Can we be good enough that the referee doesn't matter?

A year from now, after almost two seasons under Deila, can we reasonably hope to be so far ahead of our domestic opposition that an omnishambles like yesterday can be avoided?

It has been enjoyable glancing over our shoulder at Aberdeen this season but I'm hoping that a year from now we'll be absolutely ruthless on the domestic front.

Our ambitions always lie in Europe but I'd really like to see us consciously targeting a goal margin of three or more in every domestic game - playing with blistering intensity and sweeping teams aside, like every game is a cup final, so we're never again subject to the whims of a Hun * referee.

I think sometimes, even with Deila's high pressing game, we can coast to wins. If you look at the top European sides, they're absolutely relentless in their own backyard. How many times have you seen Barcelona or Real Madrid or Bayern München putting six or seven or eight past sides sitting in midtable?

I think we should target that kind of dominance domestically and the wins in Europe will follow, rather than the reverse. If you think a lack of competition will see us stroll to the title, that's not what I want to see. What I want to see is Celtic absolutely devastating our opponents because there's such a gulf in class - not because they're not very good (sides like Aberdeen and Inverness - as we saw yesterday - have something about them) but because we're playing with the same intensity against St Mirren in a 'throwaway', mid-season league game as we'd play with in the knockout stages of the Champions League.

The standard of player that we're able to attract isn't going to change drastically any time soon so I'm talking mostly about coaching.

NB: I realise that this is what everyone wants. :smiley-laughing002:

 

No, I can guarentee if I referee'd Sevco in the play-offs they wouldnt win. Id continually look to disrupt them and let their opposition away with anything I could, any sniff of a chance id be booking Sevconians left right and centre and get the red out for any slight half chance of a red card offence.

If the opposition took the lead, then id disrupt the game as much as possible to break up Sevco attacks but fail to book anyone for doing it and then add as little time as possible on = exact opposite if Sevco were winning.

Basically exactly what McLean did yesterday.

 

I really hope so Vertie.

I want us to be utterly ruthless against all teams from now on.

 

Yes and we should be.

When you consider how their penalty came about yesterday, it was easily avoidable. It came from our corner, it was a poor cross that they broke from and for some reason we had one player back. That's just not acceptable. As I said, easily avoidable.

However it's our all round play that has to majorly improve. Hopefully with a few new players and another preseason the standard of football within the squad will improve because right now we aren't an exciting team. With the money and players we have, we should be blowing most teams in the league away. Now I know it's easier said than done but, I've said it before, we should be dishing out more 4-0's or 5-0's than we do. The likes of the home game against Partick Thistle a couple of weeks ago when we were 1-0 up at half time, with them down to 10 men. We should be taking at least another 2 off of them in the second half.

 

We can and instead of moaning and letting possible game changing decisions effect us we should only become more determined.

 

"Possible game changing decisions"

 

Couldn't agree more with this - you can never cover up your bias for the teams you love and those who are playing against the ones you hate.

In saying that, you would never hear me saying Craig Thomson is biased against us. I always think of the Sammy penalty miss at Ibrox that would've won us the league, when Thomson gave us a debatable pen with only a few minutes to go when Stokes went down like a sack of potatoes - if we scored that then there wouldn't have been anything the dead could've done about it. So I just think a couple of referees are just utter *.

 

No.

Not really sure I am following your line of thinking tbh Vert. Like the teams you mention we are quite capable of battering some teams ,some times and we are more likely than all of them to win our domestic league. However all of the lose domestic games as well.

Can we be good enough that in a one off game where we are below par and some Hun * decides he is going to do everything in his power to cheat us it doesn't matter? Then nah I don't think so.

 

Spot on..

 

What you have to take into account is the reaction "honest mistakes" can make on the mindset and demonstable behaviours of the players. I have no doubt the decision made on Sunday affected the players and from 1-0 an cruise control, their mental state was all over the place.

I know some will say they are footballers and should just get on with it, but even seasoned legends like Cantona (nine months of a career), Keane (* another guys career), Zidane (cost a world cup) can implode in the face of percieved injustice or feelings of retribution.

Suppose what I,m trying to say is, you can stroll through games quite easilly but never underestimate the affect "honest decisions" can have on the players physche and energy levels.

With Ronnie we have physical superiority in abundance, I would suggest to totally dominate also requires an equal amount of mental strength.

 

It's true, the whole mindset is different, you see guys like Virgil saying 'unbelievable' at the end of the game I think it was or at there penalty, because of the clear cheating we'd had on us..

 

One of the best examples is Liverpool in the 1980s; they scored 80% of their winning goals in the last 7 minutes.

It was like the Liverpool team had some subconscious mental strenght that said, " * this we are Liverpool, no way we are losing this" and perversely had the opposite affect on the teams they were playing who shat it when time started ticking. Man Utd done the same uner Fergie, and to an extent we done for years with Martin O,Neil.

Once we get that belief we will steamroller teams the same was as Bayern and Barca.

 

Very true. It's not just the overtly obvious incidents. Many ways a ref can "subtly" (in his eyes) control the direction of a game over the 90 mins.

In saying that, I feel we should be rolling over any team in this country, playing against 12 men or otherwise. The quality in the league is a joke.

This will come though. Next season I can see us producing 4/5 nil poundings on a weekly basis.

 

I sincerely hope this gives the new lads an insight that it gives them i don't want to say ️a wake up call but opens their eyes and they just show a ruthless streak against teams and don't waste so much possession and chances the silver lining is it lets the team know what they need to do and that's obliterate all opposition

 

Also i agree a ref can subtly control
A game with not so obvious decisions like pulling as back for a freekick when we should be allowed to play advantage or giving throw ins the other way or stopping play not just red cards and pens as that's too obvious.


I have noticed these things happening an awful lot recently but especially this year since January they have become common practice and things like numerous fouls before a card comes out usually it's twice or three times but against us its 5 or 6 or nothing but when it's the other way round one offence yellow card

 

Well we have been for a number of years, this isn't just a recent occurrence of honest mistakes, we as a club have been putting up with it since our very existence tbh

 

So we should just forget the incident like it never happens because we went through if that was the case yesterday? Do you remeber dougie McDonald at tannadice ? We won that game and still complained a perfect example of this thread title

 

I agree and disagree we could use it to our advantage not to let a ref hamper the game by not giving him an excuse to But a ref can always find away if it's not giving away penaltys or free kicks simple things like stopping us from breaking away in an advantage is something that can hamper a game when the ref hasn't for any excuses to try and ruin it for us there's always a different way with simple things like this sometimes even when that doesn't work there's another thing but sometimes you can tell a refs out to hamper a game
Like us at dundee United but we had enough to take it to a replay

Craig Thompson done the same thing in the semi where he would try and slow the ay down it never affected out result but it did stop a pumping

 

Ideally we can be but the clear bias and cheating against celtic makes it very difficult and almost impossible.

In an ideal we would be shot of Scottish football as a whole to be honest. Only serves to hold us back playing pub teams on bog standard pitches whilst we single handily continue to keep Scottish football semi relevant.