v. Aberdeen | Page 7 | Vital Football

v. Aberdeen

Awful, disorganized performance against a side we should bet 3-1. Three reasons I've had enough of Deila.
1. The 4-2-3-1
2. Zonal marking, which works for no one.
3. Use of Efe Ambrose. Why? Play Janko. Play anyone. He's awful. He literally costs us a goal a game and directly. His mistakes lead to free kicks in our end and we always concede. He is the worst player to ever wear the Hoops.
 
RD is happy to our see our defence (regardless of personnel) make a **** of it in every game. System is down to him. JK is a terrible defensive (inexperienced too) coach but the blame lies with RD.


 
That was nothing short of fucking pish!

First half we played decent, not great but OK. Second half we were crap! We started to look tired, we brought on Forrest, fair enough. They go down to 10 men and we continue with the use of Ambrose over Janko! We needed someone to attack Aberdeen when it's 1-1 and they're down to 10 men, Ambrose wasn't going to give us that! Ciftci on to give us a "physical presence".......he was once again complete and utter PISH!

Unorganized in defence, unorganized and run ragged in midfield and not enough support up front for Griffiths. Far too often Lustig was being left 2 on 1 at the back post or they were getting players up in support of their wide men and we had nobody to support our fullbacks. Now I'm not necessarily blaming Johansen and GMS, I think it's more down to the system and our midfield, Bitton and Brown have to be more organized and help them out, they're too busy watching the middle of the pitch.

I thought the Aberdeen penalty was quite harsh, the Aberdeen player didn't actually play the ball as he made sure that Boyata ran into him, he won that penalty!
However the 2nd Aberdeen goal.....calamitous! Brown is the man at the back he either has to shout or deal with it! Blackett had an opportunity to deal with it but backed out of it, was there a shout for him to leave it? I don't know but he should have just knocked that away! You can't let a dangerous ball which has already come through a crowd of players, fall like that at the back post! AWFUL! That's not down to zonal marking either, that's just players not doing what they should be fucking doing!

My other gripe in particular was that when they went down to 10 men, we just knocked it around like we had all day. There was no pressure, no purpose and it was all too slow! When we lost the 2nd goal, immediately there was a sense of purpose to our play, we were faster and trying to attack and get a goal. Why the hell does it take us losing a goal to find some urgency for christ sake?

We know Deila's football and system CAN work, it might not be everyone's favourite or preferred system but we know it does work. System aside, what's wrong? I personally think too many players look tired, there's a lack of imagination and creativity. The runs in behind the defence are lacking, nobody is picking out those passes for those runs and we're all just too static! MAKE SOME FECKIN SPACE!
We're also FAR too easy to read! Any half decent team knows what we're going to do, we're going to pass it and move it out wide and then.....well I don't know what happens then, we normally try and cross it and lose it again or something! It just feels a bit easy for teams to prepare against us. McInnes has probably been looking at this game for a while and making a plan based on what he knows we're going to do, and the players will be drilled as to what sort of positions they need to be wary of.
We HAVE to start mixing it up!
 
Deila's system used to work, but it is easily figured out and now everyone knows how to play it. One forward against teams that sit back will guarantee you endless passing in the opposition pass but few clear-cut changes. We were able to boss the midfield just fine under Lennon, who I predict could return next season. Wishful thinking, perhaps. Deila is not the guy. He was supposed to work magic with young players and that has not happened. His tactics are poor and bullheaded. Our best players were those signed by Lennon, with the exception of Gordon.

I have never been sold on Deila, though I cut him slack when we won the double. But his game plan is all too predictable. With very similar personnel,Lennon got much better results. We ran away with the league with Stokes and Griffiths up front. We were winning domestically and scoring five or six goals in some games. We NEVER do that under Deila. If we were keeping clean sheets I'd cut him slack for playing defensively, but we don't do that, either. Today was a shit show and I'm fucking tired of it.
 
Welch called it. Other teams know how to play against RD's system and, as he only has one fuckin system, that is now a major problem for us.

Fuck knows why we persist with this tippy-tappy stuff around the box wich invariably leads to the ball either being played back the way, us wasting possession as we play that one pass too many, or we put it out wide for a cross into the box where the only certainty is that no Celtic player will be anywhere near the ball when said cross/ pass is put in.

I wanted RD in primarily because we badly needed fresh ideas and a new approach to player recruitment, team building and shaping. We're rapidly going backwards in all three of those areas. We had a very average side last season and have badly regressed since.

