The Midfield is the cause of poor defending

McGregor and Berget dont defend as well as Forrest and Samaras, Kayal and Johansen dont defend as well as Brown and Ledley and Mulgrew doesn't defend as well as Wanyama.

Against Legia and Maribor the main problem was the midfield getting caught out with balls in behind them. Berget and McGregor especially were poor at defending in both games. Sammy never gave much help to Izzy but his defensive positioning and movement was ok to block gaps or stop the opposition passing it to players, Berget stands in no mans land leaving gaps and players wide open as does McGregor on the other side.

Johansen and Kayal close players down really well but they should remember they are playing with Mulgrew and not Wanyama or Brown behind them. When they are running about closing down and chasing they are leaving gaps which Mulgrew doesnt have the pace to close down or catch players if they are away from him, if Wanyama or Brown were playing they could get away with it more as they are quicker at reacting to those type of things but Mulgrew cant. When they are playing with Mulgrew they should be smarter and suit their games to keeping it tight in the middle by not roaming as much and leaving us open.

Theres just gaps in our midfield all the time, we make it far too easy for teams to play the ball through us.

Deila needs to smarten up his tactics to suit the players until he has the right players to play this way well enough. Currently we don't have the pace up front or the sitting midfielder capable of playing the way he wants us to play.

At the Legia and Maribor games there was countless times you're sitting there looking thinking if we lose the ball now we're done or if he doesn't win this tackle we're done. We're far too wide open at the back.

 

Forrest and Samaras were hounded a lot of the time for not tracking back.

How many times last year was Izaguirre left 2 v 1 in Europe. It was practically every game. I actually think McGregor tracks back more than Forrest does also.

 

I think the problem is that neither Berget or McGregor are wingers. McGregor would be much more suited to a central role...* knows where Berget is best but its certainly not Left Wing.

 

I said this after the first defeat to Legia. Ronny obviously hasn't learned.

 

Forrest and Samaras have much better positioning defensively, staying more wide on the half-way line.

Berget and McGregor were going inside then having to run out and in like yoyos, was pish they are also much slower, Berget prances back like a big lassie to chase a player, Samaras atleast ran like * and usually put in a mad sliding tackle.

Forrest is clever when defending too, wins the ball a lot but obviously is a lot faster than McGregor, still more clever with his positioning. Efe was left exposed numerous times last night when McGregor was scratching his * up the park.

 

McGregor has got back more times in thos four games than Forrest has his whole career. If Kayal isnt injured that was an AWFUL decision to take him off, same goes for lustig. Bringing on Matthews was questionable, as was keeping on Stokes/Mulgrew.

 

Mulgrew doesn't exactly help, besides last night was purely down to Ambrose being asleep the majority of the time and at times Izzy was caught out too. I think Jo and Callum didn't do too badly in terms of tracking back. I think Stokes, Jo and Callum are poor at pressing though as a unit, and it means our defending from the front style goes completely out the window and we become easy to pick off once we leave gaps.

 

True, probably why they don't position themselves right to defend out wide. Both of them always sat more inside when defending, leavig full-backs free, then had to shut them down then run back inside when it came inside. They were all over the place.

You are probably spot on there, McGregor has always played central for our youth teams and at Notts County and Berget is also more of an attacking midfielder or forward than a winger. Where as Samaras was well accustomed to playing on the wing and Forrest has always played there.

 

Last week in Slovenia, we were rarely tested. Ok, we were cut wide open for the goal, but outwith that, we weren't really under a lot of pressure. Last night was the same, Maribor had one or two chances, but we weren't under massive pressure, even when we allowed them a lot of possession first half, they weren't peppering our goals. The fact is, we aren't good enough going forward. To not score at home to Maribor, let's be honest, isn't good enough. Where are our goals coming from? We should have arguably had the game wrapped up last week in Slovenia, and we had chances again last night, but we don't have anyone to put the ball in the back of the net.

Deila was naive away in Warsaw, but I think we all saw last week in Slovenia that he had learned his lesson, everyone on here pretty much said the same. Last night, we didn't press the game enough, and it cost us. We should have been looking to play on the front foot, and take the game to them, but we sat off, and it almost looked like we were playing for a 0-0. Our problems going forward, outweigh our problems in defence in my opinion.

