Soccer Football - Scottish Premiership - Celtic v Rangers - Celtic Park, Glasgow, Scotland, Britain - December 30, 2023 Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers before the match Action Images via Reuters/Craig Brough
There’s a lot to unpack this morning, and I’m sure there will be a lot more to come from me before the day is out. But regular readers will know I have no interest in denying reality or objective fact and there’s no spinning that and it would be futile and stupid even to try.
From the moment of the first goal the writing was on the wall; we’ve seen this too much to be surprised in the slightest by what the next 86 minutes produced. Concede early in these games and you are up against it. To our credit we score almost at once. To our mortification we conceded just as rapidly. The balloon burst right there.
I have written these articles before in the aftermath of horror performances. I did it after Real Madrid similarly dismantled us some years back and I was perfectly relaxed about the result because there I thought we had more pressing things to do here at home. I also know, because I don’t delude myself, that we are to the Real Madrid’s of this world what the St Johnstone’s are to us.
This is why I rage against idiots like Ewan Murray who excoriate us for having the gall to be richer than our domestic opposition whilst virtually demanding that we do better against the super clubs. It’s utter hypocrisy and I have not the least interest in listening to any such commentary in the days and weeks to come.
But we are seriously deficient at this level and I listened to Rodgers with no enthusiasm at all as he talked about learning lessons and all the usual rubbish we have listened to before and before and before. When asked if we should maybe have considered being more pragmatic in our outlook he refused to countenance it.
So what exactly has he learned here? What lessons has he taken from it? Because what I took from that deplorable first half was how atrocious our plan had been … and he doesn’t intend to change it which means that if you’ve got tickets for Atalanta that unless you have a burning desire to see Bergamo that you’re well advised to get out of it if you still can because we’re heading for a similar outcome.
I am not blaming Rodgers alone here. We all know that he’s still working with some substandard stuff for this level. We all knew that it was lunacy to go into this Champions League campaign with Taylor and Scales in the side.
As good as they’ve both been against our domestic opposition, we know full well that neither is cut out for this level against those sort of players, and we shouldn’t be shocked that they’ve proved it again.
It’s like the years long circular debate about Mikey Johnston; even after the jury was in, the verdict was read out and the jail wagon was heading for the prison yard people would still try and sell you on the idea that he deserved another shot in the side although we all knew the truth, but somehow wanted to keep denying it.
Left back was not an important position for the summer; it was a critical one. Critical. There is no excuse for not bringing in quality, a first team ready replacement. Not a kid from Spain’s second tier to provide him with competition but someone who could step in and take his place. I refuse to believe there aren’t dozens of players out there better suited to this level than Taylor and who fall within our price bracket.
I thought the signing of a Barcelona academy player on loan, whose highest level of football was the Spanish second tier, was an embarrassment considering how long this has been a priority; I wrote that and was told to stop being ridiculous. And what did I say to those who argued that he was a superstar the Barcelona fans wanted in their line-up? I’ll judge it on what the manager thinks of that.
And Greg Taylor started last night. Because he’s still the best left back at the club, he’s still going to be the go-to-guy for the manager. Which says it all, and goes at least some way towards explaining that absolute shit-show we watched last night.
Some way, but not all the way. We have systemic problems. These aren’t issues about individual players or the manager’s tactical plan. These are deep rooted and the longer we ignore them the harder they are to fix. We’re not doing some things well and there are other things we just aren’t doing at all. That’s a longer piece than this.
But this is the thing; nothing actually changed last night. The realists amongst us knew we weren’t going to go to Dortmund and win, so the only thing up for grabs was whether we could do enough to get a point and if not the only variable would be the margin of defeat. Someone asked me the other day what I thought we’d see in this game and I said it would either be a triumph or a disaster; nothing in between.
When we conceded early I knew what it was going to be.
But I said 15 points in this Group and this game wasn’t one of the points I was counting on and neither are those in Italy or in Birmingham although of the three big games I will be appalled if we don’t put up more of a fight against Villa than we did here. But this was never going to be about anything other than the games at home, and that match in Zagreb and they are as winnable as they were before.
This is a sore one. I would say every weakness was exposed if only they needed to be. They didn’t. They were simply highlighted all over again; we knew what the problems were and we’ve not fixed them, and we’re paying for it.
Things need to change at a deeper and more fundamental level at Celtic; too many people inside our walls think they are the lords of all creation and nights like tonight should be mortifying for them, and instructive at the same time. Smarter men might question whether they’ve got some responsibility here, and propel the club towards thinking more strategically about this stuff. Not these people.
