Yesterday, I talked about the Ibrox club, and how they are forever fighting the last war.
There was no better example of this than in the absolute shambles they made of marking and trying to control the Celtic captain, Callum McGregor. In the run-up to the game, the narrative surrounding the Ibrox team was all about how they had finally decided to “get real” about containing him, because, as they put it, “When McGregor plays, Celtic plays.”
Well, it may be a coincidence, or it may not be, but yesterday McGregor turned up. And coincidentally, Celtic also turned up. And the victory was all the sweeter for being predictable. They had talked about it so often, had formulated their entire game plan around how they would contain the captain… and still couldn’t do it.
It’s like if you spent weeks trying to catch a mouse that was bothering you in the kitchen and you formulated a plan for catching it, but on the day, nothing you did worked.
You could tell yourself that the reason you didn’t catch the mouse was that it didn’t behave exactly as you anticipated. The mouse itself wasn’t doing the things you noticed it doing before; it did something different. It didn’t move along the wall like you expected. It didn’t poke its head out only when the lights came on, as you anticipated, or move towards the cheese or the trap in the manner you’d seen it do dozens of times. Why didn’t the mouse behave the way you thought it would after having watched it behave that way before?
Well, if you knew anything, you would know to look further back.
Because a lot of things can change the way a mouse moves, its direction, its routine, the path it takes to get to the food, and so on.
McGregor is not the McGregor of last year.
He does not play fixed to one role. Rodgers is rotating the midfielders into various different places. There will be times in the game when McGregor will be further forward; at those times, Bernardo will be back. There are times when Bernardo will be further forward and McGregor will be back. There are times when the midfield playmaker will be Reo Hatate. There are times when Hatate will be playing further up front. And there are times when McGregor will be in the Hatate role, and others when he’ll swap and play the playmaker role.
I lost track earlier in the season when McGregor started getting forward and getting on the score sheet; lost track, yes, but I never lost my awareness that something had changed, that you could see McGregor prowling in different areas. I think McGregor’s best role is in an advanced position, scoring goals. But he has also been spotted during games doing his usual job, shuffling around in that very unsexy area, spoiling opposition attacks and everything else that goes with it.
And that’s the McGregor they prepared for today — the one they’re used to watching, the one who’s been playing that role for the last couple of years. But in that role, apart from doing all the mopping up, he starts so many moves. From that deep position, he can see the whole pitch. He knows when there’s a player running and when there’s a player in space. He knows when a player is capable of making a run to find that space, and McGregor has the skill set to hit that 20-yard pass, that 30-yard pass, that 40-yard pass, when the moment requires it.
Even if that had been the McGregor they got today, I don’t think it would have done the job. I don’t think it would have been enough. He’s still got too much natural ability. And we have too many good players who can run on to those long passes, diagonally as well as through the middle, whichever one it is. Each and every time, out on the flanks, we destroyed them. The long ball through the middle for Kyogo to run on, we destroyed them. It would not have mattered if McGregor had played that position for the full 90 minutes or not. He was still a maestro. He was still the main man shining. We were smiling all the way through.
But that rotation, that switch role between him and Bernardo, with one covering the other’s position when needed, getting up the pitch or whatever — that was just beautiful. And it completely caught them off guard over and over again.
And the curious thing is that they weren’t wrong. That’s what must make it a little more maddening for them, because they knew McGregor was capable of pulling all the strings, and they planned their entire game with the idea of Diomande moving to a more advanced position where he would directly challenge McGregor. Their entire system was built to do that.
See, it helps if you don’t look at things the way Sky or whoever shows you the lineups. It helps if you look at things three-dimensionally.
So, if you think that we play what is, in effect, a 4-1-2-3, then you’d be correct. So to combat that, they fielded a 4-2-3-1. The reason they did that was that the ‘1’ in our system is Callum McGregor himself. And so, they’re playing the advanced three, which is one on the left, one on the right, and an advanced midfielder, who plays in the exact same area McGregor does, that role where he feels most at home, that position right in front of the defence and between that and the central midfield.
They put Diomande, a defensive player, in there yesterday, with the idea that in doing so a defensive midfielder, playing in that alleged advanced position, would challenge McGregor all day long and put him in his place.
The surprising thing about yesterday was not that McGregor got on the score sheet. The more surprising thing is that they should have had at least some of that figured out too. Had they watched McGregor play for the games this season, they’d have seen him further up the pitch than they’d have otherwise expected and posing an even more potent threat.
It’s not even that they failed there. If they had looked even further back in time, they’d have seen this tactic played to perfection in Rodgers’ first campaign.
