Oh wow but that was woeful. There were real problems with the way we played today and I’ll get to those in due course, in another piece, and whilst I’m angry with our team for its own suicidal approach to it I am angrier, by far, with the opposition and their brand of anti-football, for which some in the media are determined to give them praise.
Where is the merit in making no effort whatsoever to play the game and win three points? Where is the merit in setting up with eleven men behind the ball for 90 minutes without once showing the least imagination or intent? Livingston was appalling today, absolutely appalling. There is not an ounce of football in Martindale’s thuggish time-wasting team.
Had we scored the penalty I’d have been no less concerned with our own issues but absolutely delighted so see Martindale and his band of charlatans leave our ground with nothing to show for their alleged efforts today.
You know, I have seen teams to our ground and leave on the end of a hiding. I have had a certain amount of respect for those teams, sides which were simply overmatched.. That is what happens in football. I have nothing but contempt for those teams which come as “spoilers”. If football was played between sides which tried to win and those which tried not to lose we would not call it The Beautiful Game because nobody would watch it.
Celtic were dreadful against that today, but let’s stop kidding on that this was because the opposition was “well organised” or tactically astute. It doesn’t take a football genius to pack the penalty area against a team known for crossing the ball long past the point of sanity and when it is so obviously woefully ineffective.
So no, Livingston get no credit because they deserved no credit. They got a point which they absolutely did not deserve, which is not to say that we deserved all three because we didn’t but I would have taken then and happily because it would have meant Martindale scurrying away having failed to blag his way to a result.
Oh behave yourself. We know exactly how they are going to play and we leave our best striker on the bench absolutely ridiculous. We had a chance to go top and cannot beat a poor Livingston side at home 11 men behind the ball or not.
If Celtic did that away to PSG in the CL for a valuable point, would we be so critical, at the end of the day the Livi budget is dwarfed by ours, they have no other option that I can see, play for a point. Yes it is dire to watch but this is what happens when football success is decided a lot of times by the teams that have spent the most money. The Celtic coaches and players should have the nous to overcome this system, Celtic changed nothing the whole game, no plan B, wide men that could not beat their man and hit the byline, side to side the whole game. We also look a wee bit lightweight in games like this. We cannot buy a goal from a corner, we have no physical arial presence in the box. Still very much a team in transition, nowhere near where we need to be. Kyogo not getting the space now and through no fault of his own is finding it harder to get on the ball. We’ll have more days like this unfortunately
What about Lennon’s team against Barcelona,you would rather we had got beaten that night,is that what you’re saying , even Strachan’s teams against man utd we just defended and hit on the break ,what’s the difference ,we should according to you with our mighty better players SHOULD have beat Livi but we’re obviously not that good,do you think livi’s defensive set up would have thwarted Liverpool or man city if course it wouldn’t have ,I’m sorry 5o say we are not good as we think we are even in the Scottish premiership.
Did their manager not get sent off last week? Why was he directing everything from bench? Celts wouldn’t have scored in a Barrow load of phannies today. HH
Yeah. Sour grapes really. Focus on the Celtic performance which was bloody awful. The way Livingston played wasn’t that much different to the way we played at the Nou Camp (and Celtic Park a fortnight later) in 2012. I remember Messi and Co were moaning about the way we played but that’s up to them, Celtic were a bawhair away from getting a point in the Nou Camp and every single Celtic fan would have heralded that result the way we did the 2-1 victory at CP.
Forget blaming the opposition or Madden (who was bloody awful). Blame Ange. Blame the team. Celtic were poor today. We move on. Maybe now we can temper this the League is ours pish. Same as we should have tempered the 10 in a row is in the bag pish.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and we all, including Ange expected the Greek sensation to bang in a goal or two.
I’ve never seen anything like it when G (not going to even attempt to spell) stepped up to take that pen…he’d already shat his panties…pathetic!!
Why change??
Toportunity knocked, even for 24hrs and that alone is massive for sevco to soil their pantyloons——again!!
Agree with your comments on Livi but although that’d get football stopped it’s up to them how they approach it. As for us, maybe if our players were better protected it may have been different but we were abysmal in every outfield position as you’ve written.
While it’s not attractive to the fans, I suspect that if we had gone to Barcelona, Madrid or Munich and ‘shut up shop’ we’d be quite happy with a 0-0 result.