So we thought we’d save the worst performance of the season for Ibrox, yeah? Because that’s what we did today. That was appalling. That was a shocker. Every player who took part in that game failed, and failed utterly. There was not a single player in the side who got pass marks after that shocker. Not one.
If success is a collective endeavour then so is failure. And in truth, I am not inclined to pretend there were success stories on the pitch during a game where we were passive and weak and lacking in every department. Everyone let us down today, including the guy on the touchline who was way too passive and waited too long for the players to change things rather than changing them himself … and even then, he got the changes wrong.
Yeah, I certainly hold Rodgers in no small measure responsible for this. Only our league lead prevents today from being one where searching questions might be posed. But since it’s not my job to kiss the ring I am determined that they should be asked anyway or we’re no better than the Ibrox club with its tendency to ignore issues and draw the wrong conclusions from every reversal.
We were well beat today. Part of that is down to the boss.
Look, we were off it during the cup final. But did we learn anything from it? No. Because we persevered with the same system and the same approach rather than making changes to how we went about our business.
It’s not enough to ask players to do things better; some of the responsibility lies with the manager as well, and they found us entirely predictable today.
Did their changed personnel make a blind bit of difference to the outcome? No, because in fact Clement, even with inferior personnel, barely changed his plan at all … it looks as if Rodgers assumed pretty much what I did in that they’d have to. But he was confident in his tactical approach and that should concern our coaching staff.
We played the game they expected and they knew how to stop us. They did that, at every turn today. They closed us down. They stopped us playing. They absolutely deserved their victory, and if we don’t take some proper lessons from that and how they were able to do it, with an injury ravaged defence we barely tested and a midfield which ran ours into the ground, we can forget about a treble.
Brendan Rodgers has hard questions to answer. Let’s no pretend otherwise. I’ll give you one example; his decision to play Hatate against a team which has proven adept at pressing us, when Hatate is prone to misplacing passes and getting key decisions wrong, backfired massively as many of us have long feared that it would.
A team that forces even our most careful players into errors was going to have a field day playing a close press against a guy who has been prone to them for months. His selection today was a massive mistake. We ignored clear warnings. We got what we deserved. Perhaps there is complacency at Celtic after all.
That level of performance is wholly unacceptable and the manager needs to take stock. The gap at the top is no excuse; in fact, the gap at the top is wholly reflective of the respective strengths of the two teams, and the two clubs, and so this defeat is all the more shocking because of it. Nobody should be sugar-coating what we watched today. It was a shambles. The manager owes us an apology for presiding over such a colossal failure because his failure to adapt has proved costly.
A lot of people across the city will read this article thinking that I find these hard to write; in fact, these are the easiest articles to write because the truth is clear and unlike most of their fan media writers I will not pretend that that things are other than they are. We lost because the manager got it wrong in every way that matters. If you want to blame individual performances for that you’re not paying attention … we completely failed to adapt our approach in the aftermath of the cup final and this is the result.
Ironically, it was our players who realised this first but they were no better today than they were that afternoon, and a period of reflection is necessary there too. Without it, we’re asking for trouble. Shame on all of them, starting with the coaching staff. Nobody should be pretending that doesn’t matter and that it doesn’t count. That was a disaster of an afternoon in any context, by any measurable standard, and if we pretend otherwise then we’re setting ourselves up for more of them. A lot went wrong today – a lot was wrong today – and if we ignore that and refuse to acknowledge it we’re as deluded as they are.
Listen, their team is inferior to ours in every department. Every single one. Their manager is inferior to Rodgers in almost every respect. But they’ve run us too close for comfort in several massive games now and today they breezed past us with a team held together by superglue and balling wire. Are we really going to pretend that there’s not now something to at least think about? It’s adapt or else. We failed to adapt prior to this and we saw our unbeaten run end and our league lead cut.
We have an elite manager. For him to have so utterly failed to change his approach today is a serious issue and we would be mad not to acknowledge it. More importantly, so would he.
Firstly we have no Devine right to win any game ever – It absolutely has to be earned…
Not a fuckin snowballs chance in hell of that today for sure –
They have truly sussed us so what goin forward then…
Well there has to be definite changes v them for certain…
So next time at Liebrox or even Paradise it’s gotta be fuck this trying to pass it through them pish…
Route 1 – Over the top – To Fuck with The ‘Celtic Way’ – Sometimes it doesn’t work v Sevco…
Try Up n’ under – Try Route One – Try over the top…
We might just get a pleasant surprise – It might just work !!!!
