Awful. Awful to watch. Awful to listen to.
Awful in every way, shape and form.
Celtic have dropped points at the very end of this away match run and although we’re all entitled to be happyish that we’ve come out of it with a solid lead at the top of the table it is immensely frustrating that we didn’t get three points today.
Especially as we were the only team that bothered to try and play the game in an attacking fashion. The home team certainly didn’t.
I am not interested in what the commentariat has to say about this today, because they’ll say nothing that we haven’t all heard before.
“All credit to Hibs” or “the home side did its job brilliantly.”
No, that performance doesn’t deserve credit.
No, they did not do brilliantly.
They stifled. They turned in yet another display of anti-football, Hibs, a team I’d never seen do that until very recently.
And yeah, I know they under no obligation to try and play.
It always brings me back to Alan Durban’s notorious comment in the aftermath of his side holding Arsenal to a dire, awful, unwatchable 0-0 draw; “If it’s entertainment you want, go and watch clowns.”
But there is supposed to be some level of entertainment in the game. Especially when the War on The Fan is raging more bitterly than ever.
If you managed to see that game somewhere today, you’ll have seen the many, many, many, many empty seats around the ground.
This is spite of it being unavailable on television or on PPV … Hibs are another club which has cut our allocation without being able to sell out its home stadium.
And based on what we just watched from a home team with 24% of the ball and which barely left its own half, I cannot blame their fans for not being terribly impressed by what they are watching.
The hacks can talk all they want about credit; Hibs fans, even those happy with the point, know that’s a team going nowhere under a guy who thinks that’s an acceptable way to approach a game.
They played against a Celtic side which ran itself into the ground in midweek, and yet they didn’t make the least effort to test out our tired legs.
Have they won a point or possibly dropped two? We’ll never know because at home they didn’t try a leg. They sat deep. They offered nothing going forward.
How are clubs supposed to entice their own fans to watch football when that is what they produce?
This guy came to Scotland with a reputation as an attacking manager. They have been dire. That was David Martindale style football … and I’m not just pissed off because we’ve been unable to break it down. I would have just have been just as angry having subjected my eyeballs to that had we snatched the late goal we were pushing for.
Because that was shocking today. From them, and yes, from us.
We were far too slow.
There was far too little movement off the ball.
There was far too little attacking intent.
This slow probing stuff does not work against defences packed with their backs to the wall. All those side-to-side passes do nothing other than allow them to keep their shape and hold it. We needed something more today and it just wasn’t there.
At the end of the day, this is a country which thinks there is merit in what Hibs have done to us today and when we go to Kilmarnock and St Mirren in the next phase of this campaign, they will set up against us in the exact same way and if we play like that we will drop points in those games unless we have the Plan B which we didn’t have today, and that’s both surprising and frustrating because Rodgers is the master of the Plan B.
That was dire. Absolutely dire.
And I am assiduously avoiding all media comment on it for the next 48 hours because I don’t want to read how well organised Hibs were or how excellently they kept their shape or maintained their discipline.
Because when clubs can’t get enough fans to buy tickets that was a travesty.
That was a non-effort, at home, that was playing for a point and it would have been an outstanding result had they played for the win and got the draw … but I really don’t want to read praise for another example of why Scottish football is dying on its arse.
We don’t have a divine right to win every game kid. But yeah, we only started playing when there was 15 minutes to go, that’s annoying. But after the shitty run of games we’ve had dropping two points isn’t a disaster. I’m damn sure when the Huns have a run like this they’ll drop more than two. Keep the faith HH.
James
it sure was “awful to listen to”, I honestly don’t know what was the worst….the result OR
the BBC Scotland commentary, with Packie Bonner and Liam Mcleod absolutely awful.
IMHO Palma did not do anything today and was hooked, Mikey offered more,
Midweek blues maybe but we were right out of sorts today……far too slow.
Like you wont read or listen to any media comments…we will come again
HH
Jackson , forget ,Packie Bonner,he sold himself 20 years ago to the BBC, besides how are we so naive,I know we had a hard game in Europe but is not the reason we have a massive squad the answer to play our players that done a great job in Europe and rest them today.Its obvious now our squad players even good enough for the SPL, which is a sad state of affairs. Anyway can anyone answer how sevco beat Hibs 4 – 0 and we couldn’t lay a finger on them.
I think we were off it today, not Rogers fault players did not perform prob due to Wednesday nite
I was watching on celtic TV (legally, I love in Spain). Thankfully the stream was dreadful and cut out every 2 minutes. The bits I did see were awful.
To your point about a plan B, I agree. And I’m surprised by Rodgers because this is what he faced most weeks during the first spell so it shouldn’t be a surprise.
The players were tired, and I was surprised by the starting 11. Surprised and disappointed because it shows how far the drop-off is to the rest of our squad.
