Celtic FC: Unwelcome Develpments
Article by James Payne
7 days ago it all looked so good. A 4-0 win over nearest challengers Aberdeen three days earlier meant a win in the home game against St Johnstone on the Wednesday would see Celtic go 9 points clear with 11 games to play in the league to come. This expected victory over the Perth side would allow Celtic to go into first an away Scottish Cup tie at Tannadice and then the Scottish League Cup final against the same team relaxed in the knowledge that the League was all but over. It all looked so good.
Celtic lost to the Saints thanks to a fabulous Danny Swanson strike but worse looked complacent and in the second half as bereft of inspiration as they had so often in the first quarter of the season. Ronny Deila tinkered with his midfield unnecessarily and as so often such pointless footering had no benefit. Celtic has left the door open for Aberdeen to get back in the race. Whether the Dons do so is up to them.
The draw in the Scottish Cup tie was in some in itself acceptable as Celtic had lost on United's ground just before Christmas but the replay means that Celts will now have to fit in a league match with Dundee that was originally scheduled for the date the replay will now be played. Celtic won’t face the kind of fixture backlog that has famously caused the likes of Leeds Utd and Rangers to go into late season meltdowns but the replay is a game Celtic could have done without.
Celtic should have won against Dundee United but did not. A goal down at half time Celtic saw Leigh Griffiths’ penalty brilliantly saved by Cierzniak before the same Griffiths expertly converted Johansen's splendid cross to equalise with about twenty minutes to play. Celtic dominated most of a scrappy match and played for all but three minutes of the second half with one more player than the home team but could not force the win. United's keeper undoubtedly had a grand match with several terrific saves but Celtic had other chances he should have had no chance with. With Nir Bitton picking up an injury and Van Dijk and Johansen now suspended for the League Cup Final and the Scottish Cup replay respectively then this has to go down as a pretty bad day for the Hoops.
Johansen can have no complaints about his caution for a cynical foul but I thought Van Dijk was harshly dealt with when he was sent off along with United's Paton (who quite definitely should not have been ordered off). Celtic's Scott Brown and the Arabs' Ciftci and Butcher possibly should have seen red but had the referee shown a couple of yellows I doubt many would have been talking about the incident even 20 minutes later. The referee also awarded a penalty to United right on half time after what was obviously a dive by Aidan Connolly. The referee, Craig Thomson, can be absolved for some of the blame for the orderings off as he was acting on the advice of a linesman but the penalty was his error- he was perfectly placed to see what happened and still got it wrong. This ref is by some distance the most authoritative in Scotland- if a touch reluctant to use the advantage rule- and he is not obviously biased in favour of anyone but he has a problem which is that too often he gets the big decisions wrong and last Sunday he certainly did that.
Celtic's record in League Cup Finals is not good with only 7 wins out of the last 20 reached being won. All losses in finals are disappointing but this competition has thrown up some real stinkers against the likes of Partick Thistle and Raith Rovers as well as flaccid displays against the original Rangers and Kilmarnock in the last two contested. Given Celtic's recent results against United this is unlikely to be an easy match though arguably it is the least important of the three Celtic will play against the Taysiders in seven days- the other two being the Cup replay and a league match on Saturday the 21st of March. Celtic and Dundee United will be sick of the sight of each other by 5pm a week on Saturday but these three matches with United will go along away to allowing us to make a proper assessment of Ronny Deila as a manager.
Celtic fans and pundits went too far with their criticism of Ronny Deila in the first few months of the season but more recently he has been praised too much - basically for because his team has beaten a lot of very average teams 2-0. That may seem cruel but a more considered approach to how the Norwegian is doing is needed. If he wins the next three matches then he will have raised expectations of a treble even higher but for the first time such expectations will be realistic and merited. There has been far too much talk of the treble already – much of it generated by Deila himself- and since the last one was achieved 14 years ago they club has been here under a variety of managers and with better teams than we have now who have failed to lift the three big Scottish prizes. By 5pm on the 21st I think we shall have a much better idea than we do now as to whether it’s all or nothing and whether Ronny Deila can be classed as being one of our better managers or whether he is merely our best manager since Neil Lennon.
See you in 2 weeks.
