The Zenit System: To Little Bang For Our Bucks In The SPL?
I’ve seen Celtic midfielders that were comprised of bruisers, and they went through Scottish teams like a dose of salts.
Our manager wants to play football, which is why it was so pleasing that the side we put out at Celtic Park on Thursday did so well, and played such a good attacking game, despite lacking the kind of creative drive we appeared to have at the weekend.
But the problem at the weekend was the lack of a team who could battle it out.
The midfield three against Zenit were all more defensively minded, hard-tackling grafters who they couldn’t cope with and didn’t expect; Brown, Ntcham and Eboue.
We switched to a more attacking system later on; by that time we had run them ragged.
Had that midfield three been available at the weekend – Brown was suspended and Ntcham was ill – I think we might have run the St Johnstone midfield to the point of collapse and we certainly would not so easily have been pushed off the ball.
There are other SPL teams – like that abject Hamilton team – who you can play an expansive attacking game against. Others require more brawn than brains, more grit than genius. Brendan knows that, which is why he’s signed Ntcham.
By the way … this pays no need to where we’d play Nir Bitton.
This is all about trusting the boss. He knows what he’s doing. I know he got criticism for the team selection at the weekend, but with two of our key players unavailable above and beyond the injury list we have no idea what team he would have picked had he been able.
McManus is a clown because the weekend wasn’t an example of squad depth not getting a result; it was an example of the absence of squad depth, of a manager being forced into a tactical choice which had nothing to do with picking and choosing but was all about necessity.