But as I said, there’s no sugar coating how dire that was. It was horrendous and greatly concerning for any number of reasons. Foremost though is that both the tune and the words are all too familiar; lessons will be learned. How many of these special seminars do we have to go through before we actually do learn?
That was a reality check, we had not played anybody until last night. Brendan has a lot too answer for with they tactics, you can’t play like that in the champions league, we were wide open. I think maybe a bit of arrogance there, so I’m hoping he will learn lessons from that, as away from home you should be setting a team up were it’s hard to be broken down, I know it’s not the most exciting of tactics, but that’s what you have to do. It was a bad day at the office, and it was hard viewing.
I was genuinely shocked, and like you, got the fear after they scored as well just did not get that this half press style of football wasn’t going to work. The thing is, Rodgers has shown he is happy to be more than happy to play a long ball style and get everyone behind it. Surely that’s what we bought Idah for? It could have been double figures. Taylor and Valle exposed, Trusty looked woeful, Engles, Bernardo and Kuhn contributed nothing. We had an out all in Maeda who had the beaten of their RB but failed to capitalise. A humbling experience.
We could probably learn from Sevco how to be pragmatic in Europe…
They certainly are at times and while utterly shite to watch it’s effective results wise (Van Bronkhurst Season)…
Thank goodness it was ‘only’ seven or Sevco could’ve had one over on us…
Let’s just say I for one won’t be listening into Clyde Superscoreboard for a while now…
Unless perhaps Lyon put eight past Sevco which won’t happen as they know how to Park The Park’s bus in Europe a bit better than Brendan and therefore Celtic do on Continental Duties !
Your piece yesterday before the game was very much “bring it on”. You, along with many of us, thought we were ready for this game. We weren’t. And the longer we face dross at home, week after week, we’ll remain incapable of even the semblance of competing at Champions League level.
Yep the usual mantra from Brendan,” lessons will be learned” we’ve heard that after every euro debacle in Brendan’s 2 tenures in Europe.I don’t know that much technically about football and tactics but why didn’t Brendan set up his team like the smaller teams do against us in the SPFL,ie 10 men behind the ball,we still wouldn’t win but it may save us from these habitual humiliations in Europe.
Totally agree Jim…sit back, park up 1st half hour and do exactly what Celtic experience week in-week out…
Never expected a win but Fk me, play the wise option… still stuck behind the sofa and I ain’t moving anytime soon..
You might think am smoking green shit but for me scales and kasper got pass marks. I dont know what happened out there other than fear,fear when they realised just how good these guys are they then broke up trying to win alone, suicide. Its then that rodgers the tactician should have said at 2-1 bring it in and go 5 mids and wait for the break . We cant play the ” celtic way” all the time.
Scales, Valle and Schmeichel for me.
That was like rocking up to Tyson with yer hands behind yer back and saying “Do your worst, big boy”.
Rodgers, learn and Europe – been hearing that for a while,
One thing is constant in these European hammerings; we always concede goals in clusters.
We concede one, then quickly concede another one or two.
It happens every time.
The below info is from the BBC, which sums it up perfectly.
“Last season they conceded three times in 16 minutes in the 6-0 loss to Atletico Madrid and twice in three minutes against Lazio in Rome.
This goes back a while. In the Europa League in the last season of Rodgers’ first spell in 2018-19, they lost two in six minutes against Salzburg, two in four minutes against Leipzig, and two in seven minutes against Valencia.
In other Champions League games under Rodgers, they conceded two in two and another two in six on the same night against PSG. In the return game, they lost two in four and another two in six.
They shipped three goals in 10 against Barcelona in 2016 in that 7-0 defeat.”
Let’s be honest, Rodgers may be a fine domestic manager, but in Europe, the main stage, he’s appalling.
I believe it was Tom English who put those stats together . It was a tough read .
A bit harsh on Greg Taylor. Disappointing performances all over the park, not all down to one man.
There were players out there trying but not enough they were overwhelmed by a better team others not trying which had the effect of making the whole team look really poor.
