In Our DNA??

Aye not having kicked a competitive ball for a while then getting lumped into very important CL ties does not help one bit.

 

This is a function of our financial position but also the way we have chosen to play in all these matches, say from MON era onwards.

Unless you are a pot 1 or even an upper pot 2 club in the CL there is a set formula for playing away from home in Europe. The best example I can think of is, although not a European match, Aberdeen winning 2-1 in the SC on 8 February 2014. The played a defensive 4-2-3-1, pressing in the wide areas so that Celtic couldn’t get easy possession, stopping attacks before they start as well as having numbers behind the ball when we were able to break onto the edge of their box to threaten.

When they won the ball back, the three behind the one and the number 9 flooded forward. This is an unusual team with a fast winger playing as a number 10. The formula I have in mind is the exact same tactics, except we should play a defensive 4-1-4-1. The 5 most forward players flood forward when we win the ball.

From the players available against Warsaw away (alternative first choice in brackets if everyone was available), the line-up I would have liked to see was

Forster

Lustig Ambrose Van Dijk Izzaguire


Biton

McGregor Kayal Mulgrew Boerrigter
(Forrest) (Brown)

Griffiths


This line up has a GK, tight, narrow and deep back 4 (exactly the opposite on three counts as in Poland!) and a DF midfielder who sits in front the back 4 as a blocker, to which Biton is the only practitioner of this role we have. These 6 players don’t move from their stations. When we win the ball back the two, necessarily fast wingers, otherwise it doesn’t work, sprint forward for a long diagonal or a through pass in behind to break the lines. By this time the 4 midfielder except Biton as well as Griffiths are in the box waiting for a ball in.

We also need a fast forward Griffiths or Balde, definitely excluding Stokes and Pukki from the role, who don’t have the necessary skill set for this line-up. Griffiths would play on the shoulder of the last defender to run in behind for a ball over the top. It would also intimidate the opposition from pushing all the way up the field and would ease the burden on the defence.

In this type of line up, Commons and Stokes, although excellent servants to Celtic cannot play. They are the types of players who are suited to an attacking build up, not a counter attacking game like this.

The ideal would be a long term era where we go from a necessary attacking line-up because we have to win every match in Scotland to a mentality where 0-0 would be fantastic score

If in say a 10 season spell we lose half of European away matches 1-0, drawings the rest 0-0 that would represent a fantastic 10 years work. I am sure we would score some goals and win some matches but like the Aberdeen performance the object wouldn’t be to score goals, they would be a by product of counter attacking play.

I know what you are thinking, is this person Walter Smith, well no I am not, but I would love old Rangers away record in Europe from 2007-2011. It was full of wonderful (from their point of view) 0-0s.<?xml:namespace prefix = "o" ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>

 

Id put hapoel tel aviv in for mowbray that was his only bad result away in europe in all 5 of his away games

 

That Villarreal team still to this day put on the best performance i've seen playing against us. I mind that game as clear as day as I was 13 I think and up until then i'd seen us beat but never that badly and Villarreal didnt even win that game but I remember sitting during the game thinking "fucksake what a team this mob are" they controlled the game start to finish and everything went through Riquelme.

I left the game thinking * I had no clue until then that teams could just come and wipe the floor with us in our own stadium as all the talk at the time was always how we never lost at home etc and again they didnt even beat us in that game but it felt like an absolute skelping.

I think Larsson even had a goal wrongly ruled out for offside or something so technically we could have won 2-1. But if the game went on the balance of play they should have pumped us about 4-1 or 5-1.

Just looked up their run they knocked out Heerenveen, Trabzonspor, Torpedo Moscow, Galatasaray, Roma, Celtic and lost the semi 1-0 to Valencia, a penalty in the 2nd leg. Valencia won the final 2-0 against Marseille.

 

Even at that it wasn't a disaster.

Basically what we should do is bring Mowbray back for all European away games :icon_mrgreen:

 

That Copenhagen game was the worst. Did Caldwell score an OG or something. I just remember being in complete disbelief when it finished. Wasn't even aware Copenhagen had a football team before we got them