Absolute dreadful performance today, never looked like we were at it all.
20 seconds in an AJ had a chance to make a statement tackle and pulled out if it and that summed up the rest of the Bhoys performance today. As many have said already, no desire or hunger and 2nd ball reaction was very poor.
Have given Scales is dues like a lot of us but today was just not good enough and should have been hooked at halftime.
We have been poor lately and think we need some kind of quality injection in January to up our standards
Bad day at Blackrock, end of.
However, no need for knee jerk reactions, we will get back on track against St Mirren on Sunday and put this one behind us. It was sore to watch, but dare I say it, after a great calendar year…..the law of averages?
Well that was feckin dire, never seen such a poor performance for a long time
I said to folks before the game that the huns would play the same way as they did in the cup final and hoped that Brendan would set up accordingly.
How right I was and how feckin wrong was brendan.
I see in some areas of the Web, there is a suggestion of collusion/corruption as to the performance, allegedly letting the huns win to keep them relevant.
What a pile of shite that suggestion is.
At the end of the day, we dropped 3 points. 11 ahead now and the huns won’t catch us , no way on earth.
Mon the hoops Hail Hail
That was as bad a performance that I have seen from Celtic since the early 90’s.
Do we only have a right side of attack?
Almost every offensive attack came down the right hand side, The Rangers squeeze were continually waiting for the ball back across defence from our left side defenders and picking it off, as the did in the Cups.
DM has the speed to kill over the top and if you look at the offside goal from Kyogo and most of his goals against them that is where we are at our most dangerous.
Kuhn was ineffective today don’t think he won one battle and when I say battle I mean battle, he was kicked, elbowed and run roughshod the entire game.
What we lack especially against teams who want to play that crippling style football is a hardman who takes no prisoners Cal Mac is not that man. He cowers panics and continues to put others into danger by going backwards far to often. A tough defensive midfielder is an urgent need for this style of game to take some of the pressure off him in my opinion, this was the same style of play we seen Dundee Utd also use against us after the cup final when we looked tired and lacking ideas.
Onwards and upwards hopefully we can get a bargain in the window who will take that roll up.
HH COYBIG
Happy New Year folks.
Quite hysterical, which isn’t like you from what I’ve read over the past couple of seasons. Baby-out-with-the-bathwater reactions aren’t your style. That said, I agree the performance wasn’t at the level it should’ve been, but sometimes it just isn’t your day. I’m not some naive fanboy who can’t see today was a poor show all round—far from it. Last season taught me a lot and reined me in a bit because that was a test of any fan’s nerve. Those must-win games, week in and week out going into the split, were full of pressure, and this team stepped up and delivered, whereas the opposition folded.
The difference today? The huns played like a team with nothing on the line—no consequences for failure—because they’ve consistently failed when it mattered. That hasn’t changed. This was their second win in six games since their Spurs draw. In that time, they’ve lost a final, dropped 11 points behind us in the league, and don’t have the funds to strengthen what’s already a poor squad. Meanwhile, Celtic are in a superb position for a storied season and have the spending power to make quality additions if available. The same players who’ve got us to this point will see us through, just as they did last season when we were in a weaker position in terms of both performances and results.
Let’s not forget Kuhn—written off last season with the same hysterical claptrap. He looked underweight and ill in January but never hid, never let us down. Compare that to someone like Yang, who still has a lot to prove. Last season, we drew 3-3 at Ibrox in a must-win game for the huns. They celebrated like it was the title, but the reality was it was ours to lose. They then dropped points immediately after, while we beat them at Parkhead when it mattered and went on to win the cup.
Yes, we lost key battles all over the pitch today, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to rip everything up, bin everyone, and declare the team crap. Football isn’t always about instant gratification. Sometimes you lose; sometimes it’s just not your day. But we’re still in a fantastic position, and this team has shown time and again that it can step up when it counts.
Take it easy and have a good weekend
Mark
Good post …
We were abysmal, when the whole team plays that bad it’s on the manager. Wee definitely should have made changes at halftime. One team wanted it way more than the other.