I thought we were dreadful today.
From the first minute of the game we looked a yard off the pace, a team playing lax passes and struggling to break down the oppositon.
That first half gave Lennon a lot to think about.
Our play was turgid and obvious. Trying to play cross balls into a packed penalty box is one of my pet-hates with this team and it’s a trap we’ve fallen into time and time again. This is where two up front works … and we had opted not to go with a dual striker system going into this match.
The other element that would have troubled Lennon was the performance – or non-performance – of Christopher Jullien who was dreadful, in easily the worst half of football I’ve seen from him since the day and hour he signed for the club.
Tishbola, the Kilmarnock forward, bullied and harassed him all the way through that first half. The errors he was forced into and the ones he simply made started to blend into one another. It was a forgettable performance from him.
But the second half was, in its own way, even worse. Although at no point did we look remotely like we might lose that game, at no point was I convinced that we were going to win it either. To say that we were dreadful out there was an understatement.
Teams who press us have a field day against a central defence that sometimes looks like it lacks the heart for a battle.
The midfield is talented, but lightweight.
How long have we wanted a battling midfield player who can impose his will on a game?
McGregor hasn’t looked himself in a while, and he is a candidate for dropping.
What did we pay money to buy Soro for?
He couldn’t even get on the pitch again today when we were allowed five subs.
I watch how easily bullied we are at times and I’m scared to death.
Today we were slow and lethargic and lazy. That slow passing game is death in a match where all it does is give the opposition time to put eleven men behind the ball. Couple that with our dreadful tactic of crossing the ball into the box when we lack a physically imposing striker who can power his way through a packed defence to get on the end of it and you wonder how the manager could have persisted with it for the full game when it so obviously ineffective.
Everything about that performance was off. The team looked as if it lacked the stomach for the fight. Too many balls were played backwards. We allowed Kilmarnock too much time to organise the defence and despite having footballers blessed with intelligence, technical ability and movement the whole of the game was spent going from side to side, crossing into thin air and – most horrifically – long shots from outside the box.
Pub team football. Absolutely dreadful to watch.
A lot of backsides need booting after that today and it’s the manager’s job to get this team into the right frame of mind for matches like this one.
That was a shocking performance today.
Too many players were not at the races.
The football was flat-footed and way too slow.
The zip and the buzz that was evident last week was entirely lacking on that ghastly surface, which by the way offers us no excuse whatsoever. Other clubs manage to win, routinely, on these parks as I said earlier … it offers us nothing but an excuse that lack of effort and application does not deserve.
We’ve needlessly dropped points today and put ourselves under the microscope.
The players need to examine themselves. The manager and his assistant, who spent much of the game standing on the side-lines looking bemused, need to come up with a Plan B for games like this and days like today because I’m betting this isn’t the last team who will try to rough-house us or play with eleven men behind the ball. It was predictable and we had no plan for it. We were, and are, predictable with one man up front … and Killie knew exactly how to deal with us.
No more days like today, Celtic. No more.
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