18/19 Pre-Season & CL Qualifiers | Vital Football

18/19 Pre-Season & CL Qualifiers

wee_od_88

wee_od_88

Vital Football Hero
We have been given a tricky first round trip to Armenia to face the Armenian champions FC Alashkert. While we should have no big issues in beating the Armenians from a quality point of view, we will have to deal with temperatures of up to 40C, a sticky pitch and a team that are used to playing in such conditions and are technically quite good on the ball.

Having watched a bit of footage of them they can pass it around well but due to the conditions they are unable to play with much speed and don't have opposition closing them down and putting pressure on them, as it's simply too hot for players to run around doing that. It means we'll need to find a different way of playing away from home, I would suggest 2 up front would be a good start!
However when we have them here at Celtic Park, I would expect us to run rampant as I don't think they'll be able to deal with the pace and pressure that we'll play with at home!
 
First pre-season game sees us take on SK Hogwarts Steyr in Austria.

Playing wizards in our first game might not be the wisest decision!

ok, cancel the wizards, it's actually SK Vorwarts Steyr. As you were...

CELTIC (4-2-3-1): Bain, Miller, Compper, Simunovic, Welsh; Brown, McInroy, Christie, Morgan, Sinclair; Griffiths.

Subs: Hazard, Hendry, Ajer, Tierney, Forrest, Kouassi, McGregor, Hayes, Henderson, Allan, Aitchison

Currently 0-0 as we approach half time
 
FT 1-0 Forrest

It was all change at half time so most got a run out.

My stream was done by a Celtic TV sketch artist 2nd half, so only caught bits and pieces. Lewis Morgan was impressive during his first half debut appearance.

The lesser spotted Scott Allan did quite well 2nd half as did Forrest. Hayes full of running too. Kouassi another who impressed. Dominated from start to finish and really should have won by a bigger margin.

All about fitness but good to get the pre-season underway with a good win.

Think the next game is on Saturday.
 
He did ok first half, some nice touches. Will take him time to get up to speed with us and our system. He didn't have the best of seasons for Aberdeen so hope he grabs any chances he gets to impress BR.

Welcome aboard, AJ :tophat:
 
I didn't get to see the game but at least we won. It's morale boosting for the team, 22 of the squad got 45mins of game time into their legs, no injuries and the road to fitness continues.

Really pleased to see some of the young lads in the mix there and on from the start too. In the past we've often just brought these lads on with 15-20mins of the game left.

Out of curiosity and on the subject of Christie......was he playing out on the wing? I'm still not convinced that is his position and that's partly the problem for him and trying to make it at this club. Really he wants to be playing in that No.10 role behind the striker, but I don't see him getting that spot ahead of others at the moment.

Good to hear Kouassi did well. Scott Allan is purely shop window, he's not going to do enough to get a spot in this team.
Glad to have Hayes back, however there's a lot of talk of him leaving this summer......

Also worth putting in this thread that we have Moses Odubajo in Austria with us. Although Rodgers said he's not actually training with the team and won't be playing but they wanted to have a discussion with him. His contract with Hull expires at the end of the month so we had to get permission from them to bring him out. He's technically still their player but he's told them he won't be signing a new deal. He looks the business though! He's been out for 2 years with a knee injury! What a nightmare for the lad. He came through playing for Leyton Orient, then Brentford and was in the England youth teams. Brentford paid £1m for him and then sold him 2 years later for £3.5m to Hull. He helped Hull reach the EPL but then suffered his injury. Apparently Hull turned down an £11m bid from Everton for this lad. He's a RB but he's good going forward! Haven't seen much of his defending but the boy has pace and strength and he's a good size. Good link-up play too!
 
Also just looking at who wasn't involved in yesterday's game either through injury or simply not being picked to even be on the bench....

Ralston - slight injury maybe?
Bitton - think he's still injured.
Ntcham - unsure.....????
Benyu - unsure.......????
Dembele - unsure, presumably rested/not risked.
Edouard - same as above.

So including young players, we have about 30 players away in Austria and 4 to come back from the WC. There's still a bit more culling to be done! Rodgers likes to work with about 24, supplemented by a few youngsters.
 
Next up is Bohemians Prague which is due to start shortly!

