[Matchday] Celtic V The Huns, Sunday 29th December, KO 12:30, Sky Sports football

If we can bring another striker in January, I'd love to see Edouard moved out to the left of a front 3 with Forrest on the right. While he's developed a lot as a lone striker, he looked amazing when playing off Dembele at the start of last season.

That would leave Brown, McGregor & Christie (playing deeper that he is currently) up against their 3.

Ideally we can get Wanyama on loan but if not then, as plenty have said, we need to start rotating our midfield far more.

 

i agree with this. Iv always felt Edouard would be best played on the left of a front three and cutting in on his right foot when he is so deadly.
Looking at the team i think we lack a natural, ruthless, penalty box poacher and at a team like celtic with the chances we create, that could be another 15+ goal a season player.

 

The games recently remind me of O'Neill and McLeish where they had the beating of us for a while when we still played 3-5-2 which was like a real 3-5-2 as Agathe and Thompson played like wingers or midfielders and Lovenkrands was tearing the * out us behind Agathe and then we swapped to playing 4-4-2 by putting Agathe back and playing McNamara at left back and Petrov on the right and then whitewashed them and outplayed them for 2 year solid as they couldn't work out how to stop us which they couldn't really do anything about as us in a 4-4-2 had all the tools, we still had the pace of Agathe, we had Petrov coming into the 10 from the right, we had the long ball options to Sutton/Hartson/Larsson, we had deadly crossing from Thompson and we were solid in defence and midfield and sensational from set pieces but for a while they had us badly troubled as their style * the 3-5-2 but we kept playing it and looked ropey although we had certain players at the time which meant we were always a threat from set pieces or the long ball.

Currently their style has * out 4-2-3-1 and we need to change it as we don't have the set pieces or the long ball to keep us in games.

 

what worries me about point 1 is that we have also dropped points, to Hibs and Livi which on paper you would have imagined were three in the bag. They have not been dropping as many as last season and i dont think there are as many teams in the league this season as there was last season, capable of taking points off them. They have now went away to motherwell, hibs, killie etc and come away with wins. Being realistic, i still feel we are capable of dropping points if a team like Livi play anti football and turn the game into a kicking match.

to add, lennon said after the cup final that we wouldnt play like that again. Well we did. Surely at half time he has to be changing the tactics but he has waited too long. As much as lennon might demand more, he has to set the team out differently and that is has been apparent for some time now vs them. Gerrard has proven on four occasions that he has an answer to how we play, which is to prevent us playing.

i agree with point 2 and i think that in games gone by vs them we have won that battle, until the last Rodgers game at Ibrox when i have felt that we have looked powderpuff since. I have long said on this forum that as good as mcgregor is, he is not a physical defensive mid as his best attributes are in possession and going forward when he can be penetrative with both his runs and passing.

In regard to point 3 i heavily disagree. For me, we lost because of tactics. We can and should have the depth to cope but we do need to bring in strikers who will offer us more than what Griffiths (due to his seemingly ongoing issues) and Bayo (lack of fitness) have. Its gone on too long now. Rogic has also proven to be heavily unreliable in terms of his fitness.

 

@Notorious any links to the full match. Will probably end up not watching it all but want to flick through it to see where it all went wrong for us

 

I’m too busy the now watching Miss Marple.

 

I suppose your right

 

Get it on absolutely brilliant stuff.

 

That's the thing. They were average as * yesterday. Cup final fair enough it was a massacre but yesterday they never had many clear cut chances. We were just atrocious. Our worst performance under Lennon imo

 

They weren't average, they defended well, passed well and caused us problems. I think we actually performed worse in the cup final (excluding Forster).

 

Cold hard facts are ,Lennon has had league cup final 1st half getting run ragged didnt change it 2nd half,made same mistakes 1st half Sunday,should have had Ntcham on from start at least to play 3 v 3 in center, chances in Jan window to beef up midfield, Turnbull will probably sign bit way off match fitness,dont think we will get Victor but would love it,may end up with cheap option striker and center half but no one in midfield

 

After having a day to reflect. I’m obviously absolutely gutted and for the first time worried about potentially losing the league. I think we have the better team for sure but they definitely have our number at the moment tactically.

The difference between us though let’s not forget is we have won the last 10 trophies in a row. We’re winners and one match won’t define us. We’ll comeback but * it’s gonna be a nervy 6months ahead

 

Thing for me is, they basically play same personnel and same system against us every time. Think Davis for Arfield was only change from LC final. We all know, even now, how they will play vs us in March. There is no evolving tactical masterclass from slippy. They sense a weakness and play on it. Lenny should have learnt his lesson after Hampden. He has 3 months to come up with a better system!!

 

But hey, they deserved their win.

 

By that reckoning, we didn't deserve to beat Barcelona in 2012?

Clutching at straws here imo

 

Agreed.

We definitely performed worse in the final. It could've been 4 or 5 or even more to them. Yesterday I can only remember their goals and that Morelos horrendous miss. That's it.

Our passing was slack, our pressing was slack, our movement was slack and our shape and formation was slack. They still didn't create that much against us but, like we did in the final, they took their chances.

 

All I'm saying is that their overly powerful dominant performance win was exaggerated with emotions yesterday.

I stand by my original comments that they may have deserved it but we had by far the better opportunities to win it.

 

Ah I agree with that man, yeah. Didn't see your original comment

 

Most of that happened after they went 2-1 up. They naturally sat back and defended their lead as would we.

 

I'll clutch at straws , penalty missed , two cleared off the line with the goalie beat , I honestly cant remember did big Forester have a meaningful save to make ? … apart from the goals but he was blameless for them .