v. Hunmarnock | Page 11 | Vital Football

v. Hunmarnock

Clarke didn't do anything special. Just constant disruption and harassment. Dembele should be good in these games but he isn't. He's lazy. We also miss creativity in the middle, which Armstrong and Rogic and can bring.
 
It looks as though the squad for tomorrow night's game against Kilmarnock at Celtic Park has been revealed. Celtic have posted photos of training, in which is a group photo of 17 players stretching, minus GKs.
Simunovic, Ajer, Hendry, Miller and Tierney are the defenders.
Forrest, Sinclair, McGregor, Armstrong, Brown, Rogic, Roberts, Kouassi, Ntcham and what looks to be Mikey Johnston and Ewan Henderson are the midfielders.
Dembele is the only striker.

Those of you good at maths will realise that from that group plus the keepers, we have 1 too many for our match squad. Ewan Henderson is the most likely to drop out but will be available should someone get injured in the warm up.

It's a difficult one to call for Kilmarnock, not playing so well right now but will be difficult opponents as always under Steve Clarke. As the game is at Celtic Park I would imagine they'll go with just one up front in Kris Boyd so we may look to go 3 at the back with no natural RB in the squad. Hendry has tried to play there and frankly failed. I've not even been convinced of him playing on the right of a back 3 so far, he doesn't quite look comfortable yet. I think more of his games need to be in the middle of a back 4.
Personally I'm hoping that Rodgers chooses this game to change the team up a bit. We've got our final home game against Aberdeen at the weekend so let the midweek game be a chance for some of the others.
Armstrong was pretty good against Hearts when he came on, he may well start against Killie but I wouldn't imagine he'll start against Aberdeen. Do we really want to risk Scott Brown in this midweek game? Should we not give him a rest ahead of Aberdeen and the Cup Final and let Kouassi get a game?
 
Tonight's team has been announced:

Bain
Hendry - Simunovic - Ajer
Forrest - Armstrong - Brown - McGregor - Miller
Sinclair - Roberts

Subs: DdV, Tierney, Ntcham, Kouassi, Henderson, Rogic, Johnston
 
BR has obviously decided not to risk playing Dembele before the Cup Final.
I've shown this as a back 3, simply because I hate the thought of us playing a back 4 and using Hendry as a RB! Brown will do his usual and sit in front of the defence and Armstrong and McGregor will be asked to go beyond and help the attack. No out and out striker in the squad but that didn't stop us last season!
 
Not really a lot to talk about in this game. It's been fairly boring. We had the ball in the back of the net but it was ruled out for offside.....difficult call and I'm not convinced Ajer was interfering with the play or got the last touch on the ball.

Killie are quite defensive which is unexpected.

We are playing as more of a back 4.
 
slightly disappointing 0-0 draw but on a wet Wednesday night and no striker in the squad, I didn't have much hope for anything else. Kilmarnock looked happy to take the draw. Happy to sit in knowing we didn't have a striker to make the most of our possession and create a real cutting edge.
There must be a reason but I can't understand why Jack Aitchison hasn't been drafted in to help out this week. Our best young striker and we do have other ones anyway but for some reason, Rodgers is choosing not to use any of them.
 
We've struggled to break teams down at home this season with or without a striker on the pitch. Rodgers' tactics are stale and predictable and every side bar sevco have figured out how to contain and frustrate us with very little effort.

Yes, we're on course for a record breaking double treble but our scoring stats are pish this season.

You heard Rodgers after the hertz game saying that's the first time he's ever told a team of his to go long. It's like he has no intention of ever mixing things up a bit. Despite having the physical threat of Dembele and Edouard! Going forward that worries me, a lot. Teams aren't suddenly going to forget how to play against us next season, Brendan.

Managers with a tiny fraction of our budget and far inferior players are finding it increasingly easy to combat Rodgers' tactics. And switching between a back 3 or 4 and constantly changing the defence is doing nothing to help the players settle or develop partnerships. Although we've yet to buy a decent fucking defender under Rodgers...
 
From twitter:

In Deila's 2nd season, we finished with 26 wins and 86 points. If we beat Aberdeen on Sunday, we'll finish this season with 25 wins and 85 points. Meaningless stat, but shows how poor we've been in the league this season.
 
Good point about us not having signed a good defender under BR Tic! Hopefully we can put that right this summer! We've been lucky at how well Ajer has done since he came in to the side but he still has a lot of work to do too!

Also very interesting to read that stat about the league and points. Big difference between Rodger's and Deila has been in Europe, neither have been great at times but with Rodgers we still look to have at least a bit more of a chance.

Going long in Europe could work for us, too often in Europe this season we were too slow to try and break out from the back when we won the ball back, having someone up front to hold the ball up and bring someone else into play would be a huge boost. Looking at the sorts of strikers we've been linked with so far for this summer, we're either going down the speedster route or we're going to get someone big and technically very good.
I do agree though in general we've been stale this year and a large part of that is down to the tactics. We have been able to break teams down far better when playing with a back 4 so hopefully either signing a new RB or having Ralston back next season should hopefully stop us from having to go with a back 3. Don't get me wrong, you guys know I've always been a fan of a back 3 but there's a time and place. Typically at home we can actually get away with a back 2 so therefore a back 4 is better as the fullbacks will push up and add an extra player to the attack. A back 3 away from home will probably work most of the time but it just depends how the opposition set up.
 
I think it's also worth noting the possible lack of recruitment in the key forward areas of the pitch. We've not really given teams anything new to deal with! Dembele, a revelation last season but both through teams knowing what he's about and his own form he hasn't been as good. Griffiths, everyone knows what he can do but sometimes there's just no stopping him. Edouard was new and you could see that at times this season, clubs haven't known how to deal with him because he can attack them in different ways.
Rogic, he is a bit of a maestro but again, teams have learned how to cope with him and take him out of games. Forrest has had a brilliant season, can't really fault him. Sinclair, still managing to be a top scorer for us but is just too predictable this season. He looks like he's lost that bit of pace that allowed to pass by defenders with such ease. Defenders know he's most likely going to stop and stand them up and try and cut in on his right foot, it's all he's got these days. He's too comfortable in the fact there's nobody challenging his position. Even when not in the starting 11, it's not a like for like replacement we use! Roberts, great player but disrupted by injury this season and defenders are learning what he's likely to do....however sometimes you just can't stop him! Those are our attacking players, the ones we expect to make things happen and get goals. Oh and you could throw Musonda into the mix but considering how little of him we've seen it didn't seem worth it.

Roberts goes back to Man City, we could try and sign him this summer. Rogic looks as though he could fly the nest if the right offer comes in, if he has a good World Cup then there's a high chance. Musonda might not come back for his full loan next season. Edouard we're in talks to sign. Dembele is likely to be off this summer.
We may need to sign at least 1 striker over and above Edouard. We will need someone else to play in the hole behind the strikers to replace Rogic and we need at least 2 new wingers!
 
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