Rogic and Bitton only look good when afforded time on the ball and the space to pick a pass. Rogic in particular has slow feet when pressured and is a stick on to give away possession. Bitton has certainly improved that side of his game but he still struggles when pressed - although that could equally apply to most of our team.

Our scouts must have watched Boyata playing fives, when he was in goal. He's fucking hopeless in possession.

One up front is killing us as far as scoring goals goes. Any opposition defence has an unbelievably easy time against us.
That alone is a major indictment against RD, but when coupled with a diabolical defensive system it really is time for a rethink.

RD has also made it easy for the board not to spend the money that's need to improve that team.
 
Rogic flatters to deceive. I'm not a fan. He's OK, but he should not be starting in a vital game like this one. I am starting to agree with Wee Od on Cifti. He really has done fuck all and looks confused out there. I think he needs to play up top with another attacker. But he has not shown much.

We really need Commons back in there. He is our only outside threat and if we're going to play this bullshit formation, we need to give opposition something else to worry about. Since Deila would rather sell Ambrose than play a 4-4-2, we should at least have someone besides Bitton who will take a pop from outside the 18-yard box.

I hope the board wakes up to Deila about the time Lenny realizes that staying at Bolton is career suicide. And God help us if they can Deila and bring in Roy Keane.
 
I think it's the feeling of most Celtic fans, even at this early stage of the season that we're not moving forward now. We have certainly not hit the ground running this season and I don't think the players who played so well for us last season are playing as well again this season (Brown and Johansen in particular). The rest either joined in the summer or January but GMS looks a shadow of the player at the moment, doesn't seem to have either the confidence or maybe just not the time on the ball to do his thing like he did at Dundee Utd.
Ciftci, well the less said about his performances the better!

I don't think we recruited particularly well this summer, it remains to be seen what Simunovic is like but with a price tag like that he better be our best defender. Boyata has gone from looking a good player to being awful, particularly in possession! He can tackle and defend, but please don't ask him to pass the ball!
We lack creativity but we failed to deal with that in the summer because we're already overloaded with midfielders!

Agree about Rogic and Bitton, I like both and Bitton is improving that side of his game, I think he learned when playing in Europe how little time he'll get. Rogic is good, never been the quickest player but has good feet and has had a good start to the season....but he's not going to be suited to every game!
I think we needed another dynamic midfielder, someone a bit more like Brown, a box to box guy with a bit of fight, that will be useful in certain games.
Johansen needs to get his head screwed on because at the moment it looks like he's running around like a headless chicken or giving away silly fouls, nothing more! Johansen floated around the pitch far too much today! He was supposed to be playing RW but was coming inside and dropping deep to pick the ball up....then it was easy for Aberdeen to defend because they knew the ball wasn't going to go to their left side because there was nobody there!

We have too many players who only play well in certain games that suit them, we need players who are going to play well regardless! Either that or Deila can't be afraid to change the team up more, and that may mean changing the formation!

I read some stats that were actually a little worrying. Before the weekend's games we were third best in terms of number of shots conceded per game. We concede 7.5 shots per game, Aberdeen concede 7.2 and HAMILTON have conceded on average only 7.00 shots per game.
We average far more shots per game than anyone else! We average 18.17 shots per game so far this season, scoring 16 goals. Ross County's average is next highest with 11.67 and have scored the joint third highest number of goals with 10. Hearts are the second highest scoring team with 15, but they only average 11.2 shots per game. So we are not taking our chances as well as teams like Hearts and Hamilton are!

In 2013/14, we had the highest chance conversion rate in the SPL with 16.21%. Last season under Deila, that dropped to 13.24%, that was fifth best in the league behind Motherwell (13.86%), Aberdeen (13.96%), Dundee Utd (15.89%) and then Dundee (16.19%). That's pretty poor!
So far this season we're fourth in chance conversion rate with 15.93%. That however is quite far behind St Johnstone on 17.75%, Aberdeen on 18.24% and then Hearts are way out ahead on 28.23%.

Deila likes his stats, maybe he should read those and see what it tells us......we're not converting enough chances because we only have 1 striker!
Our defence are doing fine in terms of how many shots we allow, not concerned about that. The problem is that when teams are getting chances against us, they seem to to be taking them.....or being allowed to take them I should say!

