SPFL Celtic V The Huns Thursday January 2nd kick off 3PM Sky Sports football

So what we lost to them in a one off fixture, just imagine swapping seasons

 

My.2.sons here.for.xmas 1 from japan where he practices and 1.from chezc Republic over for Xmas could not believe how we played on Thursday. I said it's a blip and we move on

 

For me it was a bit more than a blip as the signs were there in the cup final. Rodgers needs to address the issues.

 

Watched the game back yesterday wasn’t sure it was just emotion or being a bit worse for wear on the lager on Thursday .

Genuinely couldn’t believe what I was watching second time around * the ball out the park under no pressure. Blind passes into the most across the middle of our half, could count on one hand the amount of times we won a 50/50 or second ball.

How the starting 11 all stayed out for the 2nd half was unbelievable also

 

Im a glutton for pain sometimes

Just couldn’t conceive how * we were on 1st viewing

 

The pain is easing already, Hibs should have won it

 

Watched it live with my dad and he can be a moany * at the best of times but this nearly nearly ended him it was so * to watch. My tv got some some abuse on thursday, would put anyones blood pressure through the roof.

 

..... w.t

 

Superb. Scoring at Ibrox at the same time as netting at Parkhead

 

I * wish he did

 

Meh always next time mate

 

Makes our result and performance all the more * embarrassing.

 

https://x.com/rowleyanalysis/status/1876367303282978933?s=46

This was a pretty interesting breakdown of situations in this bin fire of the game. I actually said to a group of mixed supporters after the game, I couldn’t tell you if Rangers played well as we were so bad and this I believe justifies that take.

I believe our poorer performances in big games over the last 6 weeks has largely come down to trying to be overly safe to a point it creates mistakes. We go backwards due to a fear of losing the ball forwards but actually play ourselves in to a hole and then make poor decisions trying to play out that. Three incidents that immediately come to mind are:

1) Greg Taylor’s cup final pass for Rangers first goal, he had a simple 10 yard forward pass on to McGregor or a similar one out to Trusty who had taken up the left back slot, before trying to play across the defence. The McGregor one would have taken out their full forward line and put us on the attack.

2) Taylor stumble that set up the 4-1 situation that CCV bailed us out off. I think it was McGregor fed a square ball out to Taylor but did we really need to play that? McGregor could have put the ball back into the box or played forward but took a poor touch then played a pass to Taylor behind him. Taylor should deal with it but it still created that situation, when McGregor first received that ball he had a chance to put a dangerous ball into the box for particularly those on the right hand side of the rangers box to go and attack. We actually got our opener against Killie awaywhen it went straight in from a similar scenario.

3) Scales takes too long and invites the press for their first goal last Thursday. When you look at the set up Bernardo and McGregor could do more but we had actually started the game well to this point, had a couple of chances we should have made more off. Scales refused the easy ball to Taylor, McGregor is marked and Bernardo is relatively free middle of the park, all be it he should have moved over to the left and used the space that was vacated by McGregor going deep and taking his marker. Alternatively we had joy with Maeda in behind Ridvan already and that long ball into space behind the full back is on again as Maeda is touchline wide and Ridvan is quite far inside. Put that into space and you could have turned the full Rangers team putting them on the back foot like we had done already.

He takes too long, then a poor touch and panics.

Obviously this is just highlighting a few high profile incidents but I do think this has been occurring more regularly and if you analyse it further would find similar things happening just going unpunished in games.

Scales in particular to me has the biggest flaw of not being aware of what is going on around him until he receives the ball so he receives the ball then thinks what will I do with it now. Taylor isn’t as bad as Scales for this and actually does the opposite at times in playing the backwards or square pass early because he isn’t aware of the space he has received the ball in and that he has time to turn. Taylor is better when he receives it facing forward as he can play a decent forward ball.

I would also say CCV should back himself more on the ball as I think he is better at playing it out than the level of responsibility he takes. He has a decent mid range ball out to the winger or fullback on the right and can play a big switch but often defers to his centre back partner. He is actually a decent ball carrier to but gets a bit of a nose bleed when he gets into the opposition half and isn’t sure what to do with it.

Johnston, I feel his passing in our own half has gone backwards recently. He was good at forming those triangles with the winger and one of the centre midfielders previously and getting us out a press but that hasn’t been at the right level recently. Ralston actually done a good job at this in the cup final for our third goal. However, that isn’t consistent from him.

 

See the game before as well. Motherwell got a gd goal chopped off. Been given a showing up from Hibs and Motherwell.

 

There’s a thing that hasn’t been picked up in this analysis, it’s that they set up to choke out the patterns of play we always do, and that results in what we see there. It’s spot on, but it’s largely down to us not adapting to do anything else when it’s not working.

Liam Scales is the biggest example of that IMO, him coming on the final changed it with his use of the ball, and it worked very well. Rodgers got the plaudits for that quite rightly. At Ibrox they factored him playing into it, and it’s a weird thing but when it’s a gameplan that snuffs out our usual style - the playing it safe instead is both spot on and not, because we do it to such an extent that it’s far from safe.


Huns didn’t do anything game changing they games, what they done is copy Club Brugge’s tactics and set up against us. And it works.

Look at that Brugge game, the goal that they got was in the same vein, a massive * up for CCV out of character or not for him. When we’re being shut down like that, what we usually do is being stopped by how the other team sets up, we need to tweak it to play inbetween the positions they’re snuffing out.

 

Where I agree with some of the above they didn’t totally shut down our patterns of play they did try to but see in particular on the right handside, their was acres of space for the typical little slip pass to a midfielder in the inside right channel, normally then with the winger or full back drop it off inside and the other one of the winger or full back take off down the outside for a third man run and get played in.

That play was still on regularly, getting Maeda in behind Ridvan was on constantly. As Ridvan being a left footer took up quite a narrow position, if Maeda stayed wide he was allowed a lot of space to go in behind but our boys at the back were so slow and inaccurate with our forward passing, after 10 minutes where it had already worked, we just abandoned that.

Bajrami does do a good job on McGregor. He had a clear physical advantage over him and did shut him down and press well.