© e-Football 2015 All rights reserved no part of this document or this website may be reproduced without consent of e-Football
7 days ago it all looked so good. A 4-0 win over nearest challengers Aberdeen three days earlier meant a win in the home game against St Johnstone on the Wednesday would see Celtic go 9 points clear with 11 games to play in the league to come. This expected victory over the Perth side would allow Celtic to go into first an away Scottish Cup tie at Tannadice and then the Scottish League Cup final against the same team relaxed in the knowledge that the League was all but over. It all looked so good.
Celtic lost to the Saints thanks to a fabulous Danny Swanson strike but worse looked complacent and in the second half as bereft of inspiration as they had so often in the first quarter of the season. Ronny Deila tinkered with his midfield unnecessarily and as so often such pointless footering had no benefit. Celtic has left the door open for Aberdeen to get back in the race. Whether the Dons do so is up to them.
The draw in the Scottish Cup tie was in some in itself acceptable as Celtic had lost on United's ground just before Christmas but the replay means that Celts will now have to fit in a league match with Dundee that was originally scheduled for the date the replay will now be played. Celtic won’t face the kind of fixture backlog that has famously caused the likes of Leeds Utd and Rangers to go into late season meltdowns but the replay is a game Celtic could have done without.
Celtic should have won against Dundee United but did not. A goal down at half time Celtic saw Leigh Griffiths’ penalty brilliantly saved by Cierzniak before the same Griffiths expertly converted Johansen's splendid cross to equalise with about twenty minutes to play. Celtic dominated most of a scrappy match and played for all but three minutes of the second half with one more player than the home team but could not force the win. United's keeper undoubtedly had a grand match with several terrific saves but Celtic had other chances he should have had no chance with. With Nir Bitton picking up an injury and Van Dijk and Johansen now suspended for the League Cup Final and the Scottish Cup replay respectively then this has to go down as a pretty bad day for the Hoops.
Johansen can have no complaints about his caution for a cynical foul but I thought Van Dijk was harshly dealt with when he was sent off along with United's Paton (who quite definitely should not have been ordered off). Celtic's Scott Brown and the Arabs' Ciftci and Butcher possibly should have seen red but had the referee shown a couple of yellows I doubt many would have been talking about the incident even 20 minutes later. The referee also awarded a penalty to United right on half time after what was obviously a dive by Aidan Connolly. The referee, Craig Thomson, can be absolved for some of the blame for the orderings off as he was acting on the advice of a linesman but the penalty was his error- he was perfectly placed to see what happened and still got it wrong. This ref is by some distance the most authoritative in Scotland- if a touch reluctant to use the advantage rule- and he is not obviously biased in favour of anyone but he has a problem which is that too often he gets the big decisions wrong and last Sunday he certainly did that.
Celtic's record in League Cup Finals is not good with only 7 wins out of the last 20 reached being won. All losses in finals are disappointing but this competition has thrown up some real stinkers against the likes of Partick Thistle and Raith Rovers as well as flaccid displays against the original Rangers and Kilmarnock in the last two contested. Given Celtic's recent results against United this is unlikely to be an easy match though arguably it is the least important of the three Celtic will play against the Taysiders in seven days- the other two being the Cup replay and a league match on Saturday the 21st of March. Celtic and Dundee United will be sick of the sight of each other by 5pm a week on Saturday but these three matches with United will go along away to allowing us to make a proper assessment of Ronny Deila as a manager.
Celtic fans and pundits went too far with their criticism of Ronny Deila in the first few months of the season but more recently he has been praised too much - basically for because his team has beaten a lot of very average teams 2-0. That may seem cruel but a more considered approach to how the Norwegian is doing is needed. If he wins the next three matches then he will have raised expectations of a treble even higher but for the first time such expectations will be realistic and merited. There has been far too much talk of the treble already – much of it generated by Deila himself- and since the last one was achieved 14 years ago they club has been here under a variety of managers and with better teams than we have now who have failed to lift the three big Scottish prizes. By 5pm on the 21st I think we shall have a much better idea than we do now as to whether it’s all or nothing and whether Ronny Deila can be classed as being one of our better managers or whether he is merely our best manager since Neil Lennon.
See you in 2 weeks.
© e-Football 2015 All rights reserved no part of this document or this website may be reproduced without consent of e-Football
Johansen isnt suspended for the final, he is suspended for the replay and Virgil is now available for the final
ReplyDeleteI wrote the article on Tuesday when VVD was still suspended. I said Stefan J was out of tge replay not the final
ReplyDelete