An inexcusable performance from Celtic, the lack of desire was damning. And Brendan needs to sort out his team-leak problem…
Well, where do we start after that performance today? An utter Inexcusable display with only a few players earning pass marks in a game we should have been busting a gut to win.
Only the likes of Maik Nawrocki, Jota, and Daizen Maeda can hold their heads high as they least put some sort of effort into the game. Our so called experienced big hitters such as Kasper Schmeichel, Cameron Carter Vickers (who played with a toe injury), Alistair Johnston, Jeffery Schlupp and Nicolas Kuhn let themselves, the manager and the supporters down by producing a dire, sub par performance in terms of both performance and commitment.
Arne Engels and Reo Hatate just about merit a passmark and Yang did well coming off the bench, unlike Adam Idah who really needs to start justifying that £9m transfer. Talking of substitutes, Brendan Rodgers is bemoaning the late winner for theRangers but he indirectly contributed to that by failing to put Alistair Johnston out of his misery as the Canadian endured the worst ninety five minutes of his career. As a right back Rodgers had a ready made chance on the bench in Anthony Ralston yet chose to keep Johnston involved when the chance was obvious to every pair of watching Celtic eyes. A dreadful error by the manager that ultimately lost us the game.
Callum McGregor’s ability and leadership was badly missed in the middle of park. Even the presence of the much criticised Auston Trusty was missed in defence with the usually reliable CCV looking a pale shadow of his usual commanding self.
All this contributed to a woeful unforgivable performance against an average side who we made look half decent. Sure they wanted it more due to the lack of pressure on them, but that’s not an excuse and we have to hold a long post mortem into what went wrong and make sure we bounce back and secure the title as quickly as possible.
Today won’t have damaged our title aspirations, and the treble remains well and truly on, but that still that doesn’t excuse our failure, or Celtic shipping NINE goals in three matches against today’s opponents, who now have six points from three matches against Celtic this season with one match to play.
The 3-2 win for theRangers could be enough to convince the Ibrox decision makers to give Barry Ferguson and his coaching team the gig on a permanent basis, which should suit Celtic just fine. That Celtic bench today was way short of quality and experience and with touching £80m resting in the Celtic PLC’s bank account that’s not really acceptable.
READ THIS…Celtic 2-3 theRangers – An atrocious start, Hoops were so passive and sloppy
🗣️ “There’s no doubt we missed Callum [McGregor]”
🗣️ “There’s a responsibility on everyone”Brendan Rodgers gives his thoughts on Celtic’s 3-2 defeat to Rangers ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/26dbD2YDT4
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) March 16, 2025
Celtic have not had a bad injury run this season, but with McGregor, Trusty and Bernardo missing we looked short in depth and quality. That needs fixing. So to does the team news being leaked. We knew the Celtic team around 9am this morning but choose not to post it on The Celtic Star or share the ‘rumour ‘ on social media, but it was being talked about and could easily have reached theRangers.
That is coming from Celtic – someone talking a wage – or someone around Celtic in the pre-match base – and that needs to be sorted out immediately.
Just an Ordinary Bhoy
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Not sure about Engels being any good, Reo only midfielder to turn up today, and Jota who was starved of the ball. As for Callum making a difference , not so sure, arguably we were even worse the 2 previous games with Callum in attendance. embaressed for Rogers, schooled by a failed Alloa manager, as for the players, clearly they have no professional pride, easily beaten by a team of journeymen again.
This team leak stuff is utter nonsense. When a team is playing well, you know the starting 11 anyway so don’t try to tell people that our players were out fought and could not place a pass because our team was leaked. They are far too slow on the ball and cannot deal with the Sevco press which they have now implemented against us the last 3 games. They are too used to getting time on the ball and when they don’t have it, they get nervous and make mistakes. That is the embarrassing fact.
It’s far from nonsense, it gives them an advantage and also a huge boost ahead of the game to learn that McGregor and Trusty were both out, alongside Scales who they’d have figured out anyway. And knowing Nawrocki and McCowan would start was precious pre-match intel. Did it reach them? Dunno but it was being shared around our supporters buses several hours before the team sheet was released.
Sorry David but I have to disagree, as I said, when a team is playing well and has a set starting 11, your opponents already know your team before it is announced so what is the difference? Are you saying that if we were to play Alloa and gave them our starting 11 hours before kick off, they would play us off the park?
I don’t feel that any possible team leak was a part of the rubbish on show yesterday, quite simple I blame a few of the players and the management. Said it for a long time that AJ is not the supestar that he thinks he is, also very dissapointed in CCV, albeit any injury gives him a wee bit of an excuse, Kuhn – back to the way he was when he first arrived, far too much movement of Maeda & Jota – the most effective way to use Maeda is give him a Larsson like free role – let him go where he wants, he is intelligent enough to find spaces. Schmeical is another AJ, and quite honestly yesterday was nothing new – it has happened several times this year already – his distribution is shocking. I felt McCowan was overwhelmed by the responsibility – mainly due to Kuhn not getting involved, personally I think Kuhn has decided he doesn’t want to be told what to do anymore. So that leaves with us the management – a real lack of quality and supply on the bench can only be blamed on Rodgers, he is constantly saying that everything is ok with the senior management team – total BS, that is why DD was at the game !!! Celtic got what they deserved, and as much as it hurts me to say it, there will be a few more bad games to come – CCV could be out, Trusty can not be trusted, and Rodgers will not allow anyone to break into the team when a change is clearly needed. And finally Celtic NEED to spend, I am not saying buy a superstar, but they for sure need to top up the depth of backup that they require.
Kuhns body language gives it away. He doesn’t want to be here. Get him sold for half decent money and bring in someone who will at least try .
Totally agree buddy.