Controversial Celtic Opinions

I call Reo and Daizen by their first names.

Not sure now if I'm controversially not racist or just trying to talk about them like we're pals irl @martin_d

 

Depends how long BR stays for his second stint. Also, the huns were a basket case for his first stint - Ange dominated a much more potent force.

Mind you, BR did better than Ange in Europe and probably will do again.

 

Imagine playing with Caldwell and McManus without Boruc behind them! Terrifying.

 

Aye he still posts I'm sure. He's actually alright, just clearly can't spot a player

 

Have you considered that Kyogo probably choose to have that name on his top?

 

Iwata had Iwata on his last year and swapped to Tomoki for this year. Seems like they're all more comfortable with their "first" name on the shirt.

 

Did someone on here not mention that in Japanese culture, when you start taking your first name it’s a sign of having earned trust or something along those lines?

I am sure one of the more culturally aware posters on here that knew a bit about Japan wrote about that before.

 

Touche. That is fair enough point. But just as importantly, Forster had an entire rolling roster of CB's that Lennon was deploying over his time. For instance during his record breaking league record 13 clean sheet run, he played behind
a back 4 that consisted of (from RB - CB - CB - LB)...

Lustig - Izzy - Brown - Ambrose
Lustig - Izzy - Biton - Ambrose
Fisher - Izzy - Biton - Ambrose
Matthews - Izzy - Brown - Ambrose
Matthews - Izzy - Mulgrew - Ambrose
Matthews - Izzy - Brown - Ambrose
Fisher - Izzy - Ledley - Ambrose
Fisher - Izzy - Brown - VVD
Fisher - Izzy - Mulgrew - Ambrose
Fisher - Izzy - Johansen - Ambrose
Matthews - Izzy - Biton - Ambrose
Matthews - Mulgrew - Biton - Ambrose

When Izzy, hardly a man mountain at all of 5'8 and being played out of position for most of that run as a CB alongside no less than 5 different CB partners, all except Mulgrew of whom were primarily MF's being used out of position, and then add to that 3rd choice RB (Fisher) for virtually half of that run and Efe effin Ambrose playing at LB most of the time, it's hardly a settled defensive line, much less one that opposition strikers would've feared going into those games throughout that run.

 

Going out of the cup got me thinking this. How big of a deal do we view doubles and trebles. Yes they are nice, but in reality we focus our achievements through the realms of how we 'compete' in europe and winning the league domestically.

So why don't we consider what the top English clubs view domestic cups. As a breeding ground for their next generation.

We gripe that we can't afford to risk the next upcoming group in the league, because points are so precious. We gripe Cal Mac has to play 60 games etc. We gripe that our youth have to play in the 5th tier of domestic competitions and the gap between that and the premier league is too much.

So why not keep a core group around the first team that train with them, understanding the standards set. These younger players would compete in the domestic cups, gaining them valuable first team minutes exposed to the pressures of the club.

With the expectation its about developing them to the next level.

 

To be honest this is sort of how we treated at least one of the cups before becoming treble obsessed.

But a good shout none the less.

 

I think we see now that a lot of players Ange signed are limited, but excelled at the specific things Ange wanted them to do.

That's a tough situation to be in really. And this is shown with a change in style and the way Rodgers potentially wants to play.

 

Everything will work out just fine. We'll get through the sticky patch, settle down, get players back from injury, win the league and do not to bad in the CL.

 

Pretty much this, except I think we're gonna get absolutely SHOED in the CL unfortunately... We'd need a lucky draw to get anything, and the Huns are stealing all of the Scottish teams luck for themselves right now

 

Very much this. Ange had a vision and a plan and he bought to fill that. Rodgers has a completely different one, but now has to deal with replacing/changing out players seen as successful. When Ange arrived, morale was so low that many people rallied to him and got behind everything, and Rodgers is getting the opposite from a lot of quarters. Wouldn't surprise me if Rodgers is getting resistance from done of the board too in replacing some of the guys.

Every time we change managers, including initially with Ange, we have tough patches. We (almost) always come good by Christmas

 

I think we're getting horsed in the CL from the Pot 1 and Pot 2 teams no matter what we do. Even if we get in all the players Rodgers needs. The gap is just that big now. Depending on the draw, that could also be true against the Pot 3 team. I can't see us getting a kinder draw than Shakhtar Donetsk (in the position they were in) again, though.

 

Here's a controversial opinion: I don't enjoy the CL games even a little bit anymore. I like the money, but I'd enjoy watching Morton play Arbroath more than watching us play Real. They've taken all the joy out of it.

I have gained major respect for the small number of away fans of teams like Motherwell or Dundee that show up at CP or Ibrox knowing they're going to get bent over 8 or 9 times out of 10.

Less controversially, I enjoy the EL a lot more (but I think I'm far from alone in that).

 

In terms of CL I think I agree... like I had some level of fun watching us go toe to toe against Real for 60 minutes and if not for wasteful finishing who's to say what could have been, but the same time, what Real allowed us to do for 60 minutes was exactly what they allowed Liverpool to do the season prior and they still wiped the floor with Klopps side.

This says a lot more about me than anything or anyone else's view of football and success for Celtic, but I honestly care so little about progress in Europe because I do not see how it financially sustainable for us to achieve on a regular basis and no amount of comparing to and x and y clubs in mainland Europe will ever convince me we can emulate what they do from the confides of a footballing nation that is still stuck in 2002

 

I still enjoy the European nights but I don't really expect anything from them, except a paycheck for Celtic.

As for Morton and Arbroath... yeah, but I'm the sort of chap who'll stop and watch a couple of 10yos kicking a ball with a pile of jumpers for goals.

No, I am not known to police...

 

See far from being enjoyable, that game actually contributed towards this feeling for me. The best team we've had in ages played absolutely out of its skin that game and Real just patiently waited like Muhammed Ali and then picked us off. I watched the game back and it was never in doubt.

I know Real Madrid are Real Madrid; but it feels like we're losing all of our CL games these days.

What's our Group Stage record since that Juve game more than 10 years ago? First of all, it's only 24 games! What an awful record we have in qualifying!

Of that 24, we have won just 2 games, both against the pot 3 side. In an entire decade, we haven't won a single game against a pot 1 or 2 side in the CL groups. Even against the pot 3 sides, we've won just twice from 8 games. So we're averaging a single win (always against a pot 3 team) every two campaigns.

We've picked up 5 draws along the way. An average of 1.25 per campaign.

We've lost 17 games, an average of 71%.

So going into this with a decade worth of data, we can confidently say that for an averagely difficult draw we have zero chance of getting a win against the Pot 1 and Pot 2 sides. We have a 50/50 chance of winning 1 (just 1!) of the 2 games against the Pot 3 side.

A lot of people talk about this window like we're getting horsed in the CL if we don't make the signings we need. They don't seem to have got the memo! In the short term, we're getting horsed by the two top teams anyway, no matter what we do this window. What the CL amounts to for us for all practical purposes is 2 games against the pot 3 side. A lot will depend on the draw. On average (averaged over 4 different draws), we have a 50/50 chance of getting a single win against this side. We then need to hope we can get a draw in the return fixture to get 3rd place. In the two times we got that win, we lost the return fixture both times and got 3rd once.

That's what it is for us: 4 guaranteed non-wins (mostly defeats, 1 or 2 of which will certainly be absolute doings) and 2 massive games against a team that's probably going to be slightly better than us with a 1 in 2 chance of a single win and a 1 in 4 chance of getting 3rd ahead of them.

Fun, I don't think! Give me the Europa League every time. 4 tight games against our peers and 2 easier games for our confidence (although still harder than most SPL games).