Can we make Parkhead a fortress again?

We’re in a good place right now. A very good place. The stars seem to be aligning for us at this moment. The awkwardness surrounding Rodgers return last season is all but gone and I feel the fans and club are all facing in the same direction. The majority of this is down to Rodgers himself it must be said. He stood up last season when it counted and earned his crust. He backed himself when the pressure was on and asked us to trust him. He didn’t disappoint. I think even his biggest critics would struggle to deny this. Our neighbours across the city are on their knees. We will surpass them officially as Scotlands premier club side this year. We have a strong squad and the manager has got us playing exceptionally well. We know that there’s money available if required. The board have finally moved the goal posts with regards to spending, some will say it’s still not enough, but we can all agree it’s a step in the right direction. We couldn’t have hand picked a better champions league group if we tried, let’s be honest. Our opener is at home against the worst ranked side in the completion, who recently lost 5-0 at home to a team
I can’t even pronounce. That also makes a pleasant change to the usual glamour ties we usually get which brings a lot of imagination and romance but inevitably no end result.
I grew up watching us have a rock solid reputation in Europe against the best on offer. Given the favourable draws at heme, and how we are playing, do we think we can embark on a new era of “Fortress Parkhead”?

 

I'd settle for just making it no longer one of the most embarrassingly easy places to come in the CL TBH. If we can do that first, then we can start talking about making it a fortress again.

 

Fortress is a difficult term to pin down. Don't think we'll see it like it was in the MON days where we were capable of beating literally ANY club in Europe. Think the game has changed too much for that.

But I think we can do well and start getting more wins, definitely. Brendan has been talking about how important it is be good defensively via pressing from the front which has been evident since that Man City game in pre season.

We look far more cohesive and are defending as a unit. Individual quality is important obviously but the system we're playing the now, and how well we're playing it, is what will make the biggest difference.

Genuinely think we'll pick up a few wins and even a couple of good results away from home....IF we are lucky on the injury front. If we start losing important players it'll become 10 times harder.

 

We played pretty well at home last season I thought which hopefully bodes well for this season. Certainly weren't as open as we were under Ange. Unlucky not to beat lazio, good win over feyenoord and 2 each with athletico madrid.

 

There's two interrelated aspects that make a ground a fortress. There's the football and there's the attitude that you will NOT be bested at home. In the same way that we would move mountains to keep up with that lot across the city, we should never have let average European clubs get ahead of us enough to comfortably win at Parkhead. When that started happening, the support should have kicked up more of a fuss and the board should have made the necessary interventions in the transfer market. We've been content to slide in Europe and as such going to Celtic Park is something foreign players seem to enjoy rather than fear.

I think it would take a seismic shift in the attitude of our owners to turn Parkhead into a fortress again. I don't think this will happen any time soon because our sights are too fixed on the domestic front. We're asking whether Parkhead will be a fortress again while the huns ask when Ibrox will be a stadium again. We need to aim a little higher than what's going on up here and start holding ourselves to the standards of European level clubs.

 

There are grounds for confidence from even last year at home as you say, and with the new additions, I think we will give a very good account of ourselves in the Champions League, and given the favourable draw over the piece.

I think Schmeichel is a better goalkeeper than Hart, and his excellent distribution will be pivotal in the Champions League and from back to front, we definitely look stronger and more dangerous in all departments, with goals likely to come from many different positions.

Engels's sublime passing and interceptions and McCowan's running and set pieces will add to the mix.

Our back line looks rock solid now, and I subscribe to the view that a good defence is the foundation for a very good team.

I did not like the way Ange had us wide open in the Champions League, with no ball winning defensive midfielder.

 

The more I think of it, the more I appreciate WGS for giving us some special nights while we were downsizing after the MON era.

 

Prior to that we were way to predictable and easy to counter. We would make it a dream for any manager who faced us in qualifiers because we were tactically predictable arguably due to playing 'the Celtic way' having to keep possession to keep fans onside, playing fullbacks far up the pitch. We need to be tactically versatile if we want to stand a chance.

 

we have got to start playing with a lot more freedom and confidence in ourselves . the pre season games (yes i know) showed that without the nervousness involved we can knock the ball about well create chances . i would like to see us with a real caviler approach this year i think to problems start when the panic sets in .if we can firstly get a win or two under our belts the confidence gained from that should help us view all home games as winnable. we wont have a better chance to kickstart that than this year

 

No… we will do very well not to get beaten in every game. Sorry if that’s too pessimistic for some of you, but that’s my honest assessment. (Hope I’m wrong obviously)

Rodgers is tactically inept in European football, and I’ve seen nothing in either his signings or the first few games, to suggest he has gained any insight from last season.

We’re set up well to hopefully be dominant in the league. But it’s a completely different ball game in Europe, where we would need a different tactical set up and players with different characteristics to have any chance of doing well.

In short, our team is stacked full of high quality flair/creative players by SPFL standards… but this won’t mean diddly squat at champion’s league level, where it will mostly be our ability to defend and counter at a high level that will be tested. And I think we will most likely fail that test, just like we did last season… just like we have for quite a few seasons now.

 

It was great to hammer the huns on Sunday with a good performance but the one concern from that game was us trying to beat their high press in the first 6 or 7 minutes. We toiled a bit and gave the ball away several times, luckily they're pish and didn't capitalise.

Now it might have been cause it was early in the game, or there was an element of surprise but we have to be so much better at it against some of these champions league teams. We'll not get away with it against the likes of Dortmund.

 

I know where you're coming from but I disagree. I think Rodgers sets us up pretty well in Europe, an improvement on Ange. Last seasons home games have me optimistic we can do even better this year.

 

Against the teams we've drawn, bar Leipzig, we should be favourites in our home games this year - so as @oh bhoy says above this is our best opportunity to build some sort of form and confidence again. Fortress would sugggest to me that nobody can come and win easily, and I think we're a long way from that. Some convincing wins and respectable performances against better sides would be a good start (which we managed last year tbf).

 

I'm not getting ahead of myself. Very happy with the start to the season and with our business in the transfer window but as we've seen before, the CL is a massive step up. I think we've got a favourable draw when you look at what else we could have had, however we'll still need to be at our absolute best to have what would be seen as a successful tournament. Looking forward to it, more than I have the last couple of years, but still very wary of the other teams. Slovan Bratislava up first, top of their league so far, 4 wins, 1 draw. No easy games at all.

 

Really every game? You don't think we're favourites against Bratislava, at least 50/50 at home to Young Boys and in with a a small but real chance against Brugge and Zagreb?

 

I disagree, I think we were very poorly set up for the calibre of opposition we were facing. We conceded 15 goals and finished bottom of our group. We had one point from 5 games going into the last fixture, where we won a dead rubber at home against Feyenoord when the pressure was off. We were also averaging less than one goal scored per game. Which, combined with our terrible defending, gives me no real confidence that we’re making any progress in our development at this level. I think many of our fans are burying their heads in the sand, and ignoring the obvious facts about our rubbish performances.

Like I said, hope I’m wrong… but I don’t think I will be.

But I fully expect many of our fans to make the same excuses for failure that we always see. (Bad luck, injuries etc etc) Anything other than admit the truth.

 

Any CL calibre team is capable of tearing us apart at the back with how badly we’ve been defending at this level over the past few seasons. We will give teams lots of chances, so it’s really a question of whether those teams are clinical in front of goal. We score very few ourselves at this level, so it really doesn’t take much to get results against us.

 

I thought I was pessimistic!