Gordon Strachan

[GaNgStA kEeKs]

Listening to his interview and he seems to me totally shocked by last nights happenings labelling it as the worst footballing night of his life.

Now i am one for giving people time in their jobs. But what do you reckon other Celtic fans are going to be like?

Most haven't been happy with his appointment and this has just gone and strengthened their views on him and i can see him being in for a torrid time at Celtic which is a shame as i quite like the look he is trying to turn Celtic into.

Seems MON has gone and shown how well he can read football and got out at just the right time.

Now i know this is being far too optimistic and the 4th and 5th goal killed us but i genuinly believe we can give this side a humping similar to what they gave us. Maybe 3-0 or so is more realistic but if we can go into HT a couple of goals to the good with a clean sheet then i would give us a great chance.

60,000 fans is going to be nothing like this side has experience and if we can get a goal in the first 10 mins or so then they will go into freefall i reckon. The line up i would like to see next Tuesday would be...

----------Boruc
-----Virgo Balde Varga
---------Lennon
McGeady Petrov Thompson
---Zurawski Alliadierre
--------Hartson

I know this leaves us a bit vulnerable at the back but we really have no option.

Now i would rather there be no Balde, Varga, Lennon but its simple as that we have no one else better to take their place. Sutton looked in a bad shape and i don't think he will be playing.

The pace of Zurawski, Alliadierre will really cause them problems in this second league. Possibly putting Maloney in also from the start could be a good thing.

[GaNgStA kEeKs]

Well didnt know what to do either last night.... I was absolutely shellshocked. Never have I seen a team play like that im whole entire life.

Mo Camera was running about like a headless chicken....always out of position and when he did go forward to many times he either mis controlled or his crosses weak p**h poor.

Varga & Balde must take a lot of the blame as well. They have no positional sense and all it takes is 1 saimple over their heads and with a quick forward celtic will be in big trouble all season long.

Paul Telfer...... Same as Camera but as he had 1 of the only shots Celtic had on target then prob Celtics best defender although would still have got 3/10.

If you look at it we have built a defence with £150,000 and it is starting to look the case right now.

Petrov.... playing out of position as usual but you would expect more from him now.

Lennon..... Wouldnt know he was playing

Sutton..... only on for 20 mins but i think he would have added some extra balance to the team especially to the back line.

Thompson...... Usuall Thompson of last season added very little to the team.

On a whole the midfield was non existet and the Slovakians had time to pick passes and link up play.... If you look at Celtic when they had the ball they were closed down very quickly and under MON this is what used to happen so why not last night.

Zurawski...... DIdnt do very much apart from setting up telfers shot.... Maybe not getting support midfield but how many times did we see henrik dropping deeper and picking the ball up and starting an attack, that led to either a goal or a decent chance.

Hartson...... Usual lazy self.... far to slow and he is proving now that "White men can't jump" and if he does it results in a free kick.... absolute waste of space and defenders stand off him as he lacks mobility pace and technique.... apart from few goals outside of area in his time at CP all his goals have been tap ins. Does nothing for the team and the amount of chances he spurned last year henrik would have notched about 50-60 goals.

Maloney.... Best celtic player on the night.... added pace and urgency that was badly lacking before his introduction.


Alialdiere...... Came on and done and had some nice touches but all the players heads had dropped by this time.
but think it changed our system and left the midfield more exposed and ultimately paid the price.

McGeady...... Think his miss will haunt him for many months to come.... Desnt look like his usual self and hopefully he like the whole Celtic team find their form and soon.

Overall the team was absolutely atrocious last night and has been the worst performance I have seen in all my years of supporting Celtic....even worse than the 5-1 defeat from the orcs. At least that game was just 1 game and didnt ultimately cost us £10 million. The new players perhaps need time to bed in but i don't think they know how they are meant to play under WGS, I just hope he knows what he is doing.... Its ok having all these attacking players on the park but so far they haven't done anything to impress me and sorry to say i think Celtic are out of europe before the season has started. Sorry if this dragged on a bit.

I couldn't agree anymore with this i picked off of a Celtic forum.

The defence part is so true also - the value of it is £150,000 and im sorry but that just isn't good enough if you want to compete in Europe.

Im also starting to side against Hartson. He has done it on a regular basis in SPL but last season in Europe he was awful.

[TheGooner]

Hartson is a tricky character isn't he ...

On the one hand you have to respect the determination of a man who has succeeded in his chosen career (and he has) despite the almost complete lack of talent ...

On the other hand ... we rejoiced when we (Arsenal) finally off-loaded him to West Ham


It doesn't surprise me that he's done well for a dominant side in the SPL ... but if he'd been playing outside the Old Firm it would have been Hartson who ?

