Is it really possible that Celtic have faced somewhere around 120 or 130 shots over the course of our last eight games?
Yes. In fact, it is frighteningly plausible.
Across the five league games for which the numbers are readily available, Celtic have faced 54 shots. Across the two Champions League games against LASK alone, we faced another 60. That is 114 shots in seven matches before you even add the remaining fixture into the calculation. Not shots on target.
Shots at our goal. That is an astonishing number.
And in at least one of those games, we were severely punished for it.
What struck me most about the way the Austrians approached that extraordinary second leg was that they never seemed to have the slightest doubt that they would score. They did not seem surprised when the first went in.
They did not seem remotely satisfied when the second followed.
Once they had scored twice, they knew they were back in the tie and they played like a team which believed completely that more opportunities would come.
That would be worrying enough on its own.
The problem is that teams on our own doorstep have been testing us too. Some of them might have punished us much more severely if they had better forwards available.
Every decision a coach makes contains an element of risk.
But I cannot remember a bigger gamble being taken by a Celtic coaching staff than the one made this summer when they decided the central defence did not need strengthening.
The failure to sign a proper ball-winning midfielder is even harder to understand because that has been identified as a weakness for so long. It is not some obscure tactical issue which only coaches can see.
Supporters can see it. Opponents can see it. Everybody can see it.
If Celtic had the right player operating in that defensive midfield role, a significant number of these shots would probably never happen.
A lot of them are coming from exactly the area where that player should be operating, just outside the penalty box, where second balls are picked up and where runners are allowed to advance without enough resistance.
Without somebody properly controlling that zone, Celtic are not simply inviting pressure. They are inviting disaster.
And the remarkable thing is that even the most tactically disinterested supporter can see what is missing. Most Celtic fans cannot believe we still do not have a specialist defensive midfielder. Most cannot believe another centre-back was not signed either.
The sheer volume of shots we are conceding tells you something somewhere has changed dramatically. The question is whether that change is going to cost us against better opposition. And we are about to find out.
The Ibrox club are less than a week away.
They are not a brilliant side. They are not particularly convincing. I’ve watched every minute of their games this season and they are pretty toothless. But they have signed some new players, and if it turns out these players are capable of finishing the opportunities we are currently allowing opponents to create, then Celtic are going to have to defend considerably better than we have been or pay the price.
I said last night that, with them coming next, part of me would actually have preferred a tougher game tomorrow night. With all due respect to St Johnstone, they do not have the attacking quality of Hearts.
They are not necessarily the kind of side which will tell us whether our defensive structure can survive against a team capable of seriously hurting us.
And I would rather know before Ibrox.
Because the one genuinely severe test we have already had ended catastrophically. LASK had 40 shots in Austria. Forty. Eight were on target. They scored five. It could have been worse. That is not hyperbole. Celtic could have conceded ten that night and nobody watching the game would have said the scoreline was some statistical freak.
Had we lost by seven, eight or even more (they missed a penalty so the score could have been six) the performance would still have justified the result. And a humiliation on that scale would have put enormous pressure on the manager and his coaching staff.
Domestically, the consequences are different.
Lose a league game and you still have months to recover. There are other fixtures. There are other chances. One bad result becomes part of a long campaign.
But this weekend is a cup tie.
There is no recovery. One mistake can end the competition. That makes the gamble at the back much harder to ignore.
Martin O’Neill decided he did not want another centre-back.
That was his call. Nobody can hang all of that around the necks of the board.
The defensive midfield situation is slightly different because recruitment responsibility is broader than one man, but the manager still has to accept some share of responsibility there too. You cannot blame the board for absolutely everything.
At some point, a manager has to identify what he needs, stand up for the football side and push as hard as necessary to get it. If O’Neill genuinely believed central defence was good enough, then he has made that judgement and now has to live with it.
If he believed a defensive midfielder was essential, then this is the kind of position where he had to make that requirement impossible to ignore. Either way, Celtic have reached September with neither issue properly resolved.
And that represents a huge gamble.
The manager is effectively betting that what we already have will be good enough defensively for the season ahead. Supporters are entitled to have doubts about that. I certainly do. I cannot remember watching a Celtic side concede this sheer volume of shots with such regularity.
Even in games we are winning comfortably, opponents are finding ways through.
