Brendan Fraudgers!

He speaks so well when in front of the media, and he doesn't fall for their pish. Brendan said plenty about the pressure on the players and the amount riding on this game.

Well, surely that must apply to him more than anyone. He may not have said it but i am sure he must have felt the personal pressure and tension. I hope now that the hurdle of qualifying has been overcome that we have a decent run in Europe.

No, we wont be winning the Big One this year but would be nice to have European football after Xmas. I'm sure if he can give us that and the League title most fans will be happy.

Look forward to see what we do against the Sheep.. 3 points pls

 

:smiley-laughing002:

 

It was a narrow diamond, like AC Milan of old. It was a shocking decision, the only one I can think of Rodgers so far. We were getting horses on the wing and he wanted to defend in the middle.

You seen at one point in the first half him shouting instructions at Broony, who turned round and clearly told Forrest to get in more central.

 

Brendan Rodgers has explained why he sent out a note to Celtic captain Scott Brown during the Champions League play-off against Hapoel Beer-Sheva.

A place in the group stage was in serious danger of slipping through Celtic’s fingers in Israel when they trailed 2-0 just three minutes into the second half and were rocking badly.

A couple of tactical changes by Rodgers eventually steadied the ship, including the introduction of Erik Sviatchenko in a switch to a back five for the closing stages. The Danish defender also passed a note from Rodgers to Brown.

“It said: ‘Any danger?’,” joked Rodgers when asked what instructions he had relayed to Brown.

“Seriously, it was just to make sure they understood the shape we were changing to. If you leave the message with a player, sometimes it doesn’t get on quick enough.

“Scott’s a great communicator, so Erik gave it to him and he could see the shape of the team and what personnel had to go to what positions and what we were trying to achieve.

“Rip it up quickly and go. I’ve done it in the past. It’s not a book! You have to be short, sharp and concise with your information.

“Listen, the quality of your life is down to the quality of your communication skills. However you get it on there, however it is written, whether it is verbal, you need to get the message on there.

“I thought we then found a calmness. The issue was that they were throwing caution to the wind and bombing everyone forward.

“The problem was on the sides. Initially, they had a diamond in the first-half, but the tempo was up for them and we could contain that, so we switched from 4-3-3 to a diamond at the beginning of the half.

“But they were still getting down the sides, so it was a case then of trying to block them. Stick an extra defender on meaning Kieran Tierney and Saidy Janko could engage their full-backs higher up the pitch. Then we started to deal with things.”

 

Hmmmm, not sure.

For me it showed him Gordon, Janko and McGregor cannot play in Europe for us again.

Brown, Griffiths and Forrest can't be fully trusted either.

Tierney needs a confidence booster to get him back to his best, looking nervous in his play atm.

So that's about 7 players from our first 11 last night who can't be potentially relied on in the CL Groups for me to perform consistently to a decent level and punch above their weight.

Only Lustig, Toure, Bitton and Sinclair showed me yesterday they can be trusted in the Groups to perform, as did Erik when he came on.

After Bitton, we're all out of decent CMs who can be trusted for CL level imo. Brown, Johansen, Armstrong, McGregor simply not good enough. Don't think Henderson will do either and Ajer is still very raw/young and this is a season too early for him.

Thankfully we have bought a new GK in De Vries, so hopefully he's the answer and will come in for Gordon.

At RB we have problems, Lustig is a solid player to have but can't be relied upon a full season to play there fitness wise. Janko has now shown he can't b trusted at all, so a new backup RB is needed this window unless Ralston is promising.

At CB we're fine if he goes with two or three, Lustig, Kolo, Erik, Simunovic with O'Connell and Ambrose as backup is more than enough for the season.

LB fine too.

Basically, before the transfer window closes I'd like to see us bring in a decent reliable striker with a decent all round game, a CM and backup RB.

Then we'd be sorted going ahead imo.

 

3 in and that still leaves us 4 short of a team in your estimation... utter nonsense :bbpd:

 

GK - De Vries

RB - Lustig

CB - Erik, Kolo

LB - Tierney

CM - Bitton, New CM

RW - Roberts

LW - Sinclair

CAM - Rogic

ST - New ST

Something like this going into Groups. :bbpd:

 

lol TL;DR

 

That's the ideal for me too, sadly I don't think a new striker is coming.

 

Dembele for your CL team, no?

 

Surely can't be going with Griffiths, Dembele and Ciftci all season mate?

 

Not sure, need to see a bit more from him. Definitely got the presence and technical ability on the ball at times. Also decent hold and link up play.

I'm concerned about him in front of goal though, he hasn't looked clinical enough so far. Still very early days right enough and hope he can start to bag a few soon. Was very unlucky with his effort against HBS that curved by the post.

He's got good potential but still a bit raw for me and rough round the edges which will need smoothing out over the season.

Think it's a lot of pressure on a guy who's just turned 20 shoulders.

Hopefully he'll come good though.

 

I just feel it's too late to get in a striker of the quality required, it should have been something we looked at much earlier. I think because Griffiths scored a few goals Brendan didn't see it as an immediate priority and now I feel he's left it too late even though the game on Tuesday should have been a massive eye-opener for him. It's difficult to get quality strikers at this stage.

 

* me lol things aren't that bad.

All we need to be a very dangerous team is a RB, arguably another solid central defender (who knows we may already have a new one when Simunovic comes back) and 1 or 2 midfielders that can keep the ball in any company. I only see another forward coming in if Cifiti is offloaded somewhere.

 

You've just said things aren't that bad where I've said we only need two new first team players I feel.

Yet you've just said we need possibly 4-5 new players?

I think we need a ST, CM and backup RB.

Everything else is pretty much fine for me for where we're at in Scotland.

 

Big time, he's said before that he's ruthless when it comes to team selection for the good of the team. There's no old pals act with Brendan when it comes to team selection which is how it should be.

So with this in mind I expect to see an almost completely different side from the one that played HBS to the one that plays in the opening game in the CL Group Stages.

 

In your first post you quoted 7 players were not adequate at that level and suggested 3 in... which left 4 short

If you read my post again, I agree... 3 players required. RB, CB and CM. Griffiths is champions league quality as is Dembele... this is already being proven and will continue as we get better. Yes it would be nice to add another marquee forward and punt Cifiti but that may not be a priority for Brendan right now.

One thing I would say I will be shocked if at least 5 don't find other clubs by the end of month...