We claim about scottish football not getting enough money from the TV stations like sky or ain’t. This is the reason why. They would have been better to stick 11 players on the goaline and let celtic take potshots at them. An absolute disgrace. I
Hibs are absolutely god awful but we should be good enough to break them down. James you have raved about Palma recently but personally I don’t get the hype. I would rather have a fully fit and match fit Mikey Johnston in the team. When he and Forrest came on we produced more and why didn’t we go to a back three and play Kyogo and Oh together.
How the fuck did sevco put 4 past them,?
James, hoever you want to dress this up, we were dire today! We have enough experience of playing this type of team and yet today, we looked clueless, totally out of ideas.
We put so much into the Atlecico game, we had little left for today, when a good squad would have provided the legs and speed of thought we needed against a very ordinary side. Guess the squad leaves a lot to be desired!
Too many looked leggy Palma offered little today and O,Riley looked to suffer because Bernardo was further forward than him . The energy from the hearts game, just wasn’t there and we can not afford many more of those games as it gives hope to the team across the city. It’s been a tough first quarter and they will face the same, so let’s not be too downbeat and soldier on
Looked like post european weariness, although big part of our own prob is we don’t have a strong bench. Forrest came close aye, tho apart from that, the subs never made any impact. We’ve naebody we can rely on, tae bring on and change a game. Johnston imo just doesnae cut it and oh again for me is the same. Need 2 or 3 new faces in at new year and Hetate’s goin tae be a huge miss for these next games.
You can’t blame hins, we were terrible. Just got to accept that we will have days like today. We never lost the game so that’s something
Very easy to be critical after a very poor game, but still think Rodgers has to take a fair bit of blame for such also.
Was very surprised to see the same team starting, that played the majority of the athletico game?
Fatigue after Wednesdays huge effort, always had the potential to effect our play, with the movement of the ball being so slow?
We needed freshness today, and the subs Rodgers introduced was a bit baffling to say the least.
Would be a concern now, about just how much trust Rodgers has within his back up players as such?
Our starting line up nearly picks itself, yet it can’t be expected to play every game either within such a squad based game these days?
Even though enough chances was there to win the game, it still was a terrible watch.
Expect plenty more of these type of games throughout the season, where in turn we still have to find better ways of actually being able to win such games also.
Very disappointing all round today, and sadly believe Rodgers got many things wrong also today, possibly more than anyone else imo.
You are right johno,I know we put everything into the game on Wednesday but we must have enough in our big bloated squad to at least some of our players and give some of our reserve players a game against Hibs who must be shite ,that sevco put 4 past them.what does that tell us.beware Clements and sfa officials ,we dropped 2 points today which gives sevco hope where should strangle the bastards.
Celtic did not drop points today.
They gained 1pt. A draw
You can .
Only drop points if you are playing at home and draw or get beat .
Hibs dropped points.
Pete ,we dropped points today, don’t kid yourself otherwise,we could have went 10 points clear of SEVCO today,we fucked up , remember sevco put 4 past these cunts last week,now we have given SEVCO hope ,so yes we did drop points today.
I was at the match today in the Hibs end (courtesy of a Hibs season ticket holder) and can’t agree that they played like Livi. Hibs did set out to contain Celtic but it wasn’t rollerball like Livi. The main issue was that Celtic were too ponderous, looked mentally fatigued and the subs really didn’t affect the game with the exception of Forrest who should have started instead of Bernardo. Ralston was an accident waiting to happen, Oh has the touch of an elephant and Mikey Johnston again has no end product. We have lots of players but the little depth beyond the core starting eleven thanks to Lawwell and son continually buying project players.
As for cutting Celtic’s allocation, that wasn’t the case today as we had a whole stand which is the same as it’s been previously so I’m puzzled by the claim that tickets were cut. In fairness to Hibs there weren’t many empty seats in the West Stand where I was seated but there were a few in other stands.
Mike the point is how can Hibs just shut up shop against us ,why didn’t they shut up shop against sevco,and more importantly why in Europe we get a lead ,why can’t we shut up shop.
Like Martin I watched the game over here in Spain it was dire also does Peter grant get paid by the word he never stopped talking the whole game boring hh
Did celtic not get the full stand as normal?,
Watched it live and dire it was. BR missed a trick and imo should have started with the fresher legs knowing how Hibs would set up, he would then be free to bring on the guys from Wednesday.
That’ said Micky had nothing all buzz no sting and just too light.
MOT got across a lot of grass but no backing up, once AJ and hatate are lost we flounder. Palma had an off day and legs showed, see my first sentence.
So , how come sevco put 4 past them ,we should have enough in our reserves to beat Hibs ,I’m talking like for like footballers,if our first 11 needed a rest fair enough but we should still have enough in that big bloated squad to beat Hibs ,if not what’s the point of having standby players,how the fuck did sevco thrash them when they are supposedly miles behind us,We need to up our game and start looking over our shoulder less we get caught up.