Financial differentials may be the underlying cause but the entire history of professional sport is based on finding a way to overcome a technically superior opponent, rather than just saying “they are miles better than us and we cannae compete”, otherwise everything would go the way it is expected to and spectators would lose interest very quickly. We would never have won the European Cup – Inter were the pre-eminent side of the mid 60s and on paper we should never have beat them – had we taken that approach. But we no longer even try to play a defensive game away from home in Europe and have also ceased to invest as much effort into set pieces as we did in that 2000-2009 period when we regained respectability and got some decent results in Europe, making proper spankings from the real champions league elite sides quite predictable. O’Neill and Strachan both won European trophies playing for lesser clubs and instinctively knew you have to forego your expansive style to achieve that. Brendan and Ange Postecoglou are football purists who will not change their style for anybody and it is most ruthlessly exposed in European games. Even Brendan’s champions league results with Liverpool were very poor. I had no expectation of a good result last night and was astounded that anyone else did given the kamikaze approach the coach has always taken – it was like Sevco enthusiasts predicting they will win the league every summer after yet another close season cup victory and signing another clutch of duds. All the champions league is to us is a cash cow.
“I had no expectation of a good result last night and was astounded that anyone else did given the kamikaze approach the coach has always taken – it was like Sevco enthusiasts predicting they will win the league every summer after yet another close season cup victory and signing another clutch of duds.”
By far the best comment on here – I cannot believe some of the comments/posts that were being made in the build-up including from James himself. It was obvious we would get easily beat (my gut was 4-1 but hoped it might only be 2-1 going on 4 or 5) – Bratislava at home is blatantly not the same as Dortmund away and you have to change tactics, shape and personnel accordingly but Brendan simply refuses to do so. He has now been in charge of a 7-0 loss, two 7-1 losses, a 6-0 loss and a 5-0 loss – what part of “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” does he not get?
Yes losing CCV was a HUGE blow as he is by far and away our best defender and that was always going to make last night even more difficult but you simply have to start with the basic thought that playing your natural game against that level of opposition is suicidal as they are simply better at playing your game than you are – its called having a game plan !!!
Parking the bus and hitting them on the counter-attack with long balls to Maeda and Kyogo would not have been pretty and might not even have gotten a result but I can guarantee it would have been more effective and absolutely avoided a hammering. I’ve read a lot of comments on various pages/forums that 3points after 2 games is what we expected (and its true) so we should just enjoy the ride BUT we’ve gone from GD of +4 to -2 and that will make a huge difference as to where we ultimately finish in the table this year. Losing just 2-0 last night would have us in 12th place this morning instead of 19th !!!
Dead on Captain.
Absolute horror show. Nobody had even a decent game. Our mid was absent, completely outplayed and our back 4 were absolutely horrendous. Shockingly way out their depth. This could easily have been 8 at half time and double figures at the end. We actually got away with it only bein 7. Massive rethink needed from the manager for the other games, who ahm beginnin tae think is tactically inept in Europe. Also, imo it’s nae coincidence, when we’ve been continually caught out in Europe season after season by lesser teams, or gubbed big time, we’ve STILL the same coachin staff in that dugout. Until that changes, as well as the calibre of player we bring in, we’re goin nowhere in Europe. At any level.
Rodgers has managed at an elite level but he’s NOT an elite level manager and his appalling European record shows that! We’re still getting hammered in Europe as we were during his first spell SEVEN years ago.He’s learned nothing!
I thought before the game that he got the team right. Kuhn, Engels, Bernardo, Trusty and Taylor never turned up. If we’re not at our best against a team like that then a doing is certain. After half an hour Rodgers had to change it, it clearly wasn’t working and wasn’t going to. 2 like for like subs at halftime was not going to work either. Really disappointed with that performance. How they thought it was ok to Brandt all the space and time he got was unbelievable. We were so slow to react to loose balls, we’re not as good as Dortmund but we got massively out worked and that shouldn’t have happened.
Pretty much every week in Scotland we see teams adapt their tactics when facing Celtic, knowing if they try to go toe to toe they will get battered. And yet we fail to adapt our tactics when playing against top level teams in Europe. It’s either madness or egotistical.
Our midfield three need support otherwise they get played through and then our defence is exposed – and that doesn’t end well. And having CCV there wouldn’t have made much difference.
MONs 3-5-2 gave us some thrilling, competitive nights in Europe. Our players should be comfortable and confident using plan A, plan B and plan C. That is the lesson we have failed to learn.
