The Offical Glasgow Celtic thread

[Angelo]

Angelo i've said before i'll not defend NL when he doesn't deserve defending and today is def not a day to try but you're are being such a hateful hoor tbh. I've had shit from huns all day but it's nothing having to listen to your crap about Neil Lennon and Celtic. The performance was shit today from players and management and wasn't good enough and if sacking Neil Lennon is the answer then so be it, if a new manager makes Celtic a better team then I'm all for that but I get the feeling that still wouldn't make u happy.
You yapped about James Forrest but i can tell you i'd have gladly taken him today, you yapped about not playing Rogic and Ntcham etc look what them players contributed. As i said yesterday it wouldn't have mattered what the result was today your opinion will always be the same and i stand by my previous comment that you're a f**king disgrace if you call yourself a Celtic fan. You haven't one good thing to say about Celtic, you hate the Board, you hate the manager and by your comments you hate the players so WTF is up your hole.

The performance today was in line with our performances all season. Rangers were the first team we have met this season close to our level and they wiped the floor with us.

I'm not being hateful, I'm being honest and I'm being objective. You are so personally attached to Lennon that you cannot stomach any completely grounded and rational criticism that comes his way.

I'm a Celtic fan, you seem to be a Neil Lennon cheerleader.

A fan supports their team and i've never seen one positive post from you about Celtic so that's why i said you were a disgrace to call yourself a Celtic fan. Yes, you've everyone on your side here and in your words I look like a Neil Lennon cheer leader from todays result (which i haven't defended him) but this has been going on for a long time with you not just today or last week.
I support Celtic through and through and always have done, I support the players and always have done and until they move on or are shipped out then i support whoever wears the green and white hoops. If the manager warrants the sack and it happens then so be it but until that happens then they've my full support.

A fan supports their team.

I support Celtic and I want what's best for them, I want 10IAR and when we have someone as out of their depth as Lennon is in this job, then it's bad for the club. You have an attachment to Lennon because he's a local lad. I have nothing personal against him, I'm sure he might be a decent guy but the Celtic job is too big for him and he's not up to it and you need to stop taking objective opinions on his managerial style, lack of tactical acumen and selection decisions personally.

The longer we stick with Lennon the more we risk, with every bad result and every further poor performance the more damage is done and the more people that begin to lose faith. There is absolutely nothing in Lennon's managerial career that warranted him getting this job.

[MK]

Obviously time for Wee Gordon Strachan to step in...

[restorepride]

Angelo i've said before i'll not defend NL when he doesn't deserve defending and today is def not a day to try but you're are being such a hateful hoor tbh. I've had shit from huns all day but it's nothing having to listen to your crap about Neil Lennon and Celtic. The performance was shit today from players and management and wasn't good enough and if sacking Neil Lennon is the answer then so be it, if a new manager makes Celtic a better team then I'm all for that but I get the feeling that still wouldn't make u happy.
You yapped about James Forrest but i can tell you i'd have gladly taken him today, you yapped about not playing Rogic and Ntcham etc look what them players contributed. As i said yesterday it wouldn't have mattered what the result was today your opinion will always be the same and i stand by my previous comment that you're a f**king disgrace if you call yourself a Celtic fan. You haven't one good thing to say about Celtic, you hate the Board, you hate the manager and by your comments you hate the players so WTF is up your hole.

The performance today was in line with our performances all season. Rangers were the first team we have met this season close to our level and they wiped the floor with us.

I'm not being hateful, I'm being honest and I'm being objective. You are so personally attached to Lennon that you cannot stomach any completely grounded and rational criticism that comes his way.

I'm a Celtic fan, you seem to be a Neil Lennon cheerleader.

A fan supports their team and i've never seen one positive post from you about Celtic so that's why i said you were a disgrace to call yourself a Celtic fan. Yes, you've everyone on your side here and in your words I look like a Neil Lennon cheer leader from todays result (which i haven't defended him) but this has been going on for a long time with you not just today or last week.
I support Celtic through and through and always have done, I support the players and always have done and until they move on or are shipped out then i support whoever wears the green and white hoops. If the manager warrants the sack and it happens then so be it but until that happens then they've my full support.

That is because Angelo seeks attention on whichever thread he is on - check it out and you will see.  Angelo is a fan of nothing, except of himself.  I just want you to know that your allegiance to Celtic is the true one, the type of supporter that all clubs need.  Don't let Angelo put you off - he only cares for his own ego and when challenged he runs.  He does not have "everyone on his side" so do not worry about that - he represents no-one and his comment re Edouard above is bordering on racism.  Imagine using that language to refer to a player from your own team?  He knows exactly what he is doing - and the board will catch up with him.   Know that what you feel in your heart and soul for Celtic is right. 

[clarshack]

Obviously time for Wee Gordon Strachan to step in...

WGS teams rarely played like that today against Rangers. They always had fire in their bellies, same as MON teams before him.

[sid waddell]

Celtic have looked very flat any time I've watched them recently.

Lennon doesn't seem to be sending them out riled up.

Sending out a team riled up is one thing I would have very much associated Lennon with in his first spell with Celtic, particularly around 2011

Conflict seemed to follow him around

But he seems to have lost that edge now and doesn't have the tactical knowledge to compensate

I think the lack of a crowd suits Rangers this season and not Celtic, and especially not Lennon

Celtic as a club has gone very stale with a consistent lack of competition over the last decade, while Rangers have their own self-sustaining need to win that Celtic lack, it's a bit of a mirror image of 1998 - the nervousness of the crowd really got to Celtic that season and it was pretty much handed to them by Rangers in the end - Rangers won't have a nervous crowd to hold them back this season

I would think it's far more exciting to be a Rangers supporter at the moment than a Celtic supporter even if they can't attend

Rangers have certainly been getting the upper hand in Old Firm games since the one at the end of 2018, they've routinely looked much superior in head to heads

I think they're more than ready to win the league and stop ten in a row

[GiveItToTheShooters]

The absolute shite i have read on this thread . Celtic are 4 points behind with a game in hand for gods sake. Early days, still favourites.

[sid waddell]

The absolute shite i have read on this thread . Celtic are 4 points behind with a game in hand for gods sake. Early days, still favourites.

I think Rangers will win at least three of the Old Firm games

Their dominance in head to heads is becoming a real pattern

[themac_23]

The absolute shite i have read on this thread . Celtic are 4 points behind with a game in hand for gods sake. Early days, still favourites.

I agree we have more than enough in the squad to win the league, but your confidence is the kinda of thing that's got us into this mess, we've went along nicely with the notion that all we have to do is be just better than rangers and that's enough, they have built a game plan that suits them and their players, there is a title race on this season make no mistake about it. Lennon has to go. he has to go soon, the players aren't playing for him and his tactics are horrific, someone mentioned WGS earlier, I would take him in a heart beat he would sort the team out to the end of the season at least, id feel more confident with Gordon in the dugout at Ibrox than Lennon.

[marty34]

Somebody leaked the Celtic team yesterday.  This has happened a few times now.

Why would someone do that?

Not sure what's going on behind the scenes but it's not good.

[Angelo]

Somebody leaked the Celtic team yesterday.  This has happened a few times now.

Why would someone do that?

Not sure what's going on behind the scenes but it's not good.

I'd imagine there are a lot of disgruntled players, Celtic have a lot of automatic starters regardless of form and fitness.

[From the Bunker]

The 10 in a row is a once in a lifetime. There will more than likely never be an opportunity of doing this again. On the all time Roll of honour Rangers are on 54*, Celtic 51. Rangers win they go to 55*, 4 ahead. Celtic win it there will only be 2 between them. This is the closest Celtic has been to Rangers since 1988. In 2000 we were 13 titles behind.


* 1 shared title.

[Baile Brigín 2]

The 10 in a row is a once in a lifetime. There will more than likely never be an opportunity of doing this again. On the all time Roll of honour Rangers are on 54*, Celtic 51. Rangers win they go to 55*, 4 ahead. Celtic win it there will only be 2 between them. This is the closest Celtic has been to Rangers since 1988. In 2000 we were 13 titles behind.


* 1 shared title.

That club is dead.

[blasmere]

From Kieran Devlin in The Athletic

It was an opportunity to redress an unconvincing start to the season, to dispel a gnawing unease about the absence of cohesion and creativity that underpinned Celtic's performances so far in 2020-21, if not the generally positive results. Such an opportunity was not taken, and instead the game confirmed the malaise drifting over the club.

This didn't happen out of the blue. This wasn't unexpected. It's just the underlying performances of Celtic's 2020-21 reaching their logical end point.

When the line-up dropped at 11:15am, it was hard to escape a twinge of apprehension. The most glaring decision was at the back. Celtic were without three centre-backs and, in calling upon 20-year-old Stephen Welsh for only his second-ever senior appearance to fill in the back three alongside Kristoffer Ajer and Shane Duffy, the management clearly opted for formation over personnel.

Rather than revert to a back four to adjust to half of the first-team centre-backs being missing, there was a belief enough in the formation to succeed with the sixth-choice option starting. When Celtic initially switched to a 3-5-2 after last season's winter break, and revitalised their form, they never had the opportunity to play it against Rangers, with the season officially pausing just two days before the fourth derby of 2019-20. Saturday's set-up was apparently designed to address this. Even among the various wild cards considered over the past week, we didn't see this coming. In hindsight, the commitment to stick to the formation seems overly optimistic, even desperate.

It wasn't Neil Lennon's first-choice line-up by any stretch of the imagination, and Celtic had been overrun in three of the previous four derbies — both factors which complemented the uninspired displays preceding Saturday to create some degree of anxiety before kick-off. Anxiety which was quickly aggravated with Ajer, Duffy and Moi Elyounoussi all making needless errors in possession in the opening 10 minutes, including a slack lay-off from the latter that led to the foul for Connor Goldson's opener. But there was at least some urgency from Celtic within that period that vanished as the game wore on.

Celtic were occasionally dangerous on the counter in the first half, enabled by the pace of Jeremie Frimpong and Elyounoussi in particular, but when Rangers had time to reset their shape, their defensive organisation was sound enough to stifle Celtic's build-up. It's the continuation of an ongoing theme for Celtic's season; when facing a well-drilled defensive unit, they struggle to break through their lines and create chances.

Rangers didn't press as aggressively high up the pitch as they have done in previous years, organising themselves up in more of a mid-block with nine men behind the ball, assumedly because they're conscious that if they set up this way, Celtic would labour in passing through them.

This was especially the case after the second goal. Rangers sat back and soaked up Celtic's timid pressure, happy to find space on the counter — as they did when Ryan Kent nearly scored a third through a straightforward ball down Celtic's right flank, which was crossed for an unmarked Kent to find the outstretched boot of Ajer who deflected the ball for a corner.

The number of absentees is inevitably a factor in the disjointedness, and but in reality Celtic were so flat they were in two dimensions. They didn't have a single shot on target the entire game, and didn't have a shot at all in the second half. It was a footballing vacuum.

It's also another high-stakes, one-off game that the management have got wrong over the past 14 months. Cluj in last season's Champions League qualification, when the selection of Callum McGregor at left-back imbalanced the team.

Rangers in last season's League Cup final, when Lewis Morgan as a false nine offered no outlet to an overrun midfield. Rangers at Celtic Park in the league last season, when that same midfield was fielded, playing in the exact same manner and again being overrun despite a then-on-form Olivier Ntcham being available on the bench.

Copenhagen in last season's Europa League last 32, when Ajer was played at right-back, unbalancing the team similarly to McGregor against Cluj.

Ferencvaros in this season's Champions League qualification, with Ryan Christie played as a false nine with two strikers on the bench.

Rangers on Saturday, when the 3-5-2 didn't suit the personnel available.

That's now four of the last five derbies that Celtic been comfortably outplayed, and following on from the Ferencvaros loss, two from two this season in underperforming in high-pressure games against good opposition.

But team selection isn't the critical issue here. Laxalt and Welsh weren't terrible in isolation, though the latter did overcommit to the man rather than the position on a number of occasions, and Klimala commendably attempted a job he's not suited for as he's never evidenced a penchant for hold-up play. Lennon subbing off Elyounoussi, who'd been frustrating at times but also Celtic's only connection between the midfield and attack, was baffling. Perhaps even more baffling was persisting with the 3-5-2 until the 84th minute, chasing the game with three centre-backs and a defensive midfielder.

The 3-5-2 hasn't transpired to be the derby-day holy grail the management hoped it would be. It isn't a magical cure-all to solve Celtic's chronic underperformance against Rangers.

But really, the problems are, and have been all season, much deeper-rooted than just formations, team selections and substitutions. They haven't helped in games such as Ferencvaros, but the reason Celtic lost that important qualifier was because there was so little shape to their midfield and the Hungarians countered through it easily — an issue determined by coaching on the training ground, not one decided by tactics on the day.

Against Rangers they were abject, lifeless. There wasn't a refined defensive shape, as there hasn't really been this season. There was little fluency going forward or well-developed attacking patterns, as there really hasn't been this season either. There was a lethargic pace and purpose to ball progression, which once again, follows the model of the season. They are still a group of individuals without an underlying system to steer them in a collective direction, to fulfil their potential as a unit. That's the story of this season, and Saturday was just the latest chapter. Only this time they've played a team at their level and were well beaten.

It was a poor quality game all told, as these derbies perpetually are. There was no blood or thunder, and Rangers didn't have to raise their game above a 6 out of 10. The game just sort of happened, and happened with minimal input from the Celtic players.

Stripped of the cauldron atmosphere and sense of life-defining gravitas which both sets of fans provide these fixtures, it was simply a routine win for a well-coached team against one without any identity or impetus. It was a derby lost not with a bang, but the most limp and pathetic of whimpers.

[MK]

a well-coached team against one without any identity or impetus

as seen at set pieces

For Goldsons first goal Duffy actually played him onside leaving a non defender to stop his run

Meanwhile when Celtic had a set-piece and invariably targetted Duffy in the opposing penalty area Goldson was there to  stop the target and thus defy the threat

[illdecide]

I just hope it all works out...Bringing in a new manager is a risk and so is keeping the existing one, what i want is to get the 10 this season and for NL to walk away from the poison he gets now from both sides. He played for Man City, Crewe & Leicester and captained N Ireland at that time and no one batted an eye lid at him but the day he signed for Celtic everything turned against him for pure bigoty and sectarian reasons. Now though he's getting it from his own fans which i think is despicable tbh and in my opinion wrong, WTF is wrong with people?. I just don't get it...

Back to the game yesterday and the more i think about it and look back at the players we have at our disposal would this Celtic team have made any difference...

V. BARKAS (which i'm not convinced off just yet)
C. JULLIEN
S. DUFFY
K. AJER
D. LAXALT (not match fit but we have to assume he's gonna be good)
J. FORREST
C. MCGREGOR
S. BROWN
R. CHRISTIE
O. EDOUARD
L. GRIFFITHS

Not making excuses for the defeat but that team surely would have done better with Ajeti waiting for a slice of it too?