Midfield

It's long been the story that McGregor plays that role and always plays bcos we dominate the ball for 90% of our matches and don't really need a proper CDM......until we do.


This need always comes to the fore in European games & the occasional Hun game but it's never been to the extent that recent managers have wanted to spend significantly on that position and drop/rotate someone with McGregors influence.

I think the make-up of this current midfield though has really exposed McGregor. There's young guys learning their trade and very inconsistent & then there is Hatate who is a man down too often.

It seems mad but we need two new players in the midfield. A proper CDM that can break up play and be a physical presence and a more attacking player that can take the ball on the half turn and be a goal threat.

Hatate needs to move on. That would leave McGregor and the new CDM to cover the deeper position. Engels and Bernardo for the box to box role and McCowan and a new CAM type player for the more attacking role.

Can't see it happening tho.

 

Adding to this thread, once again....

Tonight was so frustrating....we have a great performance in us and carry real attacking threat - just be feckin braver on the ball and more aggressive in midfield.
Too passive off ball and too negative on it for first 65mins.
We had the ball several times 25 yards from goal but ended up.back at Kasper.
Calmac is worst offender.

Last 30 mins, with a bit of ambition, aggression and bravery - we were excellent.
We can do it, if we want to and are brave enough.

Stan Petrov saying similar, and he knows what he's talking about.

 

What the * has happened to Cal Mac?

I remember when he 1st played that number 6 role in Rodgers final season when Brown was out injured. He was a breathe of fresh air, he was so positive on the ball and was constantly moving it forward.

Now it's sideways and backwards.

We also use to talk about him playing with his head on a swivel and having great awareness. Guys are regularly running off of him and was a point tonight were he was robbed of the ball on edge of our box bcoz he had no idea Musiala was behind him.

 

He still has great awareness. Even Rodri is caught cold sometimes.

I'm not saying he's that level of course and i dont think hes in his absolute prime right now, I think he has regressed slightly but he's still made some of the best Champions League performances ive seen from a Celtic midfielder against Leipzig and Young Boys.

He's still capable. Players like Musiala will always be capable of ghosting away from us, he's a top operator.

 

Tbf it was a poor ball to him when he was under pressure I thought.

 

It's something I've said for a while as well pretty much all our midfielders want to do the same thing we don't have an out and out playmaker like we did with Rogic and we don't have a big monster like Wanyama what we do have are very good players but I just feel at this level they are far too similar in what they are wanting to do. I include McGregor in that as well as for me he just isn't a holding midfielder

 

If we had another capable option at left-back, I’d say play Schlupp in midfield to bring that physicality.

 

Way too often, Cal receives the ball and instead of taking a touch, getting his head up and seeing if there is something on, he instinctively just strokes it back to CH. Fine if there is a man on his shoulder but you can see it coming before the ball reaches him.

 

Gonna be unpopular as * on here, but if Taylor had put in the performance level CalMac did, he’d be getting slaughtered on here.

It isn’t just that he’s lost a yard of pace - he’s simply not a CDM cut out for CL level, and never really has been. That isn’t even a criticism of him either, because at his peak he was absolutely capable of playing on this stage (probably still is) but shouldn’t be tasked with protecting the backline.

 

Other than a striker this is the priority for the summer.

Running with only 5 midfielders for a full season isn't enough for the volume of games we play or the intensity we play at.

As soon as 1 is out it's an issue as you are only left with 1 on the bench with when reality is you have 3 tiring players. Seen it in cup final too, when Mccowan was cup tied.

We deserved extra time last night, no doubt about it but both Hatate and Engles looked out on their feet and 1 of them would have likely of had to play another half hour.

Likelihood is Hatate will be away this summer so we are gonna need 2 new midfielders, ideally strong, powerful runners with good ability on the ball. Hopefully we are also able to keep Schlupp, which would give us a bit extra depth

 

Midfield depth is a problem, we have one injury to Bernardo and didn’t make any changes last night despite the starting three being out on their feet.

It is telling McCowan remains on the bench in situations like that last night.

 

I get your point, but Rodgers should have played McCowan. Luke is a decent player.

Also, if we get a 6. midfielder, * knows how many minutes is he getting.

 

I thought he should have brought McCowan on to break up the play in injury time for extra time, we were getting battered at the time too.

McCowan is untested at this level really, he's still making the step up in playing for us domestically.

We're definitely light there.

 

A 6 a real good one will get game time no doubt, McGregor can't continue to play as many minutes as we go

 

Agree said last night on the 70th minute if we had 2 quality midfielders coming on to replace 2 of our exhausted midfielders and a better winger than Yang we are either winning that game or extra time at minimum and we lost that goal through tiredness

 

The difference in our midfield when the mentality is right is absolutely astonishing.
The manager did a great job rallying them, leave it all on the pitch, no regrets etc
Players were superb last night.
This is what we CAN do.

 

I agree it’s not a bad shout to have made a change at that point of the game.

We definitely need one more in for me to be competing for a starting place. If Hatate leaves in the summer we need another too.

If that had been a league phase game I think Scales would have come on for another defender but with going to extra time we didn’t want to change the shape.

Schlupp was excellent all night but was clearly out on his feet as would be expected at the end too. It might be that if he stays beyond the summer and KT is in Schlupp is an option in midfield too.

 

I also wondered if we didn’t change our midfield as Engles is our best penalty taker, Cal is also taking one, Hatate is more than likely taking one in our top 5, so our penalty takers would have been Engles, Hatate, Idah, Cal, Maeda. After that it starts getting slim, Schlupp, then who? Maybe McCowan comes on late in extra time to add more fire power?