SENTINELCELTS

Morning, all.

Tell you what, I hate doing match reviews after a performance like yesterday. Especially when we could all see it coming, and had done for a while. We’ve spent bloody ages on here moaning about how weak our midfield is, so the manager beefs it up with bodies. Problem is, a couple of those bodies should be nowhere near a Celtic jersey. But there they were, and here we are. 

We started off a lot stronger and more aggressive than last week, forcing a few early (useless) corners and a booking for Fernandez and McInnes. But normal service was resumed, with Beaton ignoring anything in blue-including a clear second yellow when Fernandez hauled down Nygren who would have been through on goal, and a handball thankfully picked up by VAR for a second away goal. Plus all of his usual antics, including waving play on when Sterling kicked the ball straight at Duran’s head as he lay on the ground after a tackle. Walsh on VAR wasn’t going to pick that up, as he’d ignored one similar last week. 

But once again, the lack of balance in the team was glaring. We were nominally three at the back, with Donovan and Tierney joining the middle men. Problem is, Donovan had no cover in front of him and CCV doesn’t have the pace to deal with a speedy winger, so the five in midfield plan was strangled at conception. 

And let’s be brutally honest, the only midfielder who could hold his head high after that game was Baur. The rest stunk the place out. McGregor passed more often to blue jerseys than hooped ones, and McCowan held onto the ball just long enough to lose every challenge he faced. Tierney tried manfully down the left, and even crashed one off the bar early on, but faded badly as the game progressed. Here’s a wee Top Tip for you, Kieran. If you can’t last ninety minutes for your club, you shouldn’t be accepting international call ups. The three weeks ahead of us could be spent much more fruitfully working out a fitness regime to get you that wee bit closer to what you were. Not on a jolly jamboree abroad wi yer pals. 

Anyway, the goal when it came was all too familiar. We hit the bar, they break. Ball breaks loose in the D to an unmarked player who rattles it. This time, Sinisalo saved it but they score the rebound. And it all came about because Beaton ignored a clear Kelsy handball, and we couldn’t clear our lines. Cue the sly smirk. 

The interval brought Høgh on for McCowan, but it also meant Duran being stuck on the wing. And speaking of wingers,we ended up with THREE of them on the pitch. Can’t get too much of a good thing, huh? We actually gave it a good go in the last ten or fifteen minutes, but by then we were kidding ourselves on. We could have played all day and not scored. Fuxake, we could have stayed on the pitch at half time and still not scored. Might as well have done too for all the good the legendary pep talk did. 

It’s been an awful week, three games that we’ve never once looked like winning. We have a mixture of good, bad and indifferent players. Some who simply are not good enough, some who just need a rub of the green, one or two whose future is well behind them. That’s not a squad that is anywhere near good enough for ANY European competition, and is struggling to cope with the domestic stuff. We are miles short of where we were only a couple of years ago, and more like a clapped out old Lada than a Honda Civic. Dreams of watching a Ferrari purr along at Celtic Park are about as likely to happen as one being parked in my driveway. 

Our moustachioed heid honcho managed to shift the blame for all of last year’s problems onto our manager at the time, whose only crime was to publicly point out the paucity of quality in the squad. The usual suspects queued up to put the boot in as well, and I wonder what they are all thinking at the moment. BR complained that he was being obstructed in his efforts to improve the squad. MON has made similar, though less spectacular, claims. We have lost three games in eight days, and to sides which should never have been able to lay a glove on us. And wouldn’t, if the Plc was the least bit interested in the alleged core business of the club. We face an uphill struggle in Europe with a squad which is chronically short of quality, and are now only two points clear of the Ibrox mob. 

Not because they are a good team. They aren’t. But because we have been systematically shorn of quality right across the board. And speaking of boards, it is our board who are responsible for the squad being short, but O’Neill has to take responsibility for the players he put on the pitch. As for the players themselves, they should be forced to watch the last three games a la Clockwork Orange until the very thought of performing that badly again has them screaming for mercy. 

An international break has never been so welcome, words I thought I’d never say. 

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Above article by BMCUWP