I'm not going to call for Deila to go because let's face it, it's going to have to get far worse than this before he's sacked but I do think he needs to do something about the state of the team right now. We're just not firing on all cylinders at the moment and the defence needs to man up!
If we continue playing so weak then we'll finish bottom in the Europa League and be lucky to get any points at all! If we do perform that badly in Europe, I think Deila would step down.
 
Those stats are shocking, and quadrupley so when our budget is taken into account. But the stats just confirm what we see with our own eyes, namely we are pretty pish at both ends of the park, plus, our midfield are not helping at either end. I've no fucking idea why we bought Ciftci to play in a system that has only one striker.

This Europa league campaign might well be the straw that finally breaks a lot of fans' backs as far as RD and this board is concerned.
 
Agree with all of that Tic.

However, as much as we may lose patience with the board, it's going to take something HUGE before they ever give up their positions!
If we fail miserably in Europe then Deila will go himself, if he doesn't go himself then he will be pushed! The fans won't take a dismal European campaign again! The performances in the Europa League last season were actually some of our brighter moments at that time in the season.

I think today we also have to say, how many clear-cut chances did we create? Griffiths got on the end of a long ball and managed to get passed the keeper but it was cleared off the line, how many more saves did the keeper make from open play? Our one goal came from the penalty spot, Mulgrew had a free-kick on target but comfortably saved and Griffiths had a free-kick which took a deflection and ended up hitting the bar. Other than that I can remember Broony having a go from distance but it was wide of the post and Griffiths having a few speculative volleys and that was it. Or have I forgotten any?
Don't get me wrong, Aberdeen didn't exactly create many either but we're not talking about them, we're talking about our failure to create scoring opportunities. I wouldn't say Aberdeen looked particularly strong defensively today either. They manhandled us at set-pieces but that was about it!

All Deila has really said after the game is he's disappointed as we were controlling the game up until their penalty which was an easy penalty to give (Ronny's way of saying it wasn't really a foul) and disappointed that we gave away an easy goal from a set piece.
 
I'm not sure it will require something huge to fire him. The support is getting edgy and this Europa League campaign will not go well. First, Ronny never does well in Europe because the talent level and managerial acumen of the opposition is better. And now we have dug ourselves a hole in the league and can't even rest any starters on the weekend. This is exactly what happened last year.

Poor performance in Europe is not only going to spark the ire of support, who already have an uneasy relationship with Deila, it will cost us revenue. It already has. Lenny said in a recent interview that he would come back. I think he needed a break from the Celtic pressure cooker and probably now knows that he left too early to get the kind of marquis job he wants. This board likes to play to the support. If they could get Lenny back I think they would do it in a second. Under Lenny, we got into the CL and got that cash. We profited from Forster, Hooper, Wanyama, and Virgil, who were his signings.

Money talks with this board. None of Deila's signing will be sold later for the kind of cash Lennon's did. We aren't getting European money. The support gets more annoyed every week. Money talks.
 
I didn't say it would take something huge for Deila to go, I said it would take something huge for the board to go! Haha! But you're points are still valid about Deila.

This is starting to feel reminiscent of Mowbray.......Deila came good last season after a poor start, the fans expected things to continue to get better, but they're not!
A poor performance in Europe (the board will give him until the end of the group stage) and Deila will be off. Not sure about Lennon coming back, or at least not yet, but Paul Lambert is available and Roy Keane could be the other option. Both would want assurances over finances and transfers though.

That brings us onto the point welch makes about the difference between what Lennon brought in and sold for good money compared to those Deila has brought in. You're generally right! I can only think of one or 2 at the moment who could bring us in a decent profit, Armstrong and Janko. We might get £1m or so for GMS but it won't be big money for him! Armstrong is still young enough and he has the potential and talent to be worth more! Janko is still young and I think he has the potential to be a big money signing in a year or 2 once he has a bit more experience and more game time! I don't mean VVD money, but he should get us around £4m or £5m with long enough left on his contract and if he develops well!
 
This isn't as bad as Mowbray because Deila did win a double and under Mogga, the team collapsed. But the European performances have been dire. The finances are what will do him in. Thinn er return in Europe and half the payouts on players sales when he is supposed to bring in great young talent ... He has until December or January.

Paul Lambert is interesting. Keane would be a bad choice. He's just not a manager. Scarily enough, Desmond loves him and would bring him in to please the support.
 
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