Arne Engels

I thought he was quality tonight. Should have done anything possible to foul McGinn though

 

We spend £2 million on projects for years and people complain.

We decide to spend some decent money for once and people complain.

It's better for us to spend in this bracket instead of constantly wasting £2 and £4 million on project players, it's very clear when Engels does get fully going he's going to be excellent for us.

He's been excellent in general over the last month bar one or two halves of football.

 

Disagree on that tbh. He's had a few decent games in Europe so far but nothing spectacular except for maybe Bratislava. Idah's best game of the season was tonight and it's almost February.

I'm not really obsessed about the money, more about what that money delivers on the pitch. I actually think we should have been shopping in the £10-£12m market two or three years ago. So I want us to spend.

Just wary of spending it on the wrong players and giving Desmond, Lawwell and Co excuses to tighten the purse strings again. That's why we need to get it right more often than not.

Again I'm not writing Engels/Idah off, just merely giving my opinion on what I've seen from them so far.

 

Gk aside, who we know can do it at this level. Engels and Idah were our 2 best players IMO. £11m and £9m may be a lot to Celtic but absolutely peanuts in the grand scheme of football nowadays. For me they didn’t look out of place and that’s promising. Big powerful lads which you need competing against teams like Villa. We are going in the right direction. Tierney & CCV will also add physicality. That mixed in with some quality like Jota out wide then bring on the next round.

 

He's been a key player in a relatively successful CL campaign so far. Contributed well domestically too. As has been said there's room for improvement but Rodgers' said he wasn't the finished article when he came in. Been worth every penny of that £11m so far.

 

Not sure if it's just me but he seemed a yard or two quicker today compared to previous games

 

I dunno I just feel you're being overly generous / overstating their contributions. Against Leipzig, I wouldn't even have Engels as one of our best performers. Top of my head McGregor, Hatate and Kuhn were far more influential.

Idah was great tonight, but let's be honest it was a freak o.g vs YB. You could say he done well to make the run but again I'd see Hatate being more important in that move for seeing and executing the pass on his weaker foot at such a pivotal moment.

If Engels and Idah performed like Maeda and Kuhn for us this season I'd say aye they've been worth it. That isn't to say they won't be, I just don't think they have contributed enough to justify their price tags yet. I guess it's subjective though.

 

It wasn't a freak OG by YB. Carter-Vicker's own goal against Brugge was what you call a freak OG. Idah's movement for the pass was great and he was tripped by their defender but got the shot away. Aye there was a bit of luck but he still combined with the pass to make the goal happen. It clearly gave him a confidence boost for tonight. Idah had too many games without scoring and strikers will always primarily be judged by goals, but there were a few other aspects of his game where he was performing well in recent weeks.

 

Stats wise alone his contribution is 1 goal involvement every two games. 3 assists 1 goal.

That’s not a comprehensive showing of impact that, for one his back heel tonight, that doesn’t get him an assist but he definitely made that goal. Tonight he didn’t have his absolute best game and far from his worst.

But I was delighted with him, in a showing progress as a young player tonight way. When it’s went against us I feel at times he’s hid away, it’s happened a few times that IMO. 2-0 down, there was signs he was going that way, and he gave himself a shake and made sure that wasn’t happening.

He worked hard, showed some magic to get us back to 2-2, showed for the ball and tried to cover teammates. And even if he didn’t manage to successfully cover them, as happened for the third, he was aware and trying. And that is something I’m desperate to stamp into his mentality.

 

Don’t think that’s a freak og either, only in the case of * CCV doing that is such an out of character moment it’s weird.

Probably filed under stupidity as well but Brugge’s penalty vs Villa probably gets the freak moment label. Also * stupid label as well

But that was them forcing us into doing stupid *.