 

Totally agree with this. Midfield is the most important area on a football pitch, it determines who is in control and very likely to win any game. Ours is poor the back four are bearing the brunt. The strikers are also getting no inventive service. We need brown back and a couple of genuine quality players in there.

 

Im not talking about tracking back, im talking about their positioning. Wingers should be well positioned to shut off play before having to track back.

McGregor and Berget weren't doing it right, it's mostly why they were able to keep large amounts of possession, they were too busy as i mentioned yo-yoing in and out chasing like a pair a fannies than positioning themselves deeper and wider to stop them being able to keep passing in and out. Rather than getting infront of their opposing full-back making it pointless for Maribor to pass to them, they were standing parallel in the middle of the midfielder and full-back running back and forth for no reason... 1. Making it easier for the full-back to get away from them and 2. Doing heehaw as they were never going to win the ball.

 

To be honest, I don't see much difference between the players in question. Samaras used to leave Izaguirre badly exposed, and Forrest was guilty on numerous occasions of not tracking back. Do you remember the game in Amsterdam? It was the most gutless performance I think I've ever witnessed from a Celtic player in Samaras that night. Izaguirre was getting tortured time and time again, due to Samaras not making any attempt whatsoever to help out. The Ajax full back was actually walking past him off the ball.

As I've said in another post, it's our attacking problems that are more concerning for me. You can't win games if you don't score goals.

 

I thought Berget was OK defensively. But in certain moments...the whole team just falls asleep and just lets the opposition create chances at will. We do miss Wanyama badly, though.

 

we had 3 in centre midfielders in the 1st half and they dominated the game I just think the players dont know what they are supposed to be doing. johansson seemed to be pressing the ball on his own, we were not playing as a unit. Midfield was very poor but ambrose and izzy also had shockers.

 

Mcgregor should be played behind the striker he's not a winger and Berget isn't a football player. Hate that we persist with a 433 when we don't have the players to play it properly

 

I was at the game in Amsterdam and half scooped so dont recall it that well, I wasnt really paying much attention to notice anything.

I agree though Samaras did leave Izzy open a lot but he still defender and positioned himself better on the wing.

We allowed them too much possession throughout the games because we let them pass it about. If our wide players were better positioned, they'd not have been able to keep the ball as much by not being able to pass to their full-backs and thus forced to try and come forward with it allowing us to win it back quicker and easier. Where as we allowed them to pass back and across in and out by running back and forth chasing them rather than just positioning ourselves better to block possibly passes off and force them to come forward.

 

He wasnt, at the game when you can see the whole picture him and McGregor were pish defensively and particularly in the first half because we had nobody in the hole let Maribor keep the ball far too easily by wasting their energy and time running about like a pair of *.

They don't. So far Deila has shown no tactical knowledge in these European games, players need to play to a certain system or style. Watching the Legia and Maribor games I dont know what our midfield are meant to be doing.

With Lennon he always set the midfield up in Europe to defend positions, let teams have the ball and come at us - as Maribor did against us, and then we attempted to play through them with pace Sammy and Forrest his first choice attacking midfielders to get us up the park and players supported them well like Ledley got forward into the middle when he didnt play Commons/Miku or whoever centrally and went with 3 centre-mids.

Under Deila when we played 3 centre-mids none of them got forward into the middle when attacking. Berget and McGregor have average pace and there was no set style about them. All they tried to do was get up the wing but with no real purpose at what we were going to do as there was no attacking midfielder for 3 quarters of the tie for them to link-with.

Everything just clearly lacked any kind of tactical set up or planning. It was as if he just put 3 men in centre-mid to make it more solid but never actually told them how they were to play.

 

I honestly think the biggest fault in our game last night, was how deep we were. We just allowed them to have the ball, and although they weren't doing a great deal with it, it was absolute chronic from us. The start of the second half, we had a very good spell in the game. We were defending higher up the park, pressing them into mistakes, and in turn, getting possession in good areas. In the first half, any time we won the ball, because we were so deep, and had so many men behind the ball, we had no way of getting out. There was no out ball for us.

 

First name terms, eh?

You disgust me.

 

Our midfield is the route of all problems. We do need a striker that is a definite.

I believe our ball winners, aren't actually all that great at it, but most importantly lack so much basic passing. I also think we need someone who can get on the ball and either make a pass or run with the thing. I like young Armstrong, I like Bryan Ruiz also, different styles but in that mould. Marry two of those for example with a ball-winner and I think it'd be a good centre of midfield.