Brendan Fraudgers!

I can’t believe it took so long to get ntcham on the pitch, awful decision not to start him, but then to take so long to get him on the park was strange. It was clear he was what we needed in that second half.

 

The major mistake for me was subbing Dembele for Griffiths when the only times we were getting up the park was when Dembele was controlling long balls but then kept losing them as there was nobody near him.

I couldn't believe he subbed Dembele for Griffiths and not McGregor at the time was * shocked and then exactly what I thought happened Griffiths never got near a ball in the air and we never got up the park again.

 

100% should have went 442 and kept dembele on. He wasn't great but at least give him a chance with someone playing near him

 

Agree with this, would have took any of McGregor Forrest or Sinclair off for Griffiths, Dembele was winning balls but had * all support and ended up crowded out.

 

Ntcham has been excellent recently, should have defo started.

 

BR: "It was probably a fair result in the end. We created chances in the first-half and if we put them away then it probably would have been a different feel going forward in the game.

BR: "Second-half they had really good chances. The game lacked quality. It was frantic. These type of games are. Lots of effort and commitment but we just lacked that little bit of quality today in the final third.

BR on Craig Gordon: "He had a really good save off the full-back. You see his reaction off Morelos, probably should score, but he made a brilliant save with his leg. He didn’t have too much to do but in those moments in the second-half he saved them very well

BR: "I think we were similar this time last year, our performances in December were a bit tired. Even though we got the victories they weren’t spectacular.

BR on January window: "There will be work done. We want to improve that strength and depth in the group. There will probably be players going out that want games. It will be a revolving door in the month of January so certainly we want to strengthen."

 

At the time I thought it was the right sub but immediately regretted it.

It's not that Thumb shoudln't have come on, it was that Dembele - as pish as he was - shoudl have stayed on anyway.

 

Nah totally disagree. Armstrong was much more influential than McGregor.

 

Thought they were both very poor today, unfortunately..

 

I agree 100%. I didnt understand it and we didnt seem to change our game to facilitate Griffiths. Rangers got their shape spot on - they pressed high and surrounded the one striker. It left spaces wide but forest and Sinclair rarely got down the flanks and we kept trying to find space where there wasnt any.

We do need to find a plan B. Whether that is 2 up front, 3 up front, or a different kind of target man once dembele goes, we need to come up with an alternative shape when teams set up to stop us playing short passing through the middle.

 

Healthy to see some justified and constructive criticism of Rodgers. Clear regression over the last year has been overlooked until the anderlect home/ hearts pumping and individuals took the flak rather than the admitting the team as a whole looked flat and heartless on too many occasions.

Hugely successful start but now BR has to buck up his ideas before the hero worship wears off.

 

Rodgers made some blunders today.

First off with not starting Ntcham.
Second not putting him on sooner.
Third taking off Moussa and not changing the formation.
Keeping Amrstrong and McGregor on.
Having no plan B.

Very frustrating today, seen this sort of subborness when he was at Liverpool and I hope he learns from it and changes it up.

 

Not much he could have done about Sinclair and Forrest’s poor finishing..

 

I’m not gonna over react but what I will say is Rodgers got a number of things wrong today and not for the first time. Leaving Ntcham on the bench was absolutely baffling.

Teams will start to catch on to how to play against us and it’s up the Rodgers to change things up. But history will tell you he can be very stubborn.

 

Im getting rather bored hearing managers say oh we looked tired while they push out the same 11 week in week out for most of the season.....we have the biggest and best squad in scotland yet its always the same players used time and time again while we have some players out on loan that could step in and do a job....yes some are not good enough for the CL but we should be using them to rest the main squad when we can,especially for home games.

 

Seems to me that our own tactics are being used against us....when we played Man City in the CL we showed teams in the EPL how to hustle and upset the balance of a team that looked untouchable at the time.....they then had this type of tactic used against them after that and became vulnerable to it...... that's where I think we're at.....Hibs and Hearts played it and now the mob did it today.....it won't work if a team aren't fit to last the full 90 but if they get their noses in front from playing this way
then they definitely find the legs