How bad was our European campaign

And have we learnt from it this season?

Just been watching the videos of the games from Malmo onwards and for large parts of these games a lot of the goals conceded (and thus draws and defeats) can be attributed to individual errors more often than not.

Let's take the Malmo games first.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oncKCMZsiOk[/ame]

Firstly we are done by not marking properly and generally having no awareness - can be put down to early season issues. We can't blame the fullbacks being too far up, as the whole backline has tracked back at a resonable pace. Lustig has pulled away from Berget leaving him wide open on our right hand side. Bullet of a shot and from there not much Gordon could have done. Error = Lustig.

2nd goal - Ball is dangerously swung to land on the edge of the 6yard box, Gordon could have came for it, but instead he actually pushes Berget in to free space giving him the chance to take the shot. Error = Gordon


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SER9F9zZU4[/ame]
Return game, their first goal is another corner swinging in to the middle of the 6 yard box, Gordon is a calamity at this one. error = Gordon
2nd goal repeat of above. The defence could have done better to clear, perhaps. But that ball being knocked in to the middle of the 6 yard box should be collected no problem by the keeper. Error = Gordon

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vEZzVPhDjk[/ame]

First game in the groups, and the 1st goal to let in, blame the entire defence to be honest, all non-committal especially Bitton, Boyata and Izzy. Error = Defence
2nd goal, A dangerous ball in again, and Izzy being sent off did not help. But yet again that is a ball you expect a goalkeeper to take control of, instead he stands on the spot, then gets caught flaffing as the ball bounces in front of him. Should have stepped forward and collected that before the bounce. Error = Gordon

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDh0IjOemgk[/ame]
The home game against Fenerbache, I'll sum this one up in one name Efe Ambrose. 1st goal jumps to head the ball weakly to the keeper, should have let it drop to his feet then cleared the ball. Error = Ambrose
2nd goal a corner, Ambrose gets beaten at the near post, caught napping and unaware of the opponent. Error = Ambrose

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvs1PiO_pMw[/ame]
First match of the double header against Molde, beaten 3-1.
First goal Ambrose hasn't got a clue where he is or who should be marked, his run is way off and allows the space for the shot. Gordon gets beat at his near post - a big no-no for a goal keeper. Error=Ambrose and Gordon
2nd goal all Izzy fault, the cross comes in, he checks to see where the man is, but leaves him with acres of space. Nothing Gordon could do with that shot again, all Izzy fault. Error = Izzy
3rd goal Lustig leaves his man with acres of space, again like Izzy. Gordon gets beat at his near post while fumbling around for a save. Should have done better. Error = Lustig (partial blame to Gordon for not doing better for the cross as well as the 'save')

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVzpG9ntaE0[/ame]
The defence looks to have the 1st goal covered, a headed clearance from the cross seems fine on the face of it. Till the entire defence seemed to stand still, more importantly Boyata who should have closed the ball down long before it dropped. Gordon had no chance with that shot. Error = Boyata
2nd goal, let's just blame the entire defensive 5. The cross to our left back is dealt with very badly, but then the return ball should have been collected as well. as should the ball when it drops near Blackette. Just a massive combination of standing off. Error = Whole defence

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha1tDAUL4LA[/ame]
1st goal here was a mistake by McGregor in the middle of the park, but that didn't cost us the goal. The defelection off the cross was never dealt with, Gordon should have held the first shot, then looked lost as he moved across the face of the goal. Could have done a lot better, and like most games so far he did not seem comfortable collecting the ball.l Error = Gordon
2nd goal done by a fast counter, these happen in football, but what shouldn't happen is your goalkeeper getting done at his near post like that. Error = Gordon

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBc18jkahtk[/ame]
Just the one goal this time to finish off the campaign, Johansen is done for pace, nowt he can do there without seeing red. Tries to run him wide, and for the best of it, does what he can. Gordon bottles it as he comes out, getting beat by the opponent. Error = Gordon, though his staying on his feet/unsure is forgiven as he would be scared of giving away the penalty and seeing red as well.



So overall Gordon seems to be at fault for a lot of the goals in Europe. Defensively as a unit we seemed to also switch off a lot, not closing down opponents and sweeping up loose balls. Ambrose being the 3rd factor, especially against Fenerbahce.