[GaNgStA kEeKs]

I like the guy and appreciate what he has done at Celtic.

I feel now though he is getting on a bit and infact holds the side back. With him in the team our defenders and midfielders feel the need to play the long balls to him whereas when he is out of the side we seem to be a faster flowing side.

I think we are going to suffer from not having the chance of selling Balde in the summer for a few million and also Hartson to Blackburn who were interested in him.

Neil Lennon the same - he was linked away and the time was right to offload rather than offer an improved contract.

Goes to show aswell what a loss Jackie McNamara is. Without him there is no organisation at the back and we seem to be suffering badly without him.

[MickeyPaul]

Here's an interesting thread I found on my Eircom travels: The Irish Love Celtic... errrrrm

I was ok with it all till they started on Dundee Utd the bastards!

[GaNgStA kEeKs]

I hate after one awful performance all these weaker league side's fan's like Shelbourne start talking like they would be able to beat Celtic.

Yes- they got humped and played awful last night but whenever did we judge a team on one game?

Celtic in time, will become a decent side. The quality is there. They just need to settle together, get rid of the deadwood and then they will start going on a decent run.

Also just found out today that the losers of this round have no Uefa Cup fallback and are out of Europe completely.

I can imagine the likes of Alliadierre and Nakamura being majorly pissed off at this as the whole point of them coming to Glasgow was for the European games, not the SPL ones.

[crowie]

Wouldn't disagree with any of the stuff from that forum post Kiko.

I went through a lot of this last night but I think Gordon Strachan has to take a large part of the blame for the final score. At 2-0 he chucked on attackers trying to chase the game. 2-0 was still a score that could have been turned around. Not easy but possible.

The formation then went from 4-4-2 to 4-3-3. The midfield went from supposedly forming a 4 in front of the defence and providing some protection (hah!) to a 3 of McGeady wide right, Lennon static in the centre of midfield and Petrov having to cover the open spaces on the left from Thompsons subbing and also help Lennon out in the middle. Cue Artmedia simply passing their way through the huge holes in the Celtic midfield and then being able to pick their passes round about the pish poor defence.

Sitting in a 2-0 would have gave us a chance but having watched our performance and their I had us out as soon as it went to a 3 goal margin.


From the team you listed for next week Kiko, I think Virgo will still be missing with injury.

We still have to give Strachan time. The worst we will finish is 2nd. Whether thats a 1/2/3 point second or an 18-21 point second will be what will determines whether Strachan is at Celtic next season or not. The worrying thing from a Scottish point of view is the likes of Lennon, Camara, Hartson, Balde etc will still be a dominant force in the vast majority of SPL games this season. However the gap between them looking players there and actually being consistant and making any impact in Europe is increasing dramatically.

[zonker84]

Originally Posted by Kiko

I think we are going to suffer from not having the chance of selling Balde in the summer for a few million and also Hartson to Blackburn who were interested in him.

The way I saw it, based on quotes from Balde and his agent, was that there was a clause in the contract that he signed in January, that gave him the right to move for free this summer if he wanted to. Therefore if he had moved on, Celtic would have received nothing.

Hartson may have been wanted by Blackburn, I'm not sure how serious that was. They signed Kuqi and Bellamy, and I'm sure Bellamy would've been their first-choice anyway. They certainly would not have paid much money for Hartson. The same as Lennon, at his age, if you got rid of him, it would've had to have been on a free transfer really.

Assuming these three players had left. Celtic would've probably got maybe £1.5m for Hartson, and nothing for the other two. Where would that leave them? Needing to replace three more players with not much money to do it with. Too many changes at once is difficult enough I would imagine, and it does appear that they are attempting to make a fair few changes.

Again I don't agree I've never rated Balde to be honest, always been clumsy and likely to be found out at the highest level. Surely you wouldn't get rid of him now though with all the other players coming into the club, you need a bit of stability. Sure, get rid of Hartson and Lennon, but who are you going to replace them with? If all three of these players had left, you might as well have given the SPL title to Rangers before the season started. At least by keeping them, Celtic have a fighting chance. It gives them a bit of time to settle the other players in, and look for long-term replacements for the older players

[GaNgStA kEeKs]

I would've gladly taking around £2million for Hartson. Get him off the wage bill also and you are looking at a very hefty sum of money available. Same goes for Balde and Lennon.

I see your point about stability, but with a new manager and signings coming in then you have the perfect opportunity to make wholesale changes.

If you watched some of their friendlies, especially the one against Leeds you would've seen a few youngsters who happened to play in Lennons and Balde's position and they all put in some very impressive performances.

