ineffective. Our inability to get the ball moving through the midfield has been really disappointing save for some decent play by Ledley. Brown has been all action and has done all right at various stages but heās incapable of playing a 4-4-2. Iām giving Samaras and Hooper a break because theyāve been receiving some horrible service. We generally look fairly hapless and it was the inability of anyone in defence to bring the ball out that has prevented us from playing any positive stuff. The fact that it was so easy to force us to resort to long ball crap was disappointing. Same as last week, we need to strengthen in the areas identified and quickly. We had 2 very good players in our team last season and neither of them are not going to be around this season. We need to reinvest. My 6-1 prediction is still on course.
Nearly the same as I posted simultaneously above.
Iām a bit worried by the fact Lennon has made the decisions he has to be honest. Itās fucking deeply frustrating to see the standard of player out there and guys being moved around to facilitate imposters.
We started brightly enough until they sat in and then we just decided we werenāt able to pass it around or through them so just lumped it instead!
Yes. Loovens is a complete imposter. Lennon needs to take all this on board and react accordingly. The team selection and formation hasnāt worked at all and it hasnāt been a surprise - we raised issues with it pre game.
Mulgrew hooked, Ledley to left back, Juarez into the centre and FortunƩ wide right. 1 sub leads to 3 or 4 positional changes. The new midfield signing shunted to left back in his second competitive game. Hmmmmmm.
Also our best player in the first half probably. But fuck that, heās left footed so move him away and try a new partner with Brown!
Well done FortunƩ and Hooper. At least a bit of ambition with the ball. Crap defending a couple of minutes ago.
Good play by FortunƩ and nice to see Hooper getting in there to finish.
Fucking hell Loovens you fucking cunt.
Hooiveldās displays in his first real run of games have been fairly concerning too. McCourt for Maloney please.
Maloney looks fucked now anyway. So McCourt the obvious one to come on.
Hooiveld is very casual altogether alright.