SENTINELCELTS

Morning, all.

Well, that’s the treble gone for another season. And if we ever play as badly as that again, we can say goodbye to the other two trophies as well.  To give you some flavour of how bad we were, it was our worst since the Covid season. Or, to put it another way, Dan Neil was MOTM. I have pointed out a few times that we’ve only played opponents from the bottom seven last season, and yet are still giving away chance after chance. Today’s opponents were not going to let us off with that type of slack play; instead, they went for the throat.

I started to go wrong for us from the minute most of us saw the team sheet. If there’s two players in our squad who we know will not show in a battle, it is Tounekti and Nygren. Sad but true. That left us without a threat from our left, and a two v five in midfield. There’s a big part of the problem right there. It gave them the chance to go three at the back, adding Penrice to their five. Baur and McGregor were up against it, though they didn’t help themselves. 

Donovan got booked early again, which made life difficult for him when he was already in bother against their winger. And Johnstone, who has strangely become our first choice keeper, was flapping at every cross ball-though, granted, he did save a couple of times too. In fact, he would have got an assist for the opener if Kelsy had been sharp enough. That was the fourth minute, and he didn’t improve much. 

Walsh made his intentions plain from the start by ignoring an assault on Duran. The first ten minutes were all one way, and not ours, before Donovan sprung a long ball to Høgh. Sadly, he tripped (summed up his day, really) and Duran could only scuff the unexpected loose ball. The next ten minutes went the way of those early ones, and it was no surprise when they scored. Nor that it was a free shot from the edge of the area, so often our downfall already this season. 

By half time, we were grateful only to be one down. We couldn’t be that bad in the second half, so heads up! Hassan came on for Tounekti with Duran switching sides, and immediately took us fifty yards up the pitch. Seconds later, even Walsh couldn’t ignore the latest foul by Mkanya-though he ignored the ones after that. Vast improvement already!

Until Johnstone flapped at another cross, and put the pressure back on us. When he wasn’t flapping, he just played the ball short to ensure we couldn’t get up the pitch. Worse, nobody seemed capable of telling him to hit it long. Today wasn’t entirely the keeper’s fault, but his display went a long way to explaining why we couldn’t relieve the pressure. And just before the hour, unable to get clear, we conceded again. This time, a cross broke loose to Kelsey about ten yards out. Nobody near him. 2-0. 

The tie was done by then, four substitutions weren’t gonna change that. In truth, most of us were at the stage where we just wanted put out of our misery. We kept the scoreline down to three, the third again as a result of prolonged pressure. 

A disgraceful performance, but you have to wonder what MON thought that line-up was going to get us against an overloaded Ibrox midfield. I love the guy, he has achieved so much for us, but he got things dreadfully wrong this time. He doesn’t have the luxury of a free week to work on things in training, so he needs to use the time he has to find a shape and a formation that works with the players we have. And maybe have a wee chat with Høgh to find out why he hasn’t been performing as we know he can. I just hope he isn’t pining for the fjords!!!

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Above article by BMCUWP