That’s fair. The defence was incredible yesterday, but the midfield (aside from Hatate) and the attackers were excruciating to watch.
Luke McCowan looked like a lost wee boy out there. Repeatedly bullied off the ball. Nygren was ghosting, but I find it hard to criticise him quite as much as we’d be 5th without his goals. The less said about Yang, Maeda and Tounekti the better.
One-Brief2107 on
We have too many players that shouldn’t be starting games, Nygren, Yang, Tounetki, McCowan arguably Maeda this season all look better when the other team is tired.
The fact that we had almost a full team of starters out yesterday injured and they still couldn’t beat us after playing 4 games in 10 days is wild.
I read somewhere that we are down almost 20 points on our average points at this time of the season……..that explains the title race
walshybhoy on
Matt O’Reilly was our last creative player. Hatate used to be but is too hot and cold. Doesn’t seem to be much in the way of flair, vision or ability to create something out of nothing.
Automatic-Scale-7572 on
The problem isn’t solely creativity in the final third. It’s that there’s no platform behind them. Hatate and Nygren have both shown how good they can be at the other end of the pitch this week, but Rangers just flooded the midfield yesterday, and we had no physical presence in there whatsoever to nullify it.
We had a midfield three of McCowan, Hatate, and Nygren. Nygren isn’t a midfielder. Hatate isn’t one you want doing too much in your own half, and McCowan may have his merits, but he isn’t good enough to be starting for Celtic, never mind in a role he isn’t suited to.
Bill Shankly famously broke footballers down into piano players and piano carriers. Yesterday, we had no piano carriers, making the piano players redundant. A defensive midfielder has to be the main signing in the summer. It should have been in January. Our team is unbalanced with McGregor in it, and without him, it is completely disjointed.
This is why I think the criticism McGregor gets is unfair. He has been in a selfless role for years and has been our entire midfield this season. There’s no equilibrium to any midfield we have put out. Engels, Nygren, and Hatate are all fine players, but we’re not getting the best out of them. We can look at the players themselve, but they can’t be enjoying their football. In fairness to Hatate, he put in a huge shift yesterday, but there’s just no balance to how we have setup. I want Hatate on the ball in their half and dictating the game like he did when he came on in the league game and not putting out fires at the edge of his own box.
These games are often won and lost in midfield and we lost the midfield battle, but won it with grit, determination, and huge efforts from Araujo, Trusty, and Sinisalo. We have all fallen a bit in love with Araujo, but we need what he has in the middle. A bit of lunacy and personality We can’t keep expecting it from players for whom that just isn’t their strength.
We also need someone who can keep us ticking over with the ball. McGregor does it, but it feels like a waste and has for a while. When McGregor is freed up, we look better as a team. We also found out yesterday the risk of him playing every single minute of football! But we also saw why he plays every single minute of football!
4 Comments
That’s fair. The defence was incredible yesterday, but the midfield (aside from Hatate) and the attackers were excruciating to watch.
Luke McCowan looked like a lost wee boy out there. Repeatedly bullied off the ball. Nygren was ghosting, but I find it hard to criticise him quite as much as we’d be 5th without his goals. The less said about Yang, Maeda and Tounekti the better.
We have too many players that shouldn’t be starting games, Nygren, Yang, Tounetki, McCowan arguably Maeda this season all look better when the other team is tired.
The fact that we had almost a full team of starters out yesterday injured and they still couldn’t beat us after playing 4 games in 10 days is wild.
I read somewhere that we are down almost 20 points on our average points at this time of the season……..that explains the title race
Matt O’Reilly was our last creative player. Hatate used to be but is too hot and cold. Doesn’t seem to be much in the way of flair, vision or ability to create something out of nothing.
The problem isn’t solely creativity in the final third. It’s that there’s no platform behind them. Hatate and Nygren have both shown how good they can be at the other end of the pitch this week, but Rangers just flooded the midfield yesterday, and we had no physical presence in there whatsoever to nullify it.
We had a midfield three of McCowan, Hatate, and Nygren. Nygren isn’t a midfielder. Hatate isn’t one you want doing too much in your own half, and McCowan may have his merits, but he isn’t good enough to be starting for Celtic, never mind in a role he isn’t suited to.
Bill Shankly famously broke footballers down into piano players and piano carriers. Yesterday, we had no piano carriers, making the piano players redundant. A defensive midfielder has to be the main signing in the summer. It should have been in January. Our team is unbalanced with McGregor in it, and without him, it is completely disjointed.
This is why I think the criticism McGregor gets is unfair. He has been in a selfless role for years and has been our entire midfield this season. There’s no equilibrium to any midfield we have put out. Engels, Nygren, and Hatate are all fine players, but we’re not getting the best out of them. We can look at the players themselve, but they can’t be enjoying their football. In fairness to Hatate, he put in a huge shift yesterday, but there’s just no balance to how we have setup. I want Hatate on the ball in their half and dictating the game like he did when he came on in the league game and not putting out fires at the edge of his own box.
These games are often won and lost in midfield and we lost the midfield battle, but won it with grit, determination, and huge efforts from Araujo, Trusty, and Sinisalo. We have all fallen a bit in love with Araujo, but we need what he has in the middle. A bit of lunacy and personality We can’t keep expecting it from players for whom that just isn’t their strength.
We also need someone who can keep us ticking over with the ball. McGregor does it, but it feels like a waste and has for a while. When McGregor is freed up, we look better as a team. We also found out yesterday the risk of him playing every single minute of football! But we also saw why he plays every single minute of football!