Very average.
Shocking to get hammered against a fairly average side who barely had to get out of 2nd gear.
You told us a while ago that Lustig was not a major problem, he is the biggest liability in the Celtic squad. Put on a pair of objective specs for once.
Celtic have now turned in 5 absolutely horrendous performances in the CL and EL this season. Rodgers talks a good game but he doesn’t deliver on it, the build up is way too slow, the performances of a number of key players has dropped significantly this season, he has not addressed problem positions, you could argue he has not been backed by his board - but if so he should be calling them out on it.
Don’t agree with that. Think it’s a pattern at this stage and it’s not really acceptable given it happens against elite teams and more modest outfits. Individual errors, lack of responsibility, weak mentality, flat performance collectively - think it’s all relevant and interlinked. The lack of resilience is startling, as this list of early goals below indicates. The failure to sign a commanding first choice centre back hurt us again. The keeper situation has needed improvement too for a while.
1 Like
Weird, obviously I’ve got it wrong somehow but that post reads like you disagreed with @Rocko 
2 Likes
Your patrolling of the forum is very entertaining these days, mate.
I agree that there’s a pattern. I just don’t think we necessarily capitulated tonight all over the pitch. We probably played better in the first half than away to Anderlecht for example but this was stronger opposition and our mistakes were more costly.
We definitely start games poorly. I’m not sure it was actually the case tonight though. We’d been fine until the first goal. Which wasn’t very long admittedly. But there’s definitely a resilience issue when we do concede and panic sets in. What was most frustrating tonight was the second goal. We just seemed to be establishing ourselves again and that happened. No pressure or anything. And you could see players looking visibly rattled afterwards. It’s a young team but they do need to be able to step up better than that.
We were far from excellent tonight but I think some players acquitted themselves well (Ntcham and Forrest in particular), some were absolutely fine (Ajer, Tierney, Brown), some weren’t great but not hopeless by any stretch (McGregor and Kouassi). Then we had our sub keeper who was brutal. Simunovic who has proven over the past 3 months that he’s not good enough (but he’s playing because of injury to Boyata), Lustig who does need replacing and Dembele who was almost as bad tonight as he was good in Glasgow, though he actually started well
Our recruitment problems aren’t simply about money. We can’t really have expected to have a better goalkeeper than Dr Vries as our sub keeper. Who is going to want to be sub keeper at Celtic? Someone fairly shite unfortunately. Could we have brought someone in during January? Maybe. But who. What’s the list of affordable goalkeepers better than De Vries, who was apparently excellent in the English Championship, who haven’t played in Europe this season and are interested in moving to Scotland? And we already have Gordon who isn’t outstanding but not far off the required level.
I said last summer and again in the latest window that we need to buy more versatile defenders too. Lustig was appalling. But we aren’t going to attract top quality full backs that are the finished article. It’s the same as the left back need. We need cover for Tierney. Nobody will come to Scotland to sit on the bench though. It’s not easy to build and enhance the squad.
I don’t know what commanding centre backs want to join Celtic. I’d hope the prospect of working with Rodgers might help attract players but it seems to have a limited effect. We have Hendry and Commper who might be better than what we have and Boyata who is better than Simunovic but still not good enough.
So going for Musonda and Roberts makes some sense. And Kouassi as a project didn’t look great a few months ago but he’s looking better now. Ntcham looks to be a fine player.
A bad night for Irish sport.
Abject failure for Glasgow Celtic
Hard luck lads. I’m sure Brendan will turn this around and lead ye to SPL glory.
Kult of Rodgers.
1 Like
Rodgers brought De Vries to the club. He brought this fanny in as first choice keeper but in his few outings he has made some horrific errors and looks like a bombscare for 2 years now. He has presided with Lustig for four transfer windows when it’s clear as day the guy is not up to if we want to progress at European level.
It’s a bit silly absolving the manager of blame when these are two players he has shown great faith in but are clearly not up to it. If the board are the reason he’s not able to upgrade him, then it’s time for him to call them out on it.
What’s happened?
Scroll up.
Tadhg Furlong out for Saturday
3 Likes
There are no Irish players involved in the Europa League Round of 32 as far as I know
2 Likes
Go boil your head.
News to Kieran Tierney
3 Likes
Even if you do believe that Celtic are an Irish club despite their home stadium being in Glasgow, a team that has no Irish players in their starting 11 or substitutes being knocked out of Europe is not a bad day for Irish sport
Is Brendan Rodgers not Irish?