Brendan Fraudgers!

He was shocked at how we played in the first half and unlike most managers, he double subbed and sorted it out. We deserved to win the second half imo where as they deserved the first half. The players shat it. Was too scared to throw away a 3-0 lead was all. Experience is needed to sort that out.

 

I'm sorry but BR didn't kick a ball last night.....he didn't hide or * the bed.....he obviously didn't ask players to ignore his game plan whatever that might have been.....the players are responsible once they cross that white line and the manager can only play the team he has at his disposal......I'm sure he wants better players but that's proving difficult nowadays because of many factors surrounding the Scottish game......but I really object to you lumping him in with the two managers you mention.....very unfair.......even if you're only making a point about European football

 

There's no doubt Anderlecht are a side who we can compete with on and off the park and regardless of how they played in the first leg we beat them into 3rd. That's an achievement.
We were very poor first half and there's much work to be done by BR and the board.

However, he's only 1.5 yrs into his reign and is undefeated domestically, on course for back to back trebles(never been done before) qualified for two CL campaigns in a row and we have European football after Christmas to look forward to..

Not devoid of criticism but ffs he's pretty close imo. * do people actually want from the man!? Because I'm ecstatic he's our manager, a Celtic minded manager of his calibre is a rare thing.

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We're going to look back on his managerial period at Celtic one day saying "we didn't know how good we had it"

 

Brendan got it wrong last night. Ntcham & Rogic should have started, good to see he made the change at HT though.

I think this is a wake up call. Yes, it was our ambition to get european football after christmas which we have achieved but thats no win in 10 at CP i think? & we played Anderlect away at a very good time, 3-0 scoreline flattered us there to.

I think we are reading too much into this unbeaten run. Whilst its a great achievement were not playing the best at the moment and hardly looked inspiring in the league. Lets be honest we have been struggling a lot recently bar the game at the weekend.

Last night was a ten times bigger game than Hibs on Sunday and we got bullied. This unbeaten run is irrelevant IMO now, its not going to get beat. Last night was a chance to get more UEFA points and a 1.5million cash prize which is what matters but we bottled it. These are the things that matter, we should be comparing ourselves to European outfits not the dross in the Scottish league, that shouldn't be our level.

Unless we get some new signings over the christmas period (basically defenders) we wont be progressing any further in the Europa sadly.

 

I don't know what your idea of struggling is but we've won at Aberdeen, Sevco beaten away, beaten Hibs in a LC Semi after a tough European match, secured the first bit of silverware of the season against the most physical side in the League and then absolutely pumped them last week.

The performance levels haven't hit the heights of last season yet, but we're far from struggling. 7 points ahead with a game in hand. The league is more competitive this season too with Clarke, Coyle and Lenny added to the league.

* * most * don't know the meaning of a struggling Celtic side. Losing 3-0 at home to St.Mirren and finishing 5th in the League.. is struggling..

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His post match comments were subtly scathing and I hope the squad pay attention to them.

I know we're victims of our own high standards from last season, in a way, but so many of us have said we've put in poor performances too many times this season.

My biggest criticism of the non-playing staff at the club this season, not exclusively directed at Brendan, is our failure to secure a new CB. We rode our luck at times during qualifying and fortunately it paid off, but we have looked defensively weak in every single CL game. There were times where we defended well last night, but there were an equal number of occasions where we were carved open (notably after 2 minutes of game time).

Rodgers has been criticised for not setting the team up defensively enough in Europe, but last night was where the defence were the main reason we didn't lose more heavily.

 

That's one thing I do agree with, having only one CB option in the summer who let's face it was totally untested at any European level was a failure.

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I can recall Brendan saying at the time, he was happy with the options he had. To be honest, I don't believe that. I think it was just a public vote of confidence for the players he knew he had to work with.

 

What I really dislike is his apparently passive attitude after those defeats.

There was never a match where he was actually angry at the squad attitude, not even after * Lincoln Red Imps. It's always the same talk of "the boys did well, unlucky, we are improving", even when we lose to 5+ goals again and again and again.

The team is worse than it was last season. Last season we were draw in a much tougher group, managed to not lose half of the games, to the likes of Man City and Borussia M. Our two good games this season were against a completely uninterested Bayern, that we lost at home anyway after they scored easily as our defending was atrocious, and against an Anderlecht in their biggest crisis in years, without a manager and in complete disarray. Yet the game plan, tactics, team selection, transfer window activity, nothing ever changes as if it was fine because we beat semi pro dross in SPFL.

It's quite bad that the scottish league simply isn't a good enough benchmark and we have like 6-8 chances per year to test ourselves against a good side, of which at least 4 will be against teams we cannot possibly beat anyway. So it's indeed a quite tough task to evaluate the team in the remaining matches. But seriously, if PSG is in a different level to us due to enormous differences in budget, how do the * beating Motherwell mean things are good? Even Deila won that league.

 

And what effect did our performance against bayern have on that where we got no points

 

Don't even know where to start it doesn't even warrant a response tbh..

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Maybe but he did have four fit CBs at that time and tbh.. he criticised them publicly for not being available this was maybe to cover the fact we didn't strengthen in that area.

Add real quality in Jan and develop Ajer too and then we have four which is what you need for a campaign, that's presuming Sviatchenko is moved on in Jan.

Is Simunovic good enough? I'm unsure but Boyata's passing will never make the grade for me.

He should know all he needs to know in where the weaknesses in the side are..

 

I think Simunovic and Boyata are both good defenders, but both will always struggle against top seeded sides, as most of our players will.There are other issues with the defence such as how often we leave attackers unmarked in the box but that's an issue for the coaching staff to sort out. I hope our main January signing is an experienced CB to improve the quality of defence. One quality leader at the back can make such a difference.

Boyata's passing has been fine when he's kept it simple. He took too many risks last night, due to Anderlecht's pressing and there was one occasion where it could have easily cost us. Bar that, he put in a solid performance. He'll never be a ball playing defender, but I think he'd make a good stopper if he had a libero behind him.

I think Simunovic can still improve but has been hampered by injuries. He's 23, so will be coming into his peak years in a couple of years and that's when we might see the best of him, if he's still here.

Further to this, I think at the end of this season, we need to start looking for the long term replacement for Lustig.

 

For the way BR wants to play all players even the GK needs to be comfortable with the ball, even when we're being pressed well. And Boyata just isn't good enough imo..

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Fair point. Will be interesting to see what moves we make in the transfer market.

 

You would have thought we might have had more than one CB option tho, if I recall there was plenty of time left in the window.

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