Yesterday I paid tribute to the boys from E-Tims for their excellent podcast.
Today I’m sitting listening to it with my dad and I realised that were a couple of other things I wanted to cover from it, aside from the impact the weekend has had on Ibrox – more on that later for sure.
One of the things I found fascinating was when they talked about Callum McGregor and his comments on the tactics and the way the manager worked on that during the week before the game.
“We simplified it,” McGregor told the media. “And then we layered in the instructions.”
So much is spoken in that short summary. Rodgers knows he’s asking people to do stuff that is radically different, so as the E-Tims boys say, “he went back to basics, to first principles.”
And from there, he and the captain added the complexity bit by bit over the course of the week; where a player moves when he doesn’t have the ball, who should be where when we are on the ball … and what we saw was a team which finally knew what it was supposed to be doing. Now that they do, I expect to see us just get better and better.
One of the most interesting observations on the show was where they quoted Brendan Rodgers on Kyogo, and the perception we all had – mistaken, as it turns out – that he had told our central striker to come deep; in fact, the whole team was playing deeper than they have been for a while, as they tried to understand what Rodgers wanted them to do and that was the issue.
It explains the dearth of goals in those two games before the weekend, it explains the fall off of Kyogo’s effectiveness … and how when we switched back on, and the players understood, and played to, the managers instructions everything fell back into place.
If this is the case, and I’m sure it is, then the team is now fully tuned in to what Rodgers wants them to do. They are fully on board with every facet of his tactical approach.
The performances might be about to take a sudden, positive, turn … and that means that our rivals really are in big trouble. Because with a four point lead already, the last thing they want is to see us hit the sort of form where you can’t see who is going to take anything off us.
So far this season we’ve looked a shadow of that side.
Until Sunday, until the pieces started slotting into place. You’ll notice that nobody at Celtic is talking like this, and suggesting that you’re now about to see us at our best. Leave that to the Ibrox goons who want to use social media to excuse their own failures, rally the troops or bizarrely post pictures of disallowed goals.
The discipline this club is known for hasn’t let us down.
Nobody is making big predictions or big promises. Our team is ready to do the talking where it matters; on the pitch. I think come next Saturday we’re going to see one Hell of a show.
Rodgers is human so making mistakes is normal enough.
Moleman on the other hand suffers with insanity by making the same mistakes over and over again and expecting different results.
Believe Rodgers was over complicating matters, which certainly didn’t suit us as a team and performances followed suit.
A managers job, involves getting the best out of what he has got, and finding solutions to problems that exist within the team.
Rodgers passed that test on Sunday, all the while, when we were far from great either, over the course of the whole game.
The moleman just didn’t have a clue, with his scummy team following suit.
Confidence is massive within a team sport, and we got that injection needed to improve upon.
The scum are left with gapping wounds, without a doctor in sight.
No doubt our overall performances will improve with results following suit, which will scare everyone else within the SPFL.
Staying on the front foot, with fast attacking play, suits our players far more and the club, than using the more precise, slow patient play that was on show in our 1st 3 games, and looked far better for it also.
Think the biggest change was seeing our players back to enjoying there football again, which is always a welcome sight.
Expecting Dundee to try and shut up shop, but to no avail as the renewed confidence from ourselves, should remain way to strong.
All of this with hopefully the extra quality and returning players still to be added, can’t be a prospect of Scottish football looking forward to either, but we certainly will do
Some of the decision-making in the second-half was rank rotten and got worse as the half progressed. Yes Rangers had chances but did you watch bernabei gift the ball to Rangers for the Lammers. Inexcusable. There were plenty more where a simple pass would have released someone into acres of space. People keep saying that Oh has potential. He looks useless to me. We will be fine assuming Kyogo remains fit. Rangers are fortunate not to be 6 points behind but there has been a lot of hysteria on both sides regarding this result
I’d like to see us have signed Shankland – He would score for fun in a Celtic team – If we don’t then Sevco probably will and he could score v us…
I’d like to see us sign him in January – a double whammy, score for fun for Celtic even as back up and really weaken The Sevco Huns !
Based on comments above: Shankland good shout. Bernabei, an enigma, not a full back for me.
Beale Bingo, which week of the season will he be packing his football manager for Dummies’ books?
Anyhoo when Celts are at full pelt it will be a thing of beauty.