Greg Taylor

What a ridiculously OTT statement. If it was genuinely the case that he couldn’t handle a player if he had an ‘ounce of ability’ he wouldn’t be playing for Celtic full stop.

 

He would be an excellent back up for us. Not his fault he’s not good enough to be our starting left back.

 

Other teams manage it. We are renowned for fannying about when it comes to transfer dealings and failing to get them done. We seemed to do fine the last couple of years, but miraculously this year we resorted back to our old ways.

 

Anyone with pace causes him major problems. The boy Morris at Aberdeen who is absolutely hopeless, but has pace in abundance ripped him a new one as well.

 

He’s not at the level for Europe whatsoever, he’s targeted as our weak spot every single game.

Said before, I like him but we need to upgrade on him even in January if possible. Still ok for the league games though.

 

I agree with this mostly, basically Taylor plays like an extra centre midfielder in domestic football because we barely have to defend. It allows him to use his good passing range.

However, Taylor has had the run around up at Pittodrie against Aberdeen and an uncomfortable game down at Killie against Armstrong, two guys who have a bit of pace and dribbling ability. He was horrible against Ross County first game of the season defending their right back who was basically a centre back playing out of position running at him.

So Taylor has been very ordinary when defending against league level opponents this year. He is playing because Bernabei is one of the worst defenders I have ever seen and we have no one else.

 

And we all know what you're alluding to there eh? What you're saying is; Lawwell has come back in, is interfering in transfer dealings and haggling trying to save a few pennies.

That about the size of it?

 

I’m just stating what has happened. It might just be a coincidence that Lawwell was involved before and after we started acting professionally in the transfer window. It’s maybe also just a coincidence that the relationship between board and fans was relatively good when he was away, but there was a huge disconnect prior to him leaving, and there is an even bigger disconnect now again when he is here. We could look at all these as coincidences, but I think that’s being very naive.

 

You let yourself down with things like the bolded mate. You or I haven't a clue how professionally we act in transfer window, and assuming that we don't is just lazy.

 

Maybe it just seemed like we acted more professionally when he wasn’t involved at the club. It was a far cry from hiring a manager in the showers, that’s for sure.

Anything to add about the relationship between board and fans with and without him at the club?

 

I've no idea what it has to do with Greg Taylor to be honest, but I will say this.

He's made plenty of mistakes over the years, and has also been great in certain respects. I don't think it matters what he does anymore, a large portion of fans will abuse him regardless. Their hatred for even the name Lawwell clouds their judgement of him to the point they invent scenarios in their own heads without having the faintest idea of the facts.

We're a well run club although not without our issues, which I'd say is pretty normal. Lawwell or any other person you want to name, all want the club to be successful, which should go without saying. We'll be looking at several left backs and every other position, and we'll get a good percentage of deals done successfully. But not always, sometimes we're gonna come up short which is annoying, but the accusations of Lawwell coming in and * the whole system is just pathetic imo.

 

This!

 

Not sure it's lazy or retarded to criticise Taylor on this one. For me we had been dealing quite nicely with the athletico attacks with brave and committed tackles to win the ball back. To my recollection, Bernardo makes a slide tackle and the ball sits itself between Taylor and the athletico attacker, it's a 50/50 situation, if Taylor commits, the outcome is making things very difficult for the attacking player to be dangerous as a worst case scenario - instead he backs off and the attacker has time to read the game and pick an option and gutted to say he used that bit of time to pick a dangerous cross out

 

Am not trying to absolve him completely tbh, he definitely could have won the ball if he goes for it. But it's easy for us to say that, he's probably thinking keep the guy where he is rather than commit and possibly leave space in behind himself. Overall I just think there's been a big overreaction to it, probably due to unconscious bias against GT.

 

If there is a LB out there who's a good defender, got pace, strength, can take on a man, can pick out a pass and cost around £5m then we should be all over him. Problem is, left footed defenders of certain quality are in high demand and cost more than their right footed counterparts. It's why most top European clubs picks up these players when they’re teens and develop them in their academies.

Yes, we could be lucky finding a hidden gem in East Asia or produce a generational talent like KT, but more likely than not our next challenger for the LB spot will be closer to Bernabei and Bolingoli in quality than the next KT. It's the reality of the market we shop in nowadays.

 

That’s where this whole debate comes from. People saying he shouldn’t have went for it when he absolutely should be, and as you say, he would have won the ball. Then this whole thing wouldn’t even be getting spoken about. Just agree with me next time ya madman

 

No like you to over simplify a point mate, you're usually pushing double digit paragraphs picking holes in minute detail

But aye, folk have overstated the incident massively, I think he gets the benefit if the doubt there.

 

That’s very harsh for me, it’s the ones who have good movement, good at running with the ball and are powerful.

Any one of two of they aspects he struggles a lot, though not as much as I think people make out, last night against Llorente he majorly stuggled who is 3 out of 3 but last year in the CL he was one of our better players for me.

But he wasn’t up against Mudryk in the form that got him £100m fee or against Vini Jr like Jura was, who he was much better than for me, but again the players he was against were the danger men for their sides.

However this is a different team than last season, wings are far more exposed this season we funnel teams out wide and defend the middle more than anything when we’re under the cosh.

Doing that we need another AJ type on the left. But Taylor is a major part of how we can control the ball in games, and the difference in us since he’s been allowed that role to be inverted again, to the start of the season when he wasn’t is very noticeable.

It helps Callum McGregor reach the peak of his ability as the deep lying player, the accusations of him slowing down this season is down to him doing his job and the one Taylor had in there last year as well this season. Since Taylors inverted again, McGregors been at his best.

We seen the worst and best of Taylor last night, 2 goals were down to his indecision, 2nd is hesitant from him of whether to cover the runner or go for the ball when he does nothing in the end, 1st was a very soft sect against him but he did give the decision to make.