Last night was, in a nutshell, the case for the defence.
I thought they were excellent. They did almost everything right.
I thought Starfelt, in particular, looked as solid as a rock, which is amazing considering that he is just back from being injured for five weeks.
That was an important game last night from the defensive point of view.
It is where the hacks constantly tell us that this side is lacking, that this team is frail.
I’ve been railing against that particular interpretation for many months.
Today it just looks absurd.
That was as solid a defensive display as you could have hoped for and it was more so because of the disruption to the side that took place before the game and during it.
We lost Carter Vickers before the match had even kicked off, and we lost Ralston once it had.
I know that throwing our boy Starfelt into the team when he was clearly going to be rusty from injury would have worried people. Giving Montgomery the left hand side berth when he hadn’t played in a while would have worried people.
Yet both acquitted themselves marvellously.
I was pleased for Adam who has waited patiently for this chance.
But I was absolutely delighted for the big Swede, who has eaten as much unfounded garbage as any player at any club has this season.
The guy was targeted by the press right from the start and they were not going to let up. They hoped that the Celtic fans would turn on him and that would have done the job. It didn’t happen that way at all.
Full credit to the Celtic supporters, in the main, for giving this guy the time and the space and the support to grow into his role. Now that he has I think we will see that he is a very fine football player.
Sure as Hell, he’s been playing at a higher level than the SPL for the last few years so when he finds his feet he should be absolutely dominant.
We saw some signs of that last night in what I reckon was his best display in the Hoops by far.
If he put a foot wrong someone will have to tell me where and when it happened because from where I was watching I reckoned it was a toss-up between him and Callum for the man of the match.
It was nice to see Gavin Stachan give young Adam Montgomery a wee word of encouragement just before he came on, something along the lines of , this is your chance to shine, show us what youve got.
The Defence is only as good as the players playing in front of them , Celtic lose goals from set plays not too many from open play . Celtic have 3 problems , we don’t score enough goals ….. the wide men don’t hit the bye line enough , especially on the right side .
The midfield isn’t physical enough , Turnbull and Rogic together are powderpuff but with McGregor we’re lightweight . Finally , too many tippy tappy passes backwards when the ball could be played forward 10 yards , we lose momentum and the chance to play down the Channels which suits our Samurai Striker .
What James said yesterday about dropping Turnbull instead of McCarthy to accommodate Rogic is part of that mate. I was glad Rogic is back but we need a more robust player in midfield to make space for Twinkle Toes to perform his Aussie magic.
The concern for me is left back. I like Juranovic but he is obviously a right sided player. However we can’t drop Tony Ralston as he has been magic this season. So that leaves us with an issue. Do we continue to play Juranovic on the left which, in my opinion, does not suit us? Ralston can it the byline on the right (as can Juranovic I am sure) but we need a left footed player to do the same effectively on the left. This, in turn, would create more space for Jota.
I am glad Jota focused on the positives. The injuries and Kris Boyd making the papers again for his childish trolling (which I didn’t see but I can guess what he was saying) is best left till after breakfast.
James. Not Jota 🙂
I’d play Ralston in Centre midfield , he’s the muscle we need , Juranovic at right back is a given so its back to finding a decent left back for me , maybe Robertson is ready to come home when Klopp leaves … ???
I was one who was not sure about starfelt but he is getting there with every game he plays,we really need a strong defence midfielder with pace and the Greek Centre forward needs to get into the goals when he gets fit we make many chances but fail to score and thats a worry so come Jan get in a forward who can score and is fit .