Overall in a lot of the games we took the lead, and looked like we could have scored a few more. Attacking early on in the season did not seem to be at all the issue. The defence was. A lot was also mentioned at the time of our fullbacks pushing too far high, but the goals that our fullbacks were at fault for tended to be from them simply not marking the opponent, they were always back in line with the rest of the defence.


Thus for me, a lot of the blame comes down to Gordon this season. Since then we have all (majority) witnessed Gordon not being at his best this season, and mistakes that happened in Europe happened in the league as well. So do I/We feel we have learned anything from these games as the season has went on?
Personally I don't think we get beat as much on the counter and the backline most recently with Mulgrew there, seems to be understanding each other a lot more. I'm very confident that we won't see the errors from the full backs, nor the stupidity of Ambrose if we go in to the opening of next season with a settled backline of Lustig/Janko, Sviatchenko, Mulgrew/Simunovic, Tierney.
Gordon still worries me, and his errors over the whole season need to be dealt with this summer in the form of Bailly stepping up or a new keeper coming in.

 

Also, sorry for the * songs on some videos, best I could find.
Also, they never seem to show for me when I post via the youtube tabs, does it work for others?

 

If Johansen scored that Sitter against Malmo it would have being completely different the team's problems are more psychological then ability wise despite not winning a game in the group stage the performances where totally good enough in most games outwith a few laps in concentration I'm not sticking up for Ronny here but I don't think a team capable of doing well in Europe is that far away

 

Most goals are caused by errors. I have often seen a loss/draw being excused by a wonder goal. This can pretty much cover the manager for any goal conceded.

 

Just paste the youtube video URL onto your post and remove the 's' from the 'https'.

 

Also giving away the late goal needlessly change it all, also not getting the clear penalty in the away leg. In the end we never had mental strength in the team to see it out and little in the way of luck.

 

Results wise it was absolutely shocking. I agree that we're not a million miles off being a decent team in Europe though.

 

That has bugged me for years. Cheers bud!


Yeah I think aside from individual errors and lack in concentration, the performances were good. I mean, twice we threw away leads against ajax, and the Fene game at home was completely Ambrose fault for his own stupidity. Outside of those games alone we would have done well to get plenty of points on the board and some great victories.

Think a stable defence going in to next season and a fresh bit of creativity to unlock teams, and the team could be scorching through the qualifiers next season.

We tend to find that these European games are a lot more open play than at home, so we get to take the game to teams and play FOOTBALL, unlike the 10men behind the ball we currently play against, which stalls our development.

 

For 90 minutes vs Malmo it was going excellently. Then it took a real nosedive.

I said at the time Gordon should take responsibility for 3 of the 4 goals we conceded to Malmo, nowhere near commanding enough.

 

Settled defence and decent keeper and we'd have done well. Johansen is such an important player for us, we really need him playing well.

 

I don't think we are either..

Naivety across the board from board/management and individual player's and error's really what was looking like possibly a decent go at the Europa group specifically and then back to Malmo and that start beforehand..

Get rid of the liabilities and set up more compact and we will be alright in the Europa at the very least..

We deffo aren't far off but probably lack a player in every department right down our spine..

 

It was awful.

Dunno why you would even need to ask?

 

Realise you've put a lot of effort into that post, but the long and short of it is that out European campaign was *. We got pumped out of the CL by teams with a fraction of our budget and failed to win a single game in the Europa League. It was so *.

 

The results were worse than they should have been, performance wise we should have took 8 points off Ajax and Fenerbahce but ended up with 3 points? we really should have won away to Ajax and at home to Fenerbahce and drawn the other 2 games but we ended up drawing the two we should have won and losing one we should have drawn. Molde beat us fair and square I think, cant complain about that they were better.

Also Malmo were were a bit unlucky that Bittons goal was disallowed, otherwise we only needed 1 goal to go back ahead in the tie, mind it was disallowed for hand-ball even though it was their defender who handballed it infact had that goal counted we could have afforded to concede another goal just to get a goal and have gone to extra time.

 

Totally and utterly embarrassed after watching us this year. It's what hurt the most the lack of fight.

 

Geniounley think if it wasn't for the * who tossed the ball on the pitch that led to they crap with johansen it would have finished 3-1

 

The only saving grace is rangers are coming up, and with them back we have more of a chance to spend.

Oh and our campaign was terrible. Worse than Lenny's last and that was a miserable showing.