Kick-off is 2pm

CELTIC (3-4-2-1) Gordon; Hendry, Ajer, Tierney; Forrest, Brown, McGregor, Hayes; Christie, Sinclair; Edouard

Subs: Bain, Hazard, Doohan, Simunovic, Griffiths, Allan, Ntcham, Compper, Ralston, Miller, Johnston, Kouassi, McInroy, Welsh, Aitchison, Hendry, Henderson

French Eddie starts, Ntchampion and Ralston both there on the bench.
Still no Dembele or Bitton.

Not sure how much of this I'll see as heading out in a bit.
 
We lost 1-0 but another 45mins for about 21 players and the only unfortunate instance was that Calvin Miller had to play about 60mins because he replaced Johnny Hayes after half an hour. Fingers crossed for Hayes that he's OK.
 
Only caught the opening 15 mins. Hayes has had no luck with injuries during his time with us. Thought we might have moved him on during this window but an injury would put that on hold.

All about fitness and getting the match sharpness back.
 
TicV"Establishment" said:
Only caught the opening 15 mins. Hayes has had no luck with injuries during his time with us. Thought we might have moved him on during this window but an injury would put that on hold.

All about fitness and getting the match sharpness back.
Click to expand...

I think for now at least, BR wants to keep him as when he is fit, he's a good player! However if we start making some moves in the transfer market then that might change.

I'm actually a little bit surprised that Scott Allan has had as much game time as he has thus far. I still don't think we'll be keeping him but I suppose you never know if injuries were to strike, we may need him! And a fit Scott Allan is worth more than an unfit one.
 
Our next game is on Tuesday.....however we have two games on Tuesday. We have a behind closed doors friendly against Blau Weiss Linz in the morning before a 4:30pm kick-off against Sparta Prague. It will be interesting to see how Rodgers chooses to use the players with this arrangement. Will he simply have 2 teams play 90mins or will he build it up a bit slower and play a team for 60mins before giving the other a 30min run-out, then the second team will start against Sparta Prague and play 60mins before the first team get 30mins at the end of the game? Personally I think I'd split it 60/30 and I think BR will do the same. Only Calvin Miller and Scott Bain have played more than 45mins in any game so far.
 
We won this morning's closed door friendly against BW Linz thanks to goals from Mikey Johnstone and Scott Sinclair.

CELTIC (4-2-3-1) Bain; Ralston, Welsh, Compper, Miller; Kouassi, Allan; Johnston, Christie, Sinclair; Griffiths.
Not Used: Doohan, Hendry, Henderson McInroy

The manager opted not to use any of the young subs and make sure the whole team got a full 90min run. That will have been tough going for them but it seems we dominated the game and Johnstone in particular was a real threat.

This afternoon's team should look something like:
Gordon; Hendry, Ajer, Simunovic; Forrest, Brown, Ntcham, Tierney; Morgan, McGregor; Edouard
Subs: Doohan, Hendry, Henderson, McInroy, Dembele, Benyu

Kick-off is at 4:30pm
 
As expected the team for this evening's final pre-season tour game is:

Gordon
Hendry, Ajer, Simunovic, Tierney
Forrest, Brown, Ntcham, McGregor
Dembele, Edouard

Dembele has scored with a rifle of a shot to make it 1-0 to the Bhoys in the first half. He's also just had another couple of chances to score before the end of the half, one he tried to dink over the keeper but it goes just wide and then he was 1-on-1 with the keeper but he makes a good save. This might be Dembele's first game of pre-season but he's certainly looking sharp!
 
Tonight our European journey begins again! We start away in the sweltering Armenia playing the Armenian champions Alashkert. It's going to be difficult especially the conditions and the heat and we're probably going to have to change our style a lot. It's going to be a much slower pace with good passing to build up the play and then once we're into the final 3rd of the pitch it's where we really try and push and attack.
It looks as though we'll go with the same team and setup as we did against Shamrock Rovers on Saturday, playing with a back 3, 2 wing backs, a midfield trio and 2 up front.

Gordon
Hendry - Ajer - Simunovic
Forrest - McGregor - Brown - Ntcham - Tierney
Dembele - Edouard

Subs: Bain, Ralston, Miller, Kouassi, Sinclair, Christie, Johnston
 
Actually I forgot about Morgan! He'll probably be on the bench instead of Johnston. I wasn't sure if he was going to be good enough to make it at Celtic but the early indications are that Morgan is a cracking player and playing in a good team with other good players is only going to see him get better!
 
It's a bit frantic to start with in this game. We were expecting a much slower game here but it's actually been quite a lot of zipping about and running and Hendry has had to make some good sliding tackles to stop the Alashkert attack.
 
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