Yes, those pesky lessons eh? The ones we always say we’re going to study but never revise for. There’s 2 things for me. I recall Stein’s players said he would study the opposition then tell them what to expect and sure enough he was right and the players had a confident gameplan. We rocked up yesterday like it was a winnable spl match. Reality has sunk in again. How hard is it to identify that you need 2 players on Adeyemi for instance. That’s what top teams would do to Messi etc. It doesn’t always work. But it gives you a chance. Or just practice one touch passing every training session for a solid hour. The other problem is domestically. Unless we practice against better opposition, we won’t improve enough for Europe. If some kind of Atlantic league, ie us along with top teams from Belgium, netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark etc played each other regularly, then we would improve, although I appreciate it isn’t likely to happen. Actually 3 things. Because the third is a Scottish or even British mentality, the oliver twist approach of looking up to your betters. If we have the mentality of nobody’s, we’ll get treated like nobody’s. This goes back to sport infrastructure. something I see at my kid’s Sunday matches. no investment in grassroots. Promotion of the biggest, strongest lads over the skilful ones. Amateur facilities. You need a winning mentality in order to win. It’s all very well winning in Perth or Dingwall against teams that can barely afford a team meal but to have the winning mentality at an elite level requires a more elite environment. The EPL have it now thanks to sky’s vast investment in their league. The SPL doesn’t have that. We’re just hicks in the sticks. France has numerous academies around Paris alone. The kids have that hunger for street football. Spain, they work on skill, as do Portugal. South America, the kids know that their way out of poverty is to be the absolute best at football. Same with the top African kids. Many European countries just have better facilities. Or a great setup like Ajax etc. But what do we have? The dinosaur sfa and biased refs, If we are serious about ever competing at that level, on the one hand, we have to work even harder these days on opposition research and tactical planning. And buying better players, like our LB position that hasn’t been upgraded since Keiran left. It also requires a mental shift by the powers that be, in investing more to produce the standard we used to have in the 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s. Just players that could compete with other nations without assuming inferiority before we even play
Scales was our best player last night, and has been our best defender all season. Agree with you on Taylor, never been and never will be good enough. Scales is improving all the time. To tar him with the same brush is lazy and inaccurate.
Have to agree that Scales was the only one who gets pass marks….keeper too
Piss poor, everything thru the centre. Could count ourselves unlucky with some of the goals but individual mistakes cost us. CCV may have made a difference but who knows.
Hopefully it shows Brendan what he needs to improve the team at this level and we can do something about it in the next transfer window.
Bad night but we need to regroup and move on.
My sentiments are in agreement, James. The writing was on the wall from the whistle, and the early goal we scored was more by luck than anything else – ‘a hipster’.
The constant flag waving lead-up to this game gave me the jitters simply because I cannot see the point of out of proportion praise. We are not in the Champions league (for talent, confidence and ability) and there are at least a dozen clubs capable of inflicting similar damage to us.
Brendan Rodgers’ achievements are and will remain domestic unless, the Celtic Board have a five year plan to build and spend. Is there any indication currently in place to suggest that they do? The boys are not ready to take on the men because there is a lot of growing up that needs to be tackled.
Michael – Brendan Rodgers achievements will remain domestic unless HE LEARNS to grow up by putting pragmatism ahead of his ego and arrogance. If the boys aren’t ready to take on the men then don’t send them out with tactics which are simply lambs to the slaughter. Does he really think last night’s game helped their progress in ANY way? They have even less confidence now for the Atalanta game making that trip even more difficult than it already was. You adopt a different approach for such games and there’s no shame in that !!! Losing say 2-0 having made Dortmund work really hard to break us down and hearing the yellow wall getting twitchy would have been a result (anything else a bonus) – losing 7-1 (and NOT for the first time under him I might add) is atrocious irrespective of the difference in player quality and value.
Good point Woodyiom along with all the excellent others on here…
What’s really concerning is that Brendan has openly stated that he’s not for changing…
That pig headedness could come back to haunt him like it has done to plenty and plenty of managers as well as him…
Try that v Atalanta and it’ll be Deja Vu yet again…
Surely Brendan CANNOT and WILL NOT want pummelling, pasting, slaughtering, hammering Number 5 – call it whatever in Europe under his tenure !
Not a good night. A massive gap between midfield and defence coupled with playing against better quality players and coaches destroyed us. Closing that gap at the expense of trying to attack may have kept the score down but probably still wouldn’t have got us a result. Too many players had a bad night.
Everybody calm down keep the faith we are Celtic hail! hail!.
