A game that will reignite Celtic’s title challenge/defence, practically confirm Sevco as champions or keep things on hold for a while.
Some incoherent musings:
I’m dubious about this Celtic team being good and/or tough enough to win there, even without a baying mob of 50k orange bastards in the stands. An indictment on Celtic’s custodians that it’s come to this, but alas we are where we are.
2020 was an odd year for Celtic. Sealing the shortened 2019/20 league title early on and before Christmas winning the delayed 2020 cup final to secure a 12th straight domestic trophy.
But a whole series of capitulations and embarrassments too, particularly since the 2020/21 season began. Humbled by lowly Ferencvaros in the early round CL qualifiers, conceding the most goals in Europe in the Europa League group stages, including 8 against Sparta Prague in back to back fixtures. Losing to Ross County in the League Cup and not registering a shot on goal in losing the first derby at home to the huns.
Celtic seem psychologically weak and that could be found out at Ibrox. It was even apparent in the winning cup final, throwing away 2-0 and 3-2 leads and relying on penalties. In fairness, the huns have comfortably been the better side in recent derbies. They are actually coached with and without the ball. A basic defensive shape with some coordinated pressing has pretty much stopped Celtic from building up from the back and progressing the ball through midfield - hence no shots in the last derby.
The converse is that Celtic aren’t properly coached and rely on the instinct of talented players. Lennon stumbled upon a new formation in the dead rubber Europa League victory against Lille, and he belatedly gave new players a chance. Celtic have looked better in the 4-4-2 diamond with Soro at the base of midfield and Turnbull pushing on. It’s also allowed the Edouard/Griffiths partnership from last season to be rekindled. That’s essentially an example of good players just linking up well based on instinct and intelligence.
It remains to be seen if this set up works against the huns. It leaves us a bit exposed out wide, with the narrow midfield and they usually attack from the flanks via their full backs. But it should give them something else to think about in terms of us having plenty of bodies in midfield to work passes and combinations.
All in all, I don’t have that much confidence ahead of tomorrow but that may change after an Iraoke tonight.
Bullet points please:
Celtic have stumbled upon more suitable personnel and formation recently;
Huns are now an organised and solid unit;
Celtic need to show some backbone and not roll over, but I wouldn’t have faith in them coming back if they concede first;
Let’s see what happens if Celtic’s big players come to play, a lot of them missed the last derby with Covid.
Surely if nothing else Soro offers Celtic fans a chance to rob sunshine on leith off hibs…my heart was broken , soro soro soro…
This is an awful game for Celtic…rangers are very good at locking in against teams in Europe who need a win…rangers 3 Celtic 0 morales to finally score
I’m a little more optimistic than you but perhaps without cause. I don’t believe Celtic aren’t coached or organised at all. Not starting a Lennon debate now (mostly because I think he shouldn’t be in this job) but you don’t stumble your way to topping a Europa League group as we did last year just by relying solely on players with no instructions.
Having said that we have been really poor tactically this year and far too slow to recognise problems and seemingly devoid of ideas once an opponent has our shape figured out.
But the diamond has offered us at least a chance to get more bodies in midfield and with the emergence of Soro we are at least more difficult to play through the middle of. Against weaker opposition that’s been fine because they’re just trying to pack those central areas against us anyway but the huns will be confident in their width obviously and will look at that as an obvious area to attack.
The overlapping full backs are a concern, plus they have strikers who like drifting wide and then the likes of Kent who can start wide and then bring a full back inside and now their full backs have oceans of space to run onto. McGregor can at least try and hold the left hand side a bit more, but Christie on the right isn’t really disciplined enough to play much of a defensive role in blocking off those runs.
Our best tactic is really to keep their full backs pinned back by how we attack them. We look likely to have two strikers so they won’t want to leave their centre backs isolated in 2v2. Plus we have a bit of attacking threat from our energetic full backs and McGregor and Christie breaking forward in those channels.
My big hope for tomorrow is that Edouard slowly coming into form takes a big step forward tomorrow and dominates the game. He’s still the most talented player in either squad, he took his goal well on Wednesday and if we can get him decent possession, and have Griffiths there to stop them doubling up on him every time, then he can be our (border) fox in the henhouse.
Edouard to score thrice in a 0-3 romp for the Irishmen.