And yes, the difference then and now is that Scott Brown was also available in the team and these two guys were interchangeable in the side. But that’s the point, because we didn’t sign Bernardo to sit on the bench every week. He’s in the team because he, too, is interchangeable with McGregor, and I imagine Engels will be too, and I imagine there will be a role in that lineup and in that system for Luke McCowan as well.
The Ibrox boss has missed an obvious tactical shift here. He’s missed obvious switches in our play and yesterday it cost him to enormous effect, and if Clément was as smart as he thinks he is, he would have at least had a plan for McGregor being further forward.
It might not have been a plan worth a damn, because McGregor is a vastly better footballer than anyone they have in their ragbag midfield, but it might not have ended in the carnage of Celtic going through them with such ease as they did yesterday.
The thing is, I’m not even particularly convinced that McGregor, for all the class and quality he showed, was the man of the match. I still think that could just as easily have gone to Daizen Maeda, who ripped them to pieces on the left-hand side, left Tavernier without a name yet again, scored a goal, and looked as if he gave them palpitations every time he was up the pitch.
And that has also been telegraphed to them over and over and over again, and they have not found an effective counter to it.
But maybe that’s it because if you put an extra man on Maeda, where are you getting that extra man from? You’ve got to take him from somewhere else. And if you take him from the midfield, that’s just opening up a space for Hatate, McGregor, Bernardo, Engels or McCowan.
As I said before, what I love about tactics is basically that it comes down to three-dimensional chess. We have a grandmaster at our club, and they don’t. And so, when they look at the board and they see that there’s a rampaging threat on the right and a rampaging threat on the left, what do they do? They try to consolidate somewhere else on the board so they don’t have to worry about facing those twin threats. So, they sacrifice men; instead of putting men out there, they take them away, they put them in the middle or they try to hold the line, and none of it works.
And none of it is going to work. Because sometimes you just have better pieces than the other player. Sometimes you just have a stronger game, and in this case, we have both, and that makes their task nearly impossible. It’s why we win these games over and over again. It is why anything they do will ultimately prove to be futile, even if Clément was five times the manager he thinks he is — and he isn’t. It’s not enough. And it is never going to be enough.
Great James!
IMHO I thought Bernardo was outstanding
before being subbed…. He gave his all.
Sourness saying “ not much between the teams”….another deluded fool.
Well done Celtic…. and the BR tactics.
Pie man’s meltdown was a classic too.
They don’t have a single player in their team that Rodgers would put on his bench . Big Boyd admitted as much yesterday on Sky
Even if they had a mega master tactician in the dugout all he could do is limit the damage on occasion and hope for lucky breaks and “ beneficial “ referring decisions to scramble the odd draw or win
You are right .. so long as Rodgers stays and the board back him this is complete domestic domination and some gradual progress in Europe
PS well done on your comment in the earlier blog to Michael McCartney
Was impressed the way Cal and Bernardo covered for each other. If one was gettin closed down, the other was always right in there helpin out. It was obviously strategic and it worked. Both stuck right tae it. Ye really have tae laugh at clemont, sayin it couldve been 3 each if ‘they had taken their chances’ ! Aye ok and if we had taken ours, it would’ve been about 7-3 then. Tho ah guess that disnae count.
Yesterday proved Mike Tyson’s adage: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” Totally correct. Sevco harried and chased furiously for 10 mins, then CalMac played that beautiful ball forward to Kuhn and before you knew it Kyogo was slotting it home. VAR saved them on the score sheet but it couldn’t prevent the huge dent to their confidence that emanated from the fact they had just seen us go the length of the pitch in three passes, slicing them open with ease. 3 – 0 flattered them. Had it been 5 they would have had nothing to complain about. It must really stick in the sevco craw, that they are continually outsmarted by a “Grandmaster.” Chapeau, Brendan.
Perfect summary off the whole day although I thought we had a few who could have been m.o.t.m. but let’s just give it to the whole team even big Casper near the end he was keeping a clean sheet. Hail Hail
Thing ye’ll notice as well, the ‘deflection’ is gettin highlighted quite a bit. It’s the only crumb of comfort they have, tae try and undermine Cal’s goal. The deflection only made about 6 ins of a difference. Even without it, that ball was hittin the net anyway. Rutland naewhere near it. It’s pathetic man.
There’s a surprise then Kevan… The Sevco Huns and The Scummy Scottish Football Media Sevco Huns using a deflection as a deflection tactic…
Clyde Superscoreboard is an ABSOLUTE MUST for each and every Celtic supporter tonight !
Of course they’ll be no Sevco Hun brave enough to crawl out from their rock in their rock pools – Where was the wee turncoat ex Celtic supporter McCann who one can never shut up on Sportscene last night ?
Where was the incoherent gibbering wreck and ex Hibernian turncoat Miller ? – Again nowhere to be seen, both hiding in their cesspits wallowing in their own shit, pish and vomit no doubt…
At least Billy Dodds braved it – There again he is a true Sevco Hun (unlike Miller and McCann) so fair play to him for that at least !