Why do we insist on playing out from the back when all you are doing is inviting the 0pp0sition to play further forward and end up passing back to the goalkeeper who clearly doesn’t want it we just invite the other team to attack
I agree with those who felt Scales was one of the better players. Taylor was poor but really no back four had a chance playing behind such a porous midfield. Only Scmeichel, Scales and Maeda emerge with any credit.
If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got.
We as Celtic fans want to play with a certain style but as the comments above show in the the CL we’ll accept a different style, system and structure. Less openly attacking, more defensively organised. Front to back.
We’ve got to stop thinking that because we can smash SPL sub standard teams in a sub standard league that we can then go head to head and test our dillusion that we are a quality CL team. We are the head team of the horses at a domestic level but still in the stalls at a CL level.
I’m pretty damn sure than many including our manager thought we’re a different vastly improved outfit this year and we want to test that against the best.
All the talk over the last few days was Bernardo or Hatate. Never once did I hear why not both.
Thats not the answer either but what it showed was we’re stuck in a structural and systemic paralysis.
So in truth no lessons have been learned at all and to Brendan and the board you’re not kidding us and we the Celtic fans need to stop kidding ourselves. To pick out Taylor is to forensically miss the point and no place to start any analysis James.
To continually call our manager elite is an analytical disaster unless you accept and restrict that to a domestic arena of piss poor teams in a piss poor league.
To say he wouldn’t have changed anything and this after hindsight is a shocking indictment and a reality insight.
Stop doing what you’ve always done, learn the lessons. I love my club and all that it stands for but to see it continually defiled by those in charge that think they know best. Get a grip, get some humility and stop being part of the problem.
The pointy hat decision makers including Brendan need to take a good look at themselves. If you want to input the necessary change start with your own cognitive inabilities but have you the balls to do that and undertake a serious self examination accept your failings and change. There’s the starting point in your forensic analysis.
if I told you, you would not believe me, Callum McGregor fed the defenders more balls than he did and always does when up against it he faces our keeper more times yet he will not set a forward up with a pass.
We need to be honest and realise we are not even an average side, but a poor side in this company. None of that back four are even close to good enough. I just cannot see the hype around AJ, defensively and positionally he is very poor . It’s a harsh lesson.
Personally I disagree about Scales. I think he was one of the few players on defense to have a quality game. It’s too early to say but Trusty is the one who’s making me look nervous at Centre Back.
Christ almighty . I haven’t left the house today.. this shit show has me so embarrassed again.
Any pass marks from last night . ?? Nah didn’t think so either .
Calmac was like a rabbit caught in headlights.
Trusty . OMG 6.5 million ?
Kasper gets pass marks only cos he stopped the score being 14/15 -1.
Bernrdo n engles ???
Only started playing better when hatate came on.
We say it every time in CL we must do better against the top drawer teams.
We will still qualify for knockouts but could get a real doing again. One that some of these players will not recover from.
Only got a goal cos the ball was missed by Emre Can.
OK, Woodyiom, I get your point. I have been critical of Rodgers’ stubbornness to avoid making changes on many occasions. However he had made it clear what his preferred tactical choices were, and his unwillingness to alter them.
It seems almost a full season passed before he voiced his admiration for what he claims the changes have made and how comfortable he is about it. The players are almost conditioned to a rigid formation and to counter any need to change it when coming up against the likes of Dortmund proves to be a difficult challenge. This squad is unable to adapt at present.
We played the same way vs Atletico and drew. No risk, no reward. I’ll listen to BR, rather than a knowitall blogger.
We’ve heard this “lessons learned” narrative on a few occasions now but never see the lessons lead to changes. Reading the posts on TCB, including your pieces James, it is clear to everyone except Brendan Rodgers that if you keep treating (in terms of tactics) top European teams like SPFL teams it can only lead to embarrassment for Celtic. If a team can’t adapt on occasion to its opposition, then that’s down to the coach. Brendan Rodgers, like Ange Postecoglou, is a purist (read stubborn, read the best becomes the enemy of the good, read fatally proud) and simply won’t adapt, hence we keep getting results like this in Europe. The jury is still out I think on the Celtic squad – we still don’t know the true value of Bernardo, Engels, Valle, Idah, Trusty – but it’s still probably got too many weak links for CL football – Taylor for sure, probably Scales. No one is asking for a complete change in philosophy, just a touch of pragmatism. Methinks it’s time for the Green Brigade to have their say.
Taylor and Scales lack of ability is a valid criticism, one which Brendan Rogers wouldn’t disagree with. That being the case, why does he not deploy tactics to give our suspect defence better cover against European elite teams?