Reading over some Celtic forums this morning and most of the posts were calling for the ageing players like listed above to be dropped and the youths to be given their opportunity.

[zonker84]

I agree in some respects, I have been telling me Celtic-supporting friends (I have 2 or 3), who keep telling me that Celtic are the greatest club in the world, that their team is old and on the decline.

It's fine to get rid of Hartson, Lennon and Balde if you have replacements who are going to do a good job. Who are these younger players who are going to come in and replace them? Celtic clearly don't have the money to go out and sign top replacements, which would cost a lot.

I think if you got rid of those 3 players now, you are handing the SPL to Rangers. Which is fine if you want to have a transitional year or two, where you can lower the average age of the team and then come back better in the end. Would Celtic fans accept Celtic not being competitive for a while while they got their team sorted out? No.

They have to try to win the SPL and do well in Europe, and you can't get rid of several key players at once and hope to do so. There's no easy solution to Celtic's problems, but this has been building up for a while. Since Larsson left and the other players all started to show signs of decline as they got older, something needed to be done.

Strachan signing several sub-standard players all at once isn't the solution. Celtic are now paying the price for not doing something earlier I think. It is going to be a difficult season for them, but such is the low standard of the SPL, everyone knows they can't possibly finish lower than second.

[GaNgStA kEeKs]

To be honest. With or without these established players i didn't believe Celtic would win the league this season. Nakamura gave me a bit more confidence for it but last night has totally blew it away.

Rangers are a solid outfit and seem to be picking up top freebies each season now. They seem to like the French market and who can argue when some of the players they have taking have been Boumsong, Prso, Hemdani.

Players like Buffel who were quite poor last season have been doing very well in pre season and they are going to be tough to beat.

As for the players coming through. McManus has had some games the past 2 seasons and has always, from the games ive seen, put in good performances. Hopefully he will be giving more opportunities this season.

The other two Gardyne and Lawson - i don't know much about them but from i seen they look like 2 players with good potential, especially Lawson but then again, how many times have we said this before about Young players.

Burchill, Crainey spring to mind.

[crowie]

Its a vicious circle in a way. Balde, Varga, Hartson and Lennon are not good enough at the top European level now (or even the mediocre European level going on last nights showing!).

However I still maintain they are good enough at SPL level and will still be this season and are still needed. Take those 4 out of the team, say they go somewhere else and your getting next to no money for them but still have to replace them somehow. Thats a big ask. Too much change at one time is disruptive to any side.

The problem for Celtic is there has been next to no change over the last couple of seasons hence an old team and no adequate replacements on the horizon. Strachan shouldn't have had to come in and add 7 players to the squad, he should have been adding 3 or 4 tops if the money had been there over the last few seasons to freshen up the squad.

People also keep on banging about these youngsters but how many of them have actually made it at any decent level? Or even at Celtic. If we get 1 out of 10 then we are doing well. The likes of Beattie, Maloney, McManus, Ross Wallace and so on are IMO no more than adequate players. They will also look decent in a strong side like Celtic against weaker domestic opponents.

In truth in a large % of games Celtic (or Rangers) could play against a lot of SPL opposition with 10 men. Playing with 10 men and a youngster is only increasing the advantage. And then a youngster plays and the press pounce on him (Simon Donnelly - the next Kenny Dalglish apparently ) and everyone believes the media and expects great things of these players - who never deliver long term.

McGeady is the only one who looks remotely half decent and even then I still think its not much more than a bit of media hype added to by his decision to play for Ireland instead of Scotland meaning he will always be in the media spotlight.

[Parahandy]

Just as one swallow doesn't make a summer, one defeat, however bad, doesn't spell a crisis.

Celtic can only go one way after last night and Strachan's future will hinge on the pace and extent of the recovery. Defeat at Motherwell on Saturday would be a disaster from whcih there might be no way back for the wee man but a win followed by another 2 at home against lower rated clubs would get things going before the 4th league match at Ibrox.

Nothing is impossible in football and if by some quirk of fate Celtic turn the CL qualifier around, everything else would turn with it. Sport breeds fairytales and I'm living in hope of seeing another one next week

[MickeyPaul]

Shame about the injury to young Kennedy as he's a player I liked the look of alot. Does anyone know how he's coming along?

[Parahandy]

Been quiet of late on young Kennedy's fitness Mickey. He was shaping up really well and would have been a regular by now had things followed a normal course. From what I recollect, if his recovery goes to plan he might make it back before the end of the season. That would be 2 years out. A very long time. There must be a degree of doubt he'll ever make back to where he was before. Fingers crossed.