Another Bad Day At The Office?

Today was another one of those days. Another day of uninspiring football. Another day when this team looked decidedly ordinary.

We started without Griffiths and Commons, both of whom are injured.

Bad enough.

Throw in injuries to two players in the first half – introducing Ambrose to the mix – and the recipe for disaster is bubbling away nicely.

Disaster was everted here.

Two points were dropped instead of three.

Aberdeen’s failure yesterday means it cost us nothing … but that’s part of the problem, isn’t it?

We get away with so many days like today, because our rivals are just as bad.

Woe betide us when someone can string together a run of wins against us.

Cause at times we are awful, with a shocking suicidal tendency that is woven into this side like red through a stick of rock.

Add to that some baffling decision making … and wow.

Today’s big moment; the substitution of Rogic, shortly after he had fired us into the lead, to bring on a third attacking midfield player, Gary Mackay Steven.

What was the objective? What was the purpose?

Not to hold onto the lead, because in those circumstances it makes no sense at all.

To chase a third goal? With ten minutes left?

There are times you wonder if Ronny Deila is playing with a full deck.

Cause to me that looked like a change for changes sake.

It fulfilled no purpose other than to put Callum McGregor’s round peg back in the square hole that infuriated so many of us last weekend … and it invited Hearts to come at us.

Their equaliser was a wicked shot from distance, from the set piece … but the set piece itself was a dire consequence of midfield failure, particularly that of Forrest and the game’s invisible man, Stefan Johansen, who, if you were looking to take off a central midfielder at all would have been the sterling candidate any day of the week.

And then there’s Scott Allan, who must be getting sick of the sight of the subs bench.

What that guy has to do to get in our team I do not know.

Today he watched as the injured Armstrong came off and the typically ineffectual Forrest came on; that one we let the manager off with because he was playing Armstrong out wide (not his natural position; this is the kind of thing that drives me nuts) and so it was a like for like swap.

But then there was the Rogic decision that scunnered most of us late in the game.

We have serious problems in the composition of this squad of ours.

Two of Ronny’s most vaunted signings are Armstrong, who sure as Hell he didn’t sign as a winger, and Allan himself.

Those are good players, but they are midfielders, signed for covering an area of the pitch where we didn’t need any further players!

Rogic, Brown, Johansen and Biton were already in the squad.

He signed Mackay Steven to play as a winger, but that has proved so successful that he’s now trying to jam other players into the role.

I’m beyond the point where I’m going to try and work out Deila’s decision making process.

It can be summed up best, I think, by the guy who’s in danger of becoming his benchmark signing, Nadir Ciftci, who may well have been a different player in a two up front system or played out wide (where I actually thought we’d signed him to play) but as a single forward … useless is being kind.

This guy, quite frankly, does not look like a Celtic player in his life.

When he scored a double a few weeks ago, I had hoped he’d crack on and show us something.

Today he was dire.

If he’s been signed to toil as a lone striker he was a waste of money because he’s lost up there on his own.

The manager throws him to the wolves every time he selects him in that position, and it’s becoming painful to watch him there.

Whatever he has, we’re never going to see it if this is where he’s going to play.

The worst thing about this, of course, is that it wasn’t an absolutely dire team performance.

Oh we struggled to pass the ball at times, but that’s become so par for the course I barely even muster the enthusiasm to complain about it any longer.

But we controlled the middle of the park.

Our defence wasn’t exactly put through the ringer (although there was at least one heart-in-the-mouth moment from Efe) although our keeper made some good saves.

Yet even he doesn’t escape the criticism.

The late game equaliser was a fine strike … but he didn’t even move for it, which is either stunning complacency or simply an acknowledgement that he was positioned so far from the post he’d left an acre of room.

The overall feeling after this one isn’t anger; it’s frustration.

This is a team that inflicts punishment on itself, due to slackness and lack of focus.

Today was turgid and unimaginative.

Our only two moments of genuine inspiration came from the midfielders, and they both ended with fantastic goals.

Despite holding the lead twice we’ve dropped points.

A bad day at the office, then?

We have too many, we have way too many, of those these days.