Jeez – The paper rags will probably be awesome reading today, probably full of excuses coupled with pure grief but I’m still not buying, not now, not ever, but The Celtic Blog will bring us their deflection and excuses !
It’s not even a year since everyone’s favourite pundit – Hugh Keevins – proclaimed that Brendan was now up against a proven Manager with a top pedigree, in big spud-heid.
Well, here we are.
🙂
The fact of the matter is we have a vastly superior team. Far better players in every position.
I did note on the 1st 10/12 minutes of the game (when they had their best spell and we hadn’t started yet), Calmac was sitting deeper and diomande was right on top of him and that he was that intent on tracking and trying to stay with McGregor everywhere he went, but he had effectively nullified himself and when McGregor moved up through the midfield eventually finding the space he operates in diomande was again an ineffectual pawn trying to chase the King because he was trying to follow Clements instruction and stay in the area of the midfield he was instructed to. Watch the game again and you’ll see it a mile off.
But reflecting on it again this morning (and knowing your a film buff James you might like this) it reminded me the Jason Bourne films, where in each movie Bourne has to fight off a series of opponents who are supposedly getting better and better who come at him each time with new tactics and with the serious belief that they are coming this time to take him down, but without really getting out of second gear, Bourne swats them away with relative ease by simply stepping up a gear. That’s what we looked like yesterday. Professional assassins simply swatting aside another irritant. Chess kings against amateur rookies. Bring on the C/L hail hail!
God bless you all today.
James , I thought all over the pitch we were streets ahead. Would have liked to have seen more goals. Think Scales and Taylor was outstanding.
I hope you do a pice on Cissy Boyd’s rant on Sky. I think one of the interest points is, it has taken them 12 years to understand there is a gap.
Also like to comment on the events at ipox after the game. I get the fans fury but I thought players and the manager were hung out to dry. No protection when it was evident there was an angry mob outside the stadium. As much as I dislike them the board should have ensured the safety of their staff. Poor show.
What’s missing from your assessment is that they don’t have a player of consistent quality to stop Callum for the 90 plus minutes. It’s like the task of cutting the grass with a pair of scissors versus the use of a lawn mower and they don’t the necessary equipment required for the job. The energy and runs exerted by Callum during that period and given the interchanging between our midfield players that the task in hand requires more than one midfielder to cover not just Callum but the other rotating midfielder/s. Do that and they won’t have any or hardly any midfield progression at all being too busy defensively.
The other issue is that he’s no average mouse and more of an Andre Andre Gonzales type of mouse. Btw though Callum was really influential his brother Speedy Gonzales Maeda was outstanding and once again more so than ever broke Tav’s heart and probably brought forward an end to career over there. That’s the other tactical advice required; stop playing him against Maeda or just stop playing him total.
Personally I like to give a pat on the back also to Ali J and Taylor in our new formation of 2-3-2-3
Excellent analysis, I just hope no one at Ibrox/Hampden reads it and starts to get ideas on how to stop this regular humiliation of their managers and teams. Although I suspect if they do, we’ll just change gear and ragdoll them all over again.
The SMSM scoop minions were attempting to give their pet project a’ heads up’ all week long about trying to shackle Calum McGregor and his superb playing style …they are still attempting to untangle all of the knots they tied themselves up in ! He was unplayable ,as they all tried and failed to do so . TheRangers players had fear in their eyes from the second they left their bus at Celtic Park …the know ,or they should know the perilous place their clumpany is at . They had the look of irreparable damage on their boats ..as did the board sitting disgruntled in the main Celtic stand yesterday also ! Not forgetting the dour dejected scoops also .After yesterday’s hammering and anhialtion,who knows exactly what is going on behind closed doors in Ibroxland ?
This Celtic team is really well balanced from back to front, from a Scottish perspective I do think we’re too strong for the opposition,our big test will come in Europe. This new format in the Champions League does give us a fighting chance of being involved into February.
We have got to take advantage of the draw and playing our level of team at home in 3 of the games, even Leipzig at home shouldn’t be beyond us.
Great to get back to talking about the football, rather than Transfer windows. Although these International breaks can be a pain in the axse, especially so early in the season.
An excellent piece. A superb autopsy of the game in particular and the club’s in general. The sight Of Kris Boyd almost weeping on live TV was a was an eye opener (or would have been if I had stopped laughing).
Finally,maybe, it has dawned on the deludamol fed hordes that they cannot compete with Celtic on or off the park and that their grandkids will become, finally, supporters of Scotland’s biggest club, Glasgow Celtic.
The TOYS are back in their box,until next time,MONTHEHOOPS