Against Aberdeen, Celtic won 3-0 and still conceded nine attempts. Against St Mirren, we conceded 19. Against Dundee, 11. Against Kilmarnock, 10. None of those individual numbers necessarily looks catastrophic.
Put them together and the pattern becomes harder to dismiss.
And then there is LASK. That is the game which hangs over all of this. Because we already know what happens when a team with enough confidence and attacking quality starts converting the opportunities Celtic are giving away.
The entire structure can collapse.
There is an odd contradiction around this team at the moment. Supporters are uneasy about the defence, but at the same time there is a genuine belief that because of what Celtic have at the other end of the pitch we can simply outscore most opponents.
And maybe we can. Duran gives us goals. Høgh gives us goals. Yang has been producing. Nygren contributes. There are attacking options everywhere.
That creates confidence. But it can also create complacency.
“We’ll score more than you” is exhilarating when it works. It is a dangerous philosophy when it becomes the thing covering up structural weaknesses elsewhere. Because eventually you meet somebody who takes their chances.
Eventually you meet somebody who scores first. Eventually you have a night like Linz.
Celtic are gambling. There is no point pretending otherwise.
We are gambling that the existing centre-backs are good enough. We are gambling that the lack of a genuine ball-winning midfielder will not be exposed too often. We are gambling that the volume of shots being conceded is something we can survive because most opponents will not convert enough of them.
And perhaps the gamble works. Perhaps this side settles down. Perhaps the structure improves. Perhaps the numbers come down. Perhaps O’Neill has judged it correctly.
But on Sunday at Ibrox, we are going to get a much clearer indication.
That is not necessarily because the team across the city is brilliant. It is because cup football does not give you the luxury of being wrong. If Celtic give them the kind of opportunities we have been giving other teams, and if they have somebody capable of taking them, the consequences could be immediate.
The biggest tactical gamble of Celtic’s season so far has been made at the defensive end of the pitch. On Sunday, we start finding out whether it was brave judgement or reckless optimism.
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Every header to clear our box falls to an opposition player with a chance to shoot.For me that’s down to coaching as our defence seems to be zonal marking and not covering anything headed out.
Yes a midfielder would normally be there or thereabouts to clear the ball.
Couching needs a serious rethink.
We really don’t have a midfield to speak of. Another thing is we flood the penalty are at both end and they just get in each others way. The better teams seem to leave someone up at the half way line so that there is someone to clear the ball to and start an attack immediately.
There is almost a consensus on the need for a quality defensive midfielder. the absence of such a player in the Celtic team is, without doubt, contributing to the increase in shots on the Celtic goal.
The amount of increased pressure on the back line is putting players such as Carter-Vickers and Trusty to the test and already they are struggling to cope. With no recruitment of centre backs or a defensive midfielder in the summer window, Celtic have been left badly exposed as it is becoming clearer that players, like CCV and Tusty, are simply not good enough. I’m worried that this is going to cost Celtic dearly, in Europe and domestically.
This is standard for good teams, get within sight of goal and shoot at worst you might get a lucky rebound. With us it is endless pass in front of goal then out to the wings to get crossed into an organised defence. Also they numbers how how good Sinisalo has been.
Shooting and running into the box with the ball is the way forward.
The problem is with the M/F. Playing Nygren in a 4-3-3 formation becomes a 4-2 4 formation, add to that, Baur or CalMac are natural attacking rather than defensive midfielders, and we have a problem. This Sunday worries me, Maeda when playing wide tracked back as extra cover in wide positions, Yang has brought that into his game, But there is no way that Hassan or Tounekti will track back, it is just not something they are capable of. Our full backs are going to be left very exposed in 1on1 situations. We’re liable to make a very ordinary Ibrox team look dangerous.
Our manager and coaches have got to find a way with the players available, not to leave ourselves so open to counter attacks, shut the door defensively, and we have the players upfront to do a lot of damage.
The Sound Of Silence would be great to hear at Ibrox.
Micmac – you have hit the nail on the head. It’s our midfield that it leaving our defence exposed, and as you note we are effectively playing with 4 forwards. We either need to drop Nygren and play one of the new midfielders – Sorensen described himself as a box-to-box midfielder – or move to a 3-5-2. I think our forward 3 carry enough goal threat that we should have enough without Nygren on the pitch.