Abysmal Display. we need to act fast.

[Joe O'Rourke]

Where do you start with Saturday? Absolutely abysmal display, Brendan gets the big pay cheque, so it is his job to sort it, and he needs to do it quickly. The only thing in our favour right now is that it is close to the transfer window opening. It’s obviously not just the playing squad we have right now, there needs to be more work done on the training ground, we need to do the basics, but quite frankly, we have not replaced the only player we had with the natural ability to beat a packed defence, and that player was Jota.

We know that every team we play in Scotland will drop deep into defence when out of possession, to have any chance of beating that defence, we need to move the ball forward much quicker, the slower we attack, the more time the other team has to drop off into a five and four, or a flat back ten in some cases. Kyogo was scoring every week when we attacked at speed, the way we are playing just now, he is getting two and three markers around him when trying to receive the ball.

As I wrote last week, set pieces are a major problem, both attacking them, and defending them. The two goals we lost on Saturday were certainly avoidable, even given that the foul given for the second goal was never a foul, we must defend it a lot better. And to leave their main striker unmarked at the corner for the first goal was shocking, he did not even have to jump for the ball. We had 77% possession against Hearts, we had twenty two shots, only five on target, and, astonishingly, we had eighteen corners to Hearts three, and they managed to score from one of the three.

We must win our next two matches at Celtic Park, and we must strengthen the playing squad in the transfer window, that means, first team ready players coming in, and those who are not good enough going out. With Champions League Group Stage participation guaranteed for the Champions, winning must be achieved at any cost.
It’s still all to play for. Come on